Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Count me not offended

Evidently a food stamp recipient in Menominee, MI (Yooperland) used his food stamps to buy porterhouse steak and lobster tails.  Now there is, of course, some anger that the recipient was able to do this, but let's face facts; food stamps, at about $30 per recipient per week in food spending, are not exactly a Spartan provision, unless you're referring, of course, to the menu for the Michigan State football team training table.  My family, and others I know, has been working on a food budget of about this amount, or less, for years.

The key is that one must know how to cook, as most of the experiments I see with living on food stamps involve people buying packaging instead of food--crackers instead of flour, TV dinners instead of meat and vegetables, and so on.  So my hat is off to the anonymous food stamp recipient who managed to save enough and scrounge enough to afford something nice for a special day.

Now to the government types who simply provide food aid to the poor instead of teaching them how to fend for themselves, on the other hand........my thoughts are somewhat less charitable, as what the government is doing here is simply not charity.  Less food stamps, more encouragement of the inner pyromaniac, and we'll all be better off.

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