The Libertarian economic philosophy, which is at the core of the influential Chicago school of economics, says; if you don't work you starve, and die. In this country, our glorious leaders aspire to emulate the Chicago school that was so successful in places like, er, Chile. But we stop half way; if you don't eat you starve, but we will save you from dying. The problem is that it's actually more expensive to let people starve, get all of the diseases associated with that state, and then try to save them, that it is to either a) let them die, or b) feed them so they don't starve.
Now you might say I'm being dramatic, that people don't starve in America because we give them food stamps and welfare. But have you tried to eat three nutritious meals on food stamps alone? It's impossible.
This is one of the reasons why health care costs are so high. We take chronically malnourished people and try to fix them when they show up in acute care facilities like emergency rooms. They get short term care and round trip a month later.
We need to provide for a decent level of food for our citizens, as well as preventative medical care. If we, as a Christian country (which many [though not I] believe), cannot abide people actually dying in the streets, then we need to feed people. Otherwise we are half-assing our way into massive medical payouts.
Posted by jherr at June 12, 2008 10:23 AMWhile I love the rest of your posts, you're off-base on the foodstamps issue.
You can easily eat three square meals on foodstamps. Sure, it's not interesting food, but $86/month (the average allotment, per: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/faqs.htm) can buy quite a bit, and a single person that is in abject poverty gets even more, $162. My wife and I spend $400 combined, without worrying about generic brands, or sales. The government gives up to $162 per month to spend on food... We spend $40 on coffee alone, so a poverty-stricken person could buy everything we buy (except that they'd get more, as they'd have to get the generic versions of what we buy, which costs less)
Of course, it's a sliding scale, so the more means you have, the less foodstamps. But to say that it's impossible to live off foodstamps is absurd. Sure, they won't be eating steak every night, but in reality, beef and pork are the least cost-efficient ways of eating. (However delicious they might be)
Some resources for people eating on a budget can be found on Get Rich Slowly:
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/08/how-to-feed-yourself-for-15-a-week/
(I am not affiliated in any way, just a subscriber to his RSS feed)
I read the link you provided. I'm not sure I would call that nutritious, especially the part about eating ramen or mac-n-cheese. Basically this guy is giving you the plan for $20/week, which is just about what you would need to do to stay within foodstamps. And it's not really a plan, I saw a bunch of tips, but not a real plan. To assess the health benefits of staying on a $20/week diet for 52 weeks I would need to see the details.
My guess is that it would be difficult to do this for most folks in some of the cheaper areas of the country, and impossible to do it in the expensive regions like the Bay Area.
Posted by: jherr at June 13, 2008 06:23 AMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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