Conservative Catch-All

Obviously, this would have to be a consideration should this type of program come into fruition. Again, reframe one size fits all into options. Food allergy? Want to do your own shopping? Ok...done. Or this delivery option is certified "insert food allergy" free option. 

 

I work for a large health system and we've partnered with local school districts in our service area where we provide healthy eating/living/habits education free of charge as curriculum into their 4th grade classes. Our population health studies show, that it is 4th grade where children are most pivotal in forming their independent thought on healthy habits and lifestyles. Just this year, our first year participating students have reached graduation age, and our data shows that as a group, their BMI is lower as well as their smoking rate. 

ETA: For those who believe in the evils of nonprofit hospitals actually having an access of revenue over expenses, this is an example of where that money goes. 

But again, when you apply the ability of scale to this, the options provided have a much better chance to be more diverse. 

That would be great, but the government will not likely pay Amazon for the fresh food and delivery.  (Sorry need to say this but I doubt the administration in Washington will work with Amazon and Jeff Bezos...)

But their goal is canned foods and today most is packaged on site.
"Households receiving $90 per month or more would get a portion in shelf-stable milk, ready to eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruit, vegetables, and meat, poultry or fish. The remainder of the benefit would go onto the debit card for use at approved grocery stores."

Perhaps you are correct in not partnering with Amazon, but replicating the model is not out of the question. Further, with staples provided, 1/2 left for local fresh produce. Again, we must look toward innovation (and further up on this thread, I also pointed out that I don't believe a one size fits all option will ultimately be the answer, but we must start somewhere) in order to meaningfully address and sustain a safety net. Just my opinion. 

I surely do not know the answers. As best as I can tell fraud is not a problem. It seems to be a system that is working reasonable well with a very small percentage of the whole budget. I think there are so many other things that cold be fixed first. Adding stress to the SNAP recipients might not be the best choice right now.

The hospital school partnership you mentioned is good. The long term goals are excellent. Working on things on a smaller local scale is a lot easier then going National. Input by many different people and organizations would help the box initiatives, hopefully someone will listen and evaluate the information before moving forward.

In general canned fruits are packaged in 'sugary' syrup, not healthy.  Preservatives are used in packaging most things... Salt content is often high..  Unfortunately others have posted that not everyone has storage space.  

Can you explain more of your thinking about this?  Because the distribution seems to be bound to cost an enormous amount of money in my mind.  I see 2 options---the food is delivered or people have to come to a distribution center to obtain it.  The government would have to buy, build, or lease buildings to distribute food from, plus hire employees to run it.  If they go the delivery route, then obviously there are the delivery costs.  The current benefits have none of those costs and I just don't see how the savings in food costs would offset the distribution costs, particularly due to the enormous scale of this project.  So I am seeing the scale as being too costly while you see it as a savings, and I am very curious about that. 

Yeah, they certainly won't sit down and accept such a large loss of their customer base.  They're either going to fight against it or try to make it work for them.  That's their business...they're not going to take such a hit willingly.

That is the question that keeps coming up in my mind, the more that I think about this.  What are the benefits, really?  And who benefits?

I am thinking the same.

It sounds like the start of a dystopian book - first it was the poor people getting their rations and then the government decided to streamline all deliveries to save by increasing qtys to give everyone their fair share. Now we all wait in line for our boxes.

There are bigger fish to fry. This doesn't help the budget, ever increasing deficit, or fixing the infrastructure. It doesn't get our military to have better pay or improve the VA and it doesn't keep our kids safe in schools. It also doesn't address the pending financial crisis/inflation coming either. I'd rather focus on things that really are completely broken.

So this is totally off topic from Food Stamps. Sorry, but it’s on my mind and I don’t dare wade in on the other post because I’m sure to get eaten alive.

The newest school shooting today is again another day of loss, sadness, prayer, reflection, tears and fighting. We had a school shooting here in Sept, so it’s still very fresh to me. My heart breaks for everyone involved, which includes their whole community and our country.

