Food Stamps... for Fast Food?!

So, apparently, and I heard this on Colbert Report so take it with a grain of salt, Yum! Corp (which owns Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC) is trying to sue to be included in Food Stamps. Meaning, that you can spend Food Stamp money on fast-food.

Honestly, this may or may not be a good idea from a stimulus position. The main reason being that fast-food is a service industry, so there's a higher labor to value ratio than grocery stores.

Is this kind of blatant corporate bailout a way of creating demand for the food service industry, thus dealing with America's economic woes?

Tomu@I don't know do you think they would have food stamps for more healthier food options like Subway,Togos,or Fresh Choice.

-headdesk- food stamps are for buying food at the store not your shitty fast food (no offense to those of you who work at these places)

edited 19th Oct '11 1:00:13 PM by vanthebaron

In general, allowing you to buy fast food with food stamps is a terrible idea, anyhow.

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Obviously, you want people to be fed. Now, if the food stamp money that people have availible to them isn't sufficient to cover their eating habits over the course of a month, that's a problem in and of itself. But, at least when my mother and I were both unemployed (she's recently recieved employment) we actually had more money for food than we reasonably went through in a month. But one of the effects of food stamps is that, since that's money that people have 0 incentive to hoard, it gets spent. Meaning that's money that is directly injected into the economy.

If we're injecting money into the economy, we can inject it into the service industry, which means you're employing more people. Or rather, there's the theory. I've always been wondering whether or not Food Stamps qualifies as a hidden tax on the food service industry. It'd be interesting to see how a Food Stamps for Fast Food program would function.

Of course, I sincerely doubt Yum! is going to win this lawsuit.

Why? Because it reinforces negative health habits of the poor and thus uninsured causing them to have a proportionally higher chance of having severe medical complications that will then have to be covered by medicaid?

edited 19th Oct '11 1:04:15 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Yes, there should be strict guidelines to what they can and cannot buy with food stamps. We should make them only be able to buy health food.

Honestly, I'd prefer there were more rent assistance programs even if it means a bit of a cut to food stamps, but it depends on your area. Not all states are as equally well funded. I know, for instance, that Florida's food stamp program seemed pretty limited compared to Georgia's.

secretist@Could that also include resteraunts that served healthy foods or go vegetarian?

Like I was saying Subway has kinda of become the healthier alternative to Mc Donalds.

Subway is too expensive for most people living off of food stamps, methinks.

Tomu@You could always petition to have a Fresh Choice in your neighborhood because they tend to be inexpensive for people and have healthier choices.

Then again Mc Donalds has been trying to diversify its menu for some time now.

edited 19th Oct '11 1:12:06 PM by joyflower

NO!

People who earn their money are free to do what they want, but if you're on food stamps, you can and should be forced to spend it on groceries.

Good grief.

The Tea Party should be against this because it's welfare.

Liberals should be against it because it's corporate welfare.

But as a Keynesian, I'm not sure what to think.

That is a tax on private industry Rott! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

edited 19th Oct '11 1:13:16 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Tomu@Do you think everyone will be against this on principle since it goes againsts their beliefs?

edited 19th Oct '11 1:18:08 PM by joyflower

Let's see how amny ways this is fucking stupid:

1) It's not promoting health.

2) It's favouring corporations that are both abusing the system in many ways (this is jsut one) and are aking plenty profit anyways.

3) This an abuse of the government and the law system.

x 6 (ninjad) Um? $5 foot longs = expensive?

x 7 I'd make it even stricter, full fledged vegan for them.

edited 19th Oct '11 1:19:07 PM by secretist

Telling people what to spend their food stamps on?

Not very liberterian!

Compared to the dollar menu? Yes.

We're talking about people who are on a food stamp budget.

Anyway, am I seriously the only person here who is conflicted about this, rather than just outright opposed?

