Food Stamp Benefits Set To Shrink



Why? Because fuck the poor, that why.

Kind of odd how the Dems wanted some school-lunch thing enough to cut the food stamp program. FLOTUS "obesity" schtick taking priority? Not sure, but the whole food stamp thing struck me as kind of odd.

5000000000 reduction to 47000000 equals 106 dollars a year which is roughly 9 dollars a month. In the article it says
they have a 5% decrease in funding on average and they used a
example of a woman getting 300 a month which 5% is a 15 dollar
decrease. They should have used someone that proved the math.
.

First round was 5% cut, they are haggling by how much cut during budget negotiations, so there are more cuts of X% coming down the pipeline.

Your "it just a little bit" argument is invalid. It is a cut. It has nothing to do with balancing budget, and just like with attempts to shut down PBS is purely ideologically driven.

This is throwing impoverished people, like a disabled veteran and lonely grandmother, under the bus to score political points with the base.

For some reason people on the right believe that "living off the dole" is a cushy life and if we made it harder all these people would find jobs and become productive members of society (instead of having existential motivation to turn to crime). This is charitable interpretation. Uncharitable interpretation would be "scree these niggers in the projects", because that is big chunk of food stamp recipients.

So chose - racism or ignorance. Ether way, it is not going to save any taxpayer money.

Once again you show your ignorance and you seem to like to throw around racist words unprovoked.

No were did I say "it just a little bit". That is your progressive agenda coming out to keep telling lies over and over
until someone as ignorant as you will believe it.
I understand simple math seems to be a concept leftys do not
seem to understand, or any kind of math for that matter.

Please show the other cuts coming down the pipeline.
The article said it was budgeted for a certain amount
of time just like the tax cuts from Bush. They were not
to be permanent.
But it was a good move on the progressives so now they can blame budget cuts on the republicans.
Typical politics which the left is so much better at then the right.

You are correct the non-ignorant types want to get people
"living off the dole" off the dole to improve their life.
They do not want them dependent of the government so they
can get votes for their side.

So I chose for you both racist and ignorance, as you have shown
to be both.

Ironically, this is not going to affect me or Jet. We are not on food stamps, we are also well-off enough that we can afford to hide behind tall walls of exclusive gated communities with private security. It is people like Hele that going to get caught on the wrong side of a starving looting mob and then wonder where it all went wrong.

How about this for math - it is cheaper to pay for generous social assistance than to incarcerate. Each prisoner costs taxpayers about $50K per year.

Repubs depict food stamps asdrain on the economy. Studies have shown that those on food stamps actually helped create an economic stimulus.

I would be skeptical of >1 multiplier, but it certainly above zero. Also likely above incarceration multiplier, since people in prison don't directly generate any kind of economic activity (ignoring black market).

Lets not forget it was the Dems that threw the food stamps under the bus in exchange for FLOTUS ego-gratifying "anti-obesity" school program.

So this is the new flavor of GOP red herring?

No, its a reminder that both parties are equally complicit in this. And trying to frame up GOP alone just shows a tremendous amount of bias.

Its nice to know your rich and are the cause of all the problems
in the world, please donate all your money to the poor then
I will give you props for caring like you want everyone to
think.

And please keep talking about me like you know me.

How the fuck does this involve prisoner cost??

You once again assume I am against helping the needy.

Once again you prove your ignorance.

Please keep posting, it only proves my point.

This proves your "side" is only in the game for politics not the
so called progressive march to help the down trodden.
Its really pathetic that you defend the people who act just
like the people you hate.

BTW the cost of health care in the state I live in is going to
rise by an average of 74% due to Obamacare. I guess you
get what you wanted, another way to tax people.

This doesn't even make sense...
Snap is not being destroyed.
Snap had a limited time increase and the time is up.
So what do the liberal progressives do????
They run around saying the republicans are cutting and slashing
the Snap program.
The Snap program is still in full effect. People are still get
the money for snap.
It boggles my mind how you guys fall for it every time.

This is why I say over and over the Democrats are better
politicians. Which is not a complement.

So all the rapist and murders and such should be let out and
we can provide them with housing and food. Great plan, please
put a case study together and pass it along to you state gov.
I am sure they will get the ball rolling.

If it costs more to imprison than to prevent crime, then prevention is preferred. Now, by prevention I don't mean more policing but more social programs. You might view people on social assistance as lazy non-contributors, but if you force them to get going they turn to crime. So, perhaps letting them be is cheaper option?

False equivalence. In this specific case parties are not equally complicit. Cutting food stamps in not on Democratic party's agenda.

Actually, jails are filled with war on drugs non-violent "offenders". Rapist and murderers are minority of incarcerated population. Still, this is not the point. The point is that if you have strong social programs you have less crime of all kinds and have less need to incarcerate.

