In his big budget proposal Monday, President Trump offered a novel idea: Instead of giving needy people stamps they can redeem for food, why not just give them actual food?
How dare Mr. Trump try to take food stamps away from hungry people and give them - of all things - food?
Currently, food stamps - known officially as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - are provided for some 42 million people, 80 percent of whom get food vouchers each month worth at least $90 per person.
Here's the nut graf from the NPR story: "The USDA believes that state governments will be able to deliver this food at much less cost than SNAP recipients currently pay for food at retail stores - thus reducing the overall cost of the SNAP program by $129 billion over the next 10 years. This and other changes in the SNAP program, according to the Trump administration, will reduce the SNAP budget by $213 billion over those years - cutting the program by almost 30 percent."
Good plan, right? Wrong, according to NPR. "Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, a hunger advocacy group that also helps clients access food-assistance services, said the administration's plan left him baffled. 'They have managed to propose nearly the impossible, taking over $200 billion worth of food from low-income Americans while increasing bureaucracy and reducing choices,' Berg says."
Still, liberals argue that Mr. Trump's plan would be embarrassing for food stamp recipients, forced to receive free food.
"Among the problems, it's going to be costly and take money out of the [SNAP] program from the administrative side. It's going to stigmatize people when they have to go to certain places to pick up benefits," Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, told NPR. Well, there's a way to change that: Get a job and get off food stamps.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/13/donald-trumps-food-stamp-plan-enrages-liberals/
How dare Mr. Trump try to take food stamps away from hungry people and give them - of all things - food?
Currently, food stamps - known officially as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - are provided for some 42 million people, 80 percent of whom get food vouchers each month worth at least $90 per person.
Here's the nut graf from the NPR story: "The USDA believes that state governments will be able to deliver this food at much less cost than SNAP recipients currently pay for food at retail stores - thus reducing the overall cost of the SNAP program by $129 billion over the next 10 years. This and other changes in the SNAP program, according to the Trump administration, will reduce the SNAP budget by $213 billion over those years - cutting the program by almost 30 percent."
Good plan, right? Wrong, according to NPR. "Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, a hunger advocacy group that also helps clients access food-assistance services, said the administration's plan left him baffled. 'They have managed to propose nearly the impossible, taking over $200 billion worth of food from low-income Americans while increasing bureaucracy and reducing choices,' Berg says."
Still, liberals argue that Mr. Trump's plan would be embarrassing for food stamp recipients, forced to receive free food.
"Among the problems, it's going to be costly and take money out of the [SNAP] program from the administrative side. It's going to stigmatize people when they have to go to certain places to pick up benefits," Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, told NPR. Well, there's a way to change that: Get a job and get off food stamps.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/13/donald-trumps-food-stamp-plan-enrages-liberals/
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