Penalizing the poor via food

7 Feb 2012
Comments

9 notes

I don’t understand why people feel so smug in penalizing poor for being poor. When it comes to food stamps, it’s hateful. So many say, “They’re abusing MY tax dollars!” Are they?

“Like the welfare drug testing law, there seems to be little evidence suggesting a need for the food stamps bill. Ebony Yarbrough, a food and nutrition programs coordinator with the Florida Partnership to End Childhood Hunger, told TPM that people across all income levels have very similar shopping habits. In fact, if you examine it more closely, lower-income shoppers tend to make healthier choices, Yarbrough said. Instead of limiting what people can purchase with food stamps, increase the access to and availability of healthy foods, she added.”

Here is what I posted on Twitter:

It’s bullshit to act outraged over what people on foodstamps buy, “It’s our tax dollars!” yet not hold politicians to same standard. [1]

So, yes, if peope want to hold welfare recipients to some strange purity test, the politicians should be held to same standard. [2]

That means I want to see grocery receipts. Make sure pols aren’t spending MY tax dollars eating at fancy restaurants or buying junk food. [3]

If no one can get behind that, then just admit holding welfare recipients to those standards is a way of penalizing people for being poor. [4]

I’ve been on welfare. I spent 6 months doing a study on welfare recipients and the ins and outs of the system. Yes, it needs work, but punishing people about what they eat is not the way to go about it. But if we are going to talk about tax dollars, then yes, our elected officials are fair game.