So again, cut food stamps -> increase crime -> more taxes to incarcerate.

Hmm... but it was. Please do not confuse actions with words.

You make a good progressive but you cant fool me. No matter
how many times you repeat yourself, I will not be against
social programs.
It seems about 70% of what you say and argue comes from false
assumptions, just like a good progressive.

That is a super progressive prediction. I have to say sorry
about the cut and paste comment, you can come up with your
own bullshit all by yourself.

Here is a prediction for you. The 40 billion will be cut
from the program over 10 YEARS. During those 10 YEARS the
economy will improve and move millions of people off the
program. This will mean billions not needed in the system.
The progressives will then need to go on to another subject
and cry foul.

That's one big difference between us and you. We think that people who can support themselves will when they are made uncomfortable in their dependence. You think that sans the government "support" they will all turn into criminals.

No, they won't all turn to crime. Small percentage will, but that will be enough to negate miniscule savings of cutting social nets. We are not even talking principle here - the view of saving taxpayer dollars by cutting social nets is fundamentally unsound and goes against the well-established facts.

You can believe what you want. The difference between you and me is that you prefer believes and I prefer facts.

http://pun.sagepub.com/content/3/1/43.short
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=john_donohue [pdf]

But obviously every ideologically pure conservative knows we always been at war with Eurasia should cut social spending to save money.

I can't be bothered to look at your "facts." I have a logical brain that realizes that you cannot possibly create more spending by confiscating funds from the market, deducting a percentage for overhead or what have you, and then doling the left overs in the form of government assistance than 100% of those dollars would have generated in the market in the first place.

You continue to hold fast to your beliefs and we'll continue to rely on common sense and reality.

You and entire conservative movement. This is why fundamental christians were such good fit into your tent - it is all post-truth faith and turtles all the way down.

Sayeth the Pot to the Kettle.

The only way a progressive can win an argument is to change and lie about what someone says.

Yes Hele, I clearly fabricated entire thing - the research, the poor... It was all a UN conspiracy, but now that you have seen through it we have no choice but to bring in the black helicopters.

False equivalence. Not that I expect you to pay any attention to inconvenient facts and hold your side in any way accountable/anchored in reality. Your side is 1 inch away from starting to claim that Romney did win after all.

You are dense.

You changed what Kaotic said, incase you still don't understand.


4 for being crazy.

It is what it is, and I have never known you to pay much attention to inconvenient facts.

Your obsession with "sides" is starting to get boring as well.

Here is what exactly he said:



Considering that I am not the author, acknowledged or was in any way involved in the production of the peer-review papers I linked they are not MY facts. They are just facts.

As such, quoting it:


this way is accurate.

I am just being polite. What I really think is....

There were no relevant facts in the links you posted. Thus the quotation marks. Your links, like nearly all of the ones you post, are merely conjecture based on belief.

I'm sure Derid's offer of a copy of Resetta Stone English is still good if you decide you'd like to try and learn the language.

I will hold your hand while we read one of the papers I linked together.

Title: "Allocating Resources Among Prisons and Social Programs in the Battle Against Crime."

Published in 1998, so not too long ago that you can claim drastic social changes made it irrelevant. Published in "The Journal of Legal Studies" from University of Chicago Law School. ResearchGate tells us the journals impact factor is 1.35, this is low enough that you can question its peer-review process, but this journal is legitimate publication avenue. Authors of this paper are from Stanford Law and Yale Law, so as ivory as it gets. These people clearly would have a reputation to protect.

Abstract says:



On incarceration the article says:



Very damning. We have incarceration problem in USA, and it is getting worse. Too many people in prisons. US population is ether bloodthirsty savages and scoundrels when compared to the rest of the world, or we have too many people incarcerated that don't belong in jail.

The article on costs of incarceration:



That is 1993 dollars, so you have to adjust for inflation to get 2013 number. So it costs more today. $30K in 1993 would be equal to $45K today adjusted for inflation.

Then the paper goes on to talk about lost of wages, cost on family, impact on productivity after release and so on. They don't attach solid number on this, but we can easily conclude that whatever this number is, it will adjust $45K cost upward.

Interesting bit:



They didn't because a lot of it is genetics. So is violent tendencies. Apparently so is tendency to become conservative at some point in life, but if you ask me that is more likely a result of a brain infection. One day we might even develop a vaccine.

Lots of other interesting stuff in the paper, but lets skip to the conclusion:



So conclusions says that based on small scale social programs, we can reduce criminality and incarceration. If programs scale, we will have huge social benefit and cost savings. If they don't scale, then we will still can come out ahead because how damn expensive it is to incarcerate so many people at ever-increasing rate. I mean, Stalin with Gulags had nothing on US penal system.

