That is the SNAP portion, the food stamps portion. Those funds can only be used for food and cannot be withdrawn. In many states the TANF (welfare) funds are stored on the same card. Those funds can be withdrawn, as they should be.

In Wisconsin they tried to limit what a person could buy with SNAP to WIC approved items. The problem (well, ONE of the problems) with this is WIC is specifically designed for newborn children and their mothers. It just doesn’t translate into feeding a family.

Thanks, Churchlady! These people are evil beyond belief.

It’s been tried with stuff like soft drinks and snack foods. I’ve also heard it proposed, although I’m not sure how serious the person was, that people on food stamps shouldn’t be allowed to buy “high end” meats like steaks or stuff like seafood. It blows me away that people who have lunch dates that costs more than some families are allotted in a month think they should decide what people eat. Fuckers.

In Illinois, yes, it’s true. Cash and food benefits are loaded onto the same LINK card although I can’t see what difference it could possibly make in an argument. That same person would still receive a cash benefit whether in paper check or via debit card. There are a ton of things you CAN NOT buy with food stamps that find their way into a shopping cart – diapers, soap, toilet paper.

I live on the south side of Chicago. I’ve seen all kinds of shit happen that shouldn’t when people are using LINK and there are unscrupulous store owners involved. It’s really sad how easy it is to take advantage of poor people when you own a bullshit corner store and somebody has a kid to feed. At any rate, the majority of people in this country are using these programs as intended – to get them from point A to point B and help them feed their families. Whoever may be fucking up and however they may be doing it in no way casts a bad light on all of the other families that need and receive help. For anybody to base an argument against helping people on some minute percentage of bad actors is an asshole, and you’ll never win that argument anyway.

The answer is that it’s none of their fucking business. Better start hounding gov’t employees, particularly Congress, and Social Security recipients if we’re so concerned about “waste” or whatever. Oops–I shouldn’t give them any ideas.

This is a bullshit issue about demonizing poor people (and in the case of Bolling, black people) as slothful drug users when reality tells us that the poor do not use drugs at rates much different from people who are well-off.

You cannot buy prepared food, no, but you can buy bottles of soft drinks at a grocery. People do it because a liter of soda is a fraction of the cost of milk.

I love your idea of a major daily send up of GOP gullibility and nastiness toward those in need. Like that a LOT.