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| Republicans eat too. The big government nanny Republicans want to prevent Americans from buying $6 soda and $6 chips. Yet, they want Americans to keep spending. |
Republicans are big government nannies.
As the New Year celebrations begin, 18 Republican led states will now be your parents in how you fucking eat. Instead of making food accessible to Americans, the Republicans now puts restrictions on how people use SNAP benefits.
Children suffer when the federal and state governments decide to restrict food accessibility.
Fucking idiots.
White men cannot govern.
Republicans have no fucking clue to how much damage they've caused. Their entitlement and privilege will come an end when the people rise up against it.
These damn culture wars at a time when folks are paying more for food, rent, energy and insurance. The paychecks are low and people are frustrated with their employers.
President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance are tone deaf. Republicans are completely tone deaf. White men need to stop worrying about everyone else and focus on themselves.
They can't stop the inevitable. Hispanics and biracials will outnumber white men 3 to 1 in 20 years.
The safety net: It's this thing that helps the middle class and lower class. The safety net prevents Americans from rioting and/or looting. The safety net stops people from shoplifting from stores to feed their families.
The safety net prevents a person from robbing you of your luxuries.
The safety net is only 10% of the federal spending. The way some people put it, 50% of the federal spending goes to food stamps and welfare. Some people believe that the safety net is making people lazy. And this is the stuff I've heard from people who think that it will never happen to them. They get their arousal over a person using an EBT card to pay for name brand items or expensive food.
With the rising food and gas prices, people are turning to food stamps, food banks and government assistance to keep themselves from landing in the homeless shelter.
Without a safety net, these people will rob and kill those who have the luxuries of having food in the refrigerator or in the pantry. They would steal fuel, water, bread and meat to keep feeding their families. And yet, these Republicans and their conservative allies are thinking the poor are the reasons for the economic recession
Perhaps those who complain about the poor, should walk a day in that person's shoes!
Starting Thursday, Americans in five states who get government help paying for groceries will see new restrictions on soda, candy and other foods they can buy with those benefits.
Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and West Virginia are the first of at least 18 states to enact waivers prohibiting the purchase of certain foods through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
It’s part of a push by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to urge states to strip foods regarded as unhealthy from the $100 billion federal program -- long known as food stamps -- that serves 42 million Americans.
“We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the illnesses those very programs help create,” Kennedy said in a statement in December.
The efforts are aimed at reducing chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes associated with sweetened drinks and other treats, a key goal of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again effort.
But retail industry and health policy experts said state SNAP programs, already under pressure from steep budget cuts, are unprepared for the complex changes, with no complete lists of the foods affected and technical point-of-sale challenges that vary by state and store. And research remains mixed about whether restricting SNAP purchases improves diet quality and health.
The National Retail Federation, a trade association, predicted longer checkout lines and more customer complaints as SNAP recipients learn which foods are affected by the new waivers.
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| What we do in your kitchen and your bedroom is the federal government's business. Bet you money, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will have an affair with Brooke Rollins. |
“It’s a disaster waiting to happen of people trying to buy food and being rejected,” said Kate Bauer, a nutrition science expert at the University of Michigan.
A report by the National Grocers Association and other industry trade groups estimated that implementing SNAP restrictions would cost U.S. retailers $1.6 billion initially and $759 million each year going forward.
“Punishing SNAP recipients means we all get to pay more at the grocery store,” said Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP director for the anti-hunger advocacy group Food Research & Action Center.
The waivers are a departure from decades of federal policy first enacted in 1964 and later authorized by the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, which said SNAP benefits can be used for “any food or food product intended for human consumption,” except alcohol and ready-to-eat hot foods. The law also says SNAP can't pay for tobacco.
In the past, lawmakers have proposed stopping SNAP from paying for expensive meats like steak or so-called junk foods, such as chips and ice cream.
But previous waiver requests were denied based on USDA research concluding that restrictions would be costly and complicated to implement, and that they might not change recipients’ buying habits or reduce health problems such as obesity.
Under the second Trump administration, however, states have been encouraged and even incentivized to seek waivers – and they responded.
“This isn’t the usual top-down, one-size-fits-all public health agenda,” Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said when he announced his state’s request last spring. “We’re focused on root causes, transparent information and real results.”
The five state waivers that take effect Jan. 1 affect about 1.4 million people. Utah and West Virginia will ban the use of SNAP to buy soda and soft drinks, while Nebraska will prohibit soda and energy drinks. Indiana will target soft drinks and candy. In Iowa, which has the most restrictive rules to date, the SNAP limits affect taxable foods, including soda and candy, but also certain prepared foods.
“The items list does not provide enough specific information to prepare a SNAP participant to go to the grocery store,” Plata-Nino wrote in a blog post. “Many additional items — including certain prepared foods — will also be disallowed, even though they are not clearly identified in the notice to households.”
Marc Craig, 47, of Des Moines, said he has been living in his car since October. He said the new waivers will make it more difficult to determine how to use the $298 in SNAP benefits he receives each month, while also increasing the stigma he feels at the cash register.
“They treat people that get food stamps like we’re not people,” Craig said.
SNAP waivers enacted now and in the coming months will run for two years, with the option to extend them for an additional three, according to the Agriculture Department. Each state is required to assess the impact of the changes.
Health experts worry that the waivers ignore larger factors affecting the health of SNAP recipients, said Anand Parekh, chief policy officer at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
“This doesn’t solve the two fundamental problems, which is healthy food in this country is not affordable and unhealthy food is cheap and ubiquitous,” he said.
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