Trump's Food Stamp Reform Proposal

Please provide us with a comparison between the helpful effects of the bonuses versus the harmful effects of the layoffs.

 

The Wal-Mart story is unimpressive at face value. It just sounds like a typical round of corporate/retail layoffs. The objection is that Wal-Mart publicized their increasing wages and bonuses as a result of the new tax code, and on the same day they closed 63 Sam's Clubs and cut 10,000 jobs.

 

Are you sure it's actually 5 cents versus 4 cents or 4.6 cents versus 4.4 cents? This is ridiculous. They are the same as the average American household.

 

First of all, you are walking back your statement that they bought less, and now claiming that it's statistically a wash.

Either 5 is bigger than 4, or it isn't.

Or does the party demand that 2+2=5?

 

Statistically insignificant differences are not important.

 

I'm taking this right from the official site:

Another 20 cents per dollar was spent on less healthy foods such as sweetened beverages, prepared desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugars by both household groups (SNAP households – 23 cents; non-SNAP households – 20 cents).

they are throwing it all together to get the 20 cents thing, and SNAP still is 3 cents higher. Then:

exhibit 5 - total expenditures - SNAP 9.25% v. 7.10% non-SNAP

now, narrow the total expenditure list down to the 100 most popular commodities:

5.44% for SNAP v 4.01% for non-SNAP

and they round it to:

expenditure proportions on soft drinks were slightly higher for SNAP households compared to non-SNAP households (5 cents versus 4 cents per dollar).

How can anybody who was ever an engineer think that is "statistically insignificant"? The numbers you are dealing with are astronomical, almost 40,000,000,000 total.

 

Then why wasn't your opening salvo that it was statistically insignificant, instead of stating that SNAP recipients spent less on soda?

 

"But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" 1 John 3:17

"In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Acts 20:35

"He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” Luke 14:12-14

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" James 1:27

Was the God who inspired these versus unaware of the causations and circumstances of poverty in the 21st Century?

If God was unaware of how poor people came to be poor and continue to be poor, then we get a pass. Clearly then, based on these passages, God was only talking to believers in the First Century, AD.

Or is the very concept that God doesn't know something ridiculous? It's more likely that we have decided that our earthly treasure is more valuable than the treasure that we can't see.

If we are commanded to do a thing, what value is there in arguing about how we cannot do that thing?

And further, who are WE to argue that anyone is beneath mercy?

 

Who is making that argument?

 

So, for example, if I am of the opinion that $3.00 or more per can energy drinks should not be a valid SNAP purchase, what verse tells me keep quiet?

I believe there is a world of difference between arguing about how to do something and arguing about whether or not to do something.

 

I didn't even imply that you should be quiet.

The implication of the verses I cited is that we do something. And if perfect is the enemy of good, then we do something now.

Or we can, alternatively, argue about the means until Lord Jesus returns and sorts it all out.

My issue is that we pretend that Christ was unaware of the personal responsibility inherent in poverty when He commanded us to take care of the poor. Middle class Evangelicals like to point out that poverty in 1st Century Israel and 21st Century America are different in substance, which implies that we don't have to concern ourselves with it.

Poverty begins with ignorance, is fueled by indifference and results in helplessness. We as Christians are the caretakers of absolute truth, have no right to indifference and have been rescued from our helplessness by Christ Jesus and empowered to love and care for others by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pragmatically, people do what they are taught, and if they are not taught, how do we expect them to know? Are individual believers doing what they can to teach people how NOT to be poor? If we are to be salt and light in dying world, then the logical extension of that is that He wasn't solely speaking about our theology. He was mainly speaking about our evangelism, but based on His earthly ministry, He clearly had more mundane matters in mind as well.

 

There was a black market for this government cheese?

phillytrib.com/lifestyle/government-surplus-food-was-an-acquired-taste/article_8e190467-b98f-5860-b2a9-c45c2f944491.html

 

Maybe in Philly, but Cadillacs were sparse in the projects in which I grew up. And they certainly didn't line up down the block from the Surplus Food Distro.

Must've been a Philly Steak and Cheese thing.