I was reading the back and forth on the other thread and someone (I honestly don’t remember who and I’m too lazy to go find it because it’s after midnight and I’m tired.) posted a statistic about school shootings since the 1800’s I believe. There were very few until the 60’s and they started climbing. The poster commented that the AR 15
Started being sold in 1964. I think her intent was to say that there is a correlation between the sale of the gun and school shootings. I can understand her thinking. But the late 60’s was also the big push to women’s lib. More and more families started having both parents working outside the home. It has grown and grown. I remember when my Mom started working in the late 70’s and my sister and I became “latch key” kids. We hated that Mom wasn’t home when we got home from school. My mind just goes to could there be a correlation to these school shootings happening more and more because kids are left alone for so many hours a day? No one is there when they get home to ask “how was your day?” There’s no one to tell “so and so is being mean to me how should I handle it?” Etc... I am NOT saying Moms need to stay home and be Susie home maker. I’ve worked since I was 15 years old. Both of my children went to daycare until my dh or I could pick them up. But we know that the family unit is not what it used to be. Could the combination of that and the shows and videos they look at and play and the way people treat each other with total disrespect play into what is going on in our society? I’ve seen 3 videos in the past week on social media of kids bullying other kids. The worst was a pre-teen possible teen girl bullying a special needs student. The girl raised her chair in the air and swung like she was going to hit her but hit the desk, then knocked the girl in the arm with the chair. Everyone laughed! The girl seemed encouraged by the laughter and came and smacked the girl hard on the head with her hand. You hear a couple kids suck in their breath, but no one says stop. Where was the teacher? Where was just one other student that stood up and said stop? I was horrified. Thankfully the video got put on social media and a random Mom shared it to the local police fb page and they said they would investigate. Hopefully all involved are reprimanded. I just think it’s more than guns that are the problem and I think we all need to own the fact that we (general we) are failing to do our jobs in teaching our children how to treat others and how to handle situations and cope with stress. And the really sucky part is that no one will own it. Everyone thinks they have the best kids ever.

I know this was long. I’m sorry, I’m just frustrated and I’m looking for more answers than just what we hear repeatedly. That it’s guns, that it’s mental illness. Something in our society changed. It isn’t just that a gun can spit out more bullets. Guns have been around a long long time and you didn’t see kids taking them to school and shooting people very often until more recently in our history.

jlynnbarth I agree with so much of what you said.

I do think that changes in some gun laws might help. For example, I don't understand the need for semi-automatic weapons for people other than military. I understand the reason bump stocks were initially designed, but now that we've seen how they can be used (Las Vegas), that needs to be changed. And, I think tougher sentencings for those breaking gun laws should be put in place. I think all of that might help.

BUT, when it comes to these school shootings, I personally think a lot has to do with 24/7 internet and social media access. Mental illness has been around forever. Guns have been around forever. Social media and the world wide web have not. To me, that's a big piece of the puzzle.

If someone has an issue with someone at school, it used to get around by word of mouth. Now, it's plastered on facebook, instagram, snap chat immediately. It's spread like wildfire. So a kid that is struggling socially, or mentally, that feels isolated and alone, they turn to the internet. They can immediately see what their classmates are saying and doing and know they're excluded. They can then strike up "friendships" with strangers on the internet. They can watch footage on previous school shootings (and might consider it glamorous for the coverage) and without leaving the house search how to build a bomb. Kids no longer need to try to make new friends in the lunchroom, or go to the library for do their research (on bomb making for example). It's all at their fingertips.

I agree that parents need to try to stay involved in what their kids are up to. But with the constant internet access, whether at home, on their phones on the school busses, etc. it's near impossible.

And here's where the conservative in me comes out: I've seen a bit of criticism, mocking, whatever, that conservatives want to go back to the "good old days." Yeah, I'd go back in time in a heartbeat. I'll take The Brady Bunch, Facts of Life, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, any day over the violent crap on t.v. and movie theaters now, forget Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War.

Never did I say I don’t see the difference in the use of a handgun and an AR 15. Never! I’ve never said I didn’t want more gun control.

What I did ask was what has changed in our Society that makes people want to go out and do this? What has caused the “gun worship”? What makes people think that being a bully is cool or funny? Where are we failing? Because I don’t believe it’s just guns. I don’t see commercials for places selling guns on TV other than the hunting channel and there’s only a certain few people watching that channel. I do see video game advertisements that have guns. I see movies with guns, I see news media running stories of guns. I see videos of people on line shooting other people with guns. It seems to be a social norm right now and has been for a while.

I’m just trying to understand where it’s stemming from. This violence we are seeing everyday. It’s heartbreaking to me. I long for people to love each other and support each other. Not kill each other and be horrible to each other.

I could give a crap less is every AR was taken away from everyone. Do it! But will it change the underlying problem, whatever it is? I’m just not sure it will.