Should Conservatives Back Trump’s “Blue Apron” Welfare Reform?

 

First, let me say officially and on the record — I love Blue Apron. I had their “Soy-Glazed Korean Rice Cakes” earlier this week (see photo). If America’s food-stamp recipients were getting actual Blue Apron meals, their lives would immediately improve. But here’s what the Trump administration is actually proposing:

Think of it as Blue Apron for food stamp recipients.

That’s how Budget Director Mick Mulvaney described the Trump administration’s proposal to replace nearly half of poor Americans’ monthly cash benefits with a box of food. It would affect households that receive at least $90 a month in food stamps, or roughly 38 million people.

Here’s how it would work:

Instead of receiving all their food stamp funds, households would get a box of food that the government describes as nutritious and 100% grown and produced in the U.S. The so-called USDA America’s Harvest Box would contain items such as shelf-stable milk, juice, grains, cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans, canned meat, poultry or fish, and canned fruits and vegetables. The box would be valued at about half of the SNAP recipient’s monthly benefit. The remainder of their benefits would be given to them on electronic benefit cards, as before.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about logistics and cost, but here’s the question we asked in today’s podcast: Is this a good idea?

Well, I know who thinks it’s a bad idea: the people who don’t want to stand in a liquor store parking lot with a box of food trying to sell cans of beans and bags of rice for cash. Selling EBT benefits for cash is easy. Heck, you can do it on Facebook! If you’re a shopper in the inner suburbs of Boston, you’ve almost certainly had someone approach you with the offer of $100 in groceries for $50 in cash (using their EBT card). So converting half the EBT transaction into barter rather than fungible currency is not going to be popular among a certain segment of the population.

It’s easy to assume, therefore, that liberals will oppose this policy. (Actually, since it’s a policy initiative from the Trump White House we already know every liberal will oppose it.) But why should they? After all, one of the core premises of modern liberalism is that people are too stupid/evil/both to be allowed to make their own decisions. Liberals love high taxes on sugary sodas. Why? Because they’re “bad for you.” They love restricting fast food restaurants, keeping them out of low-income neighborhoods, for the same reason. The phrase “food desert” was invented by liberals to describe “places where people won’t buy the food we’ve decided they’re supposed to eat!”

This policy would give the government the power to make these food decisions for food-stamp families. No more worries about whether they eat their veggies — the government is going to make them. Or at least, send the veggies and hide the yummy snacks.

And this is precisely why I don’t like the idea. I don’t want to give the government this power. It’s none of Uncle Sam’s damn business what we eat.

I know — if you let the taxpayers pay for the food, then the taxpayers get to pick the menu. Legit point. And I’ll go along, as soon as you apply that policy to Social Security checks, too. But as long as my grandmother can spend her Social Security on pork ribs and Oreos, why shouldn’t her fellow handout recipients be able to do the same. (And no — Social Security is not “her money.” Her money ran out the first two years. It’s a welfare program just like any other.)

I don’t like giving government power. I also don’t like using the government to give away free stuff, including food stamps. I can’t stop the latter. Maybe we can prevent the former.

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  1. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Guruforhire (View Comment):
    The gas station across the road will fry chicken you bring for some small sum.

    So you get your food stamp chicken toss Lucky a few bucks and bam fried chicken.

    The motor oil adds extra piquancy.

    • #31
  2. Romney/Haley 2020 Inactive
    Romney/Haley 2020
    @PettyBoozswha

    It’s bad enough that people are trading food stamp cards but it’s even worse when Ricochet editors start trading their bylines – why did Michael Graham allow Fred Cole to post under his name?

    First, I think you miss the big picture of who this program is designed for – it ought to be called the PepsiCo relief program since so much goes to Frito Lay and other agribusiness interests. The remainder goes to entrepreneurial immigrants that have learned to scam the convenience store support programs for untold billions per year.

    Sending fruit and staples to kids who need it is a better idea than what we have now. Is it perfect? No. The best way to make it really conducive to ameliorating poverty would be to require long acting reversible birth control for anyone who needs the taxpayer to buy their groceries; if you’re too disorganized to feed your family you’re too disorganized to bring another child into the world.

     

    • #32
  3. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    I am quite ambivalent about this.

    Welfare cheats will be with you always. Indeed, any system created is tested and scammed; it’s part of who we are.

    And part of why we can’t have nice things. But this isn’t about having nice things, it’s about wanting to ensure that the least among us have minimal things; food, clothing, shelter. This is also a part of who we are.

    We can try to minimize the cheats by

    • eliminating drug and alcohol abusers from the programs
    • eliminating drugs and alcohol from the abusers
    • limiting access to the ‘wrong’ things
    • forcing them to get the ‘right’ things
    • jailing or cutting off the frauds

    Each of these will cost considerable money and will likely grow the government one way or the other (I am personally inclined towards the last one though as arrest gives the opportunity to enforce change).

    How widespread is welfare fraud – particularly in relation the actual effectual the program is (and how effectual in relation to cost)?

    Crates of vegetables and food address fraud but would make the system more expensive. It is far cheaper to zap electrons into cards.

    But welfare cheats offend me. A lot. They make me think poorly of the poor, or even uncharitably of the poor.

    They still need some kind of help.

    • #33
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    TBA (View Comment):
    But welfare cheats offend me. A lot. They make me think poorly of the poor, or even uncharitably of the poor.

    If they’re cheating, they may not be so poor as you think. If they were poor, how much would they need to cheat?

    • #34
  5. Joe P Member
    Joe P
    @JoeP

    Romney/Haley 2020 (View Comment):
    It’s bad enough that people are trading food stamp cards but it’s even worse when Ricochet editors start trading their bylines – why did Michael Graham allow Fred Cole to post under his name?

    Oh, please. Let’s not insult Michael Graham. His criticism of the idea is a conservative one, even if it mistakenly assumes that the current food stamp program doesn’t tell poor people what and how to eat.

    • #35
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