Here you go.

Drug war responsible for a great portion of penal populace. Cutting food stamps drastically and suddenly would likely have a negative effect. In the grand scheme, the cuts currently implemented give no reason based on available data to suspect drastic increase in criminality as a result. Not that I would have endorsed cutting the program.

But anyhow, as I said previously - Dems cut the program. They wanted FLOTUS school "obesity" program. Maybe you should have linked the study for Mrs Obama, and explained to her that cutting an established program that is relatively effective for a govt program in favor of unproven pet vanity pork projects is not such a good idea.

Because cutting it (or letting the extensions expire, w/e) apparently was on their agenda. The fact that your "side" (as you view things) can be counted on to articulate one philosophy, and govern via another just does not seem to phase you.

Running in same circle gets old. I think everyone gets it, if there was ever anything to get. People who hold {x,y,...} views are seen by you as one cogent group, that you inartfully articulate here as a "side". Obviously I think your grouping criteria are silly but /shrug

For the sake of not seeing the 1000th minor variation of the same argument, lets find some variety k? thnx.

Meanwhile Sweden closes prisons due to lack of prisoners

So what argument are you trying to make? After reading the article, it looks like your saying "Ok, yeah what Derid said". But that wouldnt be in character.

My argument still is:

1. War on drugs is costly and pointless (we agree here)
----------
2. Poverty isn't self-inflicted condition and escaping it isn't the question of "hard work".
3. Elevated levels of poverty is linked to increased crime levels
4. Reducing poverty via social programs is a cost-effective way to reduce crime
5. #4 is not linear relationship and does hit diminishing returns, it is possible to have overly-generous social system that no longer cost-effective at reducing crime
6. #5 US is nowhere near that point. Perhaps Sweden is.

----------

Points I will grant you:

Re: #4 Cost of social programs has negative impact on overall productivity...

...but so does crime. Frictionless society is not possible.

I dispute #2 , but will say there are also other factors. Knowing what to work towards, how to work towards it, and actually putting out the work are all important. So #2 is important, but not not enough on its own.

At the bottom, we have people who will work, but not work efficiently (towards a financial goal in this context - they might be extremely efficient at toilet swabbing) who never make a dime. At the very top we have trust fund babies who never work a day and have riches. Hard work in itself is obviously not a sole factor.. but it still serves as an important catalyst.

People can and do work their way out of poverty all the time. Often times poverty is self inflicted. But not all the time. Too many people want to make it a black and white issue, which precludes doing the real work of actually figuring out how to deal with it in reality as opposed to dealing with it in campaign slogans.

#2. I have told you this before, I have seen this first hand growing up. People(not all but some) stay on welfare because it is easier then working. I was told by one woman it is easier to have another kid and get more money then get a job. I tell you this from experience and yet you say it isn't a self inflicted condition. BTW after she was to old to have kids and the welfare checks stopped coming she didn't have a hard time finding a job.
On the other side I watched a woman with one kid get help through the welfare system with housing and training and became a nurse. She WORKED HARD to get out of poverty.
Your continuing refusal to believe that hard work cannot get you out of poverty once again you show your ignorance.

I do not deny your experiences. No matter what, there will be people abusing the system. It doesn't mean the system is fatally flawed.

Think of it as a speed limit. If it is set appropriately (adequate welfare system), some people will still speed and break the law. If it is set too low (overly generous welfare system) then a lot of people break the law.

Again, there will never be any perfect system. There always be abuses.



Again, you misunderstand me. Take away everything I own, throw me out on the street. Take away my credentials. I still won't stay poor for long. Why? I am capable of escaping poverty. Not everyone is.

Think of poverty as a marathon without an end. People at the front are rich, people at the back are poor. Some people are good runners and they tend to end up at the front. Some are not and lag behind. Some have hard time running and need wheelchairs that has to be pushed by the group. You take a person at the front, put him or her in the back and very soon that person will catch up to the middle of the pack.

Are you familiar with time preference concept? Have you read any of the Intelligence-Poverty studies? What about studies demonstrating high degree of intelligence heritability? Do you understand the concept of human biodiversity?



I don't think anyone chooses poverty, so please define self-inflicted in your statement.



Agree. I think there is too much focus on Why/How and not enough on Who.

Big question that puzzles me is, by advocating for robust social safety net system (because it is humane thing to do), do I also advocate for propagating deleterious alleles within human population?

Pardon for awkward language, I am sure you will be able to understand what I mean.

