You've raised two very important points. The first being that food stamps are not intended to provide complete nutrition for an adult, but rather they are intended as a supplement. The second point, and an extremely important one, is that those who stay on food stamps long term come mainly from a sub-population that is widely observed to habitually make bad choices in numerous areas of life. This business of making bad choices goes back to one's education, or lack of it, and is culturally influenced, I believe. If it is desirable to reduce the number falling into this category, and I think it is, then one has to start looking at causes and not be content to aim the bulk of government programs at treating symptoms. This has the effect of putting portions of the population into holding patterns that tend to persist over generations.. Practically speaking, it is going to be unproductive to spend much additional time and money on adult remediation -- a holding pattern may be the best that can be achieved for this cohort without incurring a very unfavorable cost/benefit ratio. Where the effort and time needed to treat causes should be focused,in my opinion, is in pre-K, primary and secondary schooling, and that is where massive changes are needed. In its forty-eight year existence, the efficacy of headstart has been statistically evaluated, nearly continuously, in numerous studies. While most have concluded that there are statistically significant benefits, not all studies have, including one that has received a great deal of coverage in the media, e.g., Fox News. One 2007 study that looked critically at many other studies concluded that the benefits, though small and fading with time, nevertheless pass cost benefit criteria. Regardless, headstart and its parallel State sponsored pre-school programs, along with public education in general, demand close scrutiny with an eye to improving them where there is an indication that the cost benefit ratio can be improved. see for example, http://www.nber.org/papers/w12973.pdf?new_window=1 A well known Maryland study, the only one of its kind, concluded that racial integration in schools had little impact on student achievement compared with socioeconomic integration. The latter was found to have a large, statistically significant impact on student achievement of minorities. This might partially explain the significant benefit of State pre-school programs relative to those found for headstart, as the State programs incorporate, in general, greater socioeconomic integration, as well as having greater emphasis on cognitive skill development and better trained teachers compared with typical headstart programs. The latter programs are focused almost entirely on the indigent population, and out of necessity distribute effort among cognitive development, nutrition, parenting and mental health and social services. Interestingly, the cost to the taxpayers of the recent government shutdown was estimated at about 24 billion, or about three times what the U.S. government spends on headstart each year.
The US provides too much... should not be providing a "comfortable" anything. Easy to see how the greedy and lazy glom onto the freebies... and easy to see how greedy, immoral politicos can promote such in their lust for power... still, IT'S WRONG! I believe a famous Benjamin Franklin quote went something like, "... the best thing we can do for the poor is to make them uncomfortable in their poverty". IOW.... don't give them so much that they can't find personal motivation... not only to "better" themselves, but to provide life's basic necessities for themselves. Other citizens do now owe them a comfortable living.... in fact, they don't "owe them a living" at all.
IMO very VERY few people in this country are poor due to circumstances beyond their control. Most are "poor" by choice. As in they choose to be lazy and wait for handouts.
You know me well enough through these forums to decide for yourself if someone's assumption about me is true or not. Read my original post. Then read Pad's response. Then decide for yourself if he is reading something between the lines that is not really there.
Yeah, they talk like Jesus might. We can't have that bleeding-heart girly sympathy shit. Gotta be practical. People that think like Jesus are America's worst enemies. Bastards!
Wow, you wrote all that? Excellent, impressive post. 24 billion divide by what , 115 million households = $208 per family Thanks useless GOP. And Cruz is talking about doing it again.
I do not agree that most people getting aid are poor by choice. Most are truly deserving of help. Unfortunately many also abuse it. But in terms of cost in the budget, these abusers only amount to about 1%. There is far greater waste in areas like the defense budget.