Yes I understand what you mean and am more than passing familiar with those concepts, and unless I am reading you wrong we are on the same page. Even our analogies did not differ overmuch. I was simply not discounting hard work, and hark work can be implanted both culturally and probably genetically. I do and did acknowledge that hard work is not everything. Your original statement struck me as too black and white, but I also acknowledge that someone with an IQ of 90 is not going to make 6 figures by designing aircraft components, calculating risks for an investment bank or insurer, or telling MegaGrocer to put the baby diapers by the beer.

As far as breeding bad traits, thats something that I do worry about... but its difficult enough to hold a discussion on the issue of poverty, and even bring culture - which is nurture - into the discussion without it getting sidetracked and confused with race or other "nature" issues without bringing genetics and breeding directly into the conversation.

The breeding issue also factors into a lot of other thought experiments I have, in areas ranging from nutrition to antibiotics. Its quite a worry, and I think a good case can be made for advancement of artificial intervention but any eugenics is also potentially dangerous for a variety of reasons.

Potentially dangerous is understatement. It opens the door for arbitrary standards applied to such far-reaching practices. Are you familiar with works of science fiction writer Stanislav Lem? He explored the idea of disastrous consequences on misapplying eugenics in his SF works.

When I read 'hard work' I associate it with 'strong backs and soft minds'. After our lengthy discussions on automation, I hope you are familiar with my stance on this?

I reached conclusion that 'hard work' is about to, or already have, translated into one of the following: a) unnecessary invented work b) demeaning and status-lowering activities exchanged for money. Plus we have very harmful c) use cheap labor to suppress the need for innovation.

a) can be boiled down to digging and filling the trenches and b) can be boiled down to demeaning. Neither produces any amount of 'greater good'. c) is unknown amount of net negative 'greater good'.

This leads to an observation that we have a lot of unnecessary and incapable people. What to do with them? Cheap labor isn't what society needs more of right now and is unlikely to change in the future.

I recently read an article on fake debt collection schemes operated from third-world locations. These "organizations" run cheap call centers that attempt to harass first-world citizens to surrender money to satisfy made-up outstanding debts. Such fundamentally wasteful activity is only possible because of abundance of cheap labor. Implications for US, where we continue through with ever-increasing wealth inequality, is that similar problems can 'come home'. I hope this is not the kind of 'new economic activities' you had in mind when we discussed this problem in automation thread.

You're not really getting your "what happens when we wander down the eugenics road" information from science fiction are you? There's a great example from the late 1930's in Europe.

Lets not Goodwin this thread.

Ah, when I think 'hard work' I associate the term with ability to focus on productive tasks for extended periods.

@sini re: fake debt schemes: no of course not

@ sini re Stanislav Lem : no, I am not familiar with Lem - but Mitsuo Fukuda and David Weber among others have given the subject quite a bit of treatment.

@ Kaotic : sf writers are often if not usually extremely intelligent, educated and insightful. Just because something appears in fiction does not mean it is flippantly constructed. Also, the type of eugenics being discussed have nothing in common with the pogroms of the 3rd Reich - instead think pre-natal care. If your fetus has downs syndrome, but you can use a virus programmed to repair the chromosomes do you use it? If your fetus has a malformed skull, and you can use a virus to repair the sequence do you use it? Ok, what if you can use the technique to impart resistance to HIV or Plague? What if you can identify markers for intellect and give your kid an extra 20 IQ points?

I have no idea what this means.
I think viewing eugenics through rose colored glasses is the reason that it took us so long to get into the war in the first place. Most of those ideas originated here with folks like Margaret Sanger and all in the name of removing "undesirables" from society. As for the type of eugenics, I only know of one type and it supports the propagation of those deemed fit or worthy and the elimination, through direct or indirect means, of those who aren't.

I wasn't suggesting that things addressed in SF novels aren't creatively designed and well thought out and I wasn't accusing Sini of being flip. I was merely suggesting that we know where that road leads. You should know as well as any of us that any power given to the government (I know you're not so naive as to think it wouldn't end up there), no matter how altruistic it seems, will eventually be corrupted and abused.

The world still needs ditch diggers and will always need them.

This line I just said is an old labor term which I am sure will confuse you more.

I don't know what you do for a living and I don't really care, not being rude,
but you seem to be on a private island somewhere and do not know how the real world works.

I understand that when you hear hard work you think manual
labor. Its hard for a progressive elitist to think otherwise.

I don't know what you mean by demeaning and invented work and
activities, but I am sure you can fill us in.

The more you talk the more you sound like the eugenics society
that Hitler liked.

He was the Russian guy that wrote Solaris????
They made 2 movies out of it, a Russian one and the
one from America.

Polish author, but yes, one that wrote Solaris. My favorite work is The Star Diaries

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/...ot_obesity.html

Probably was a better thread for this, but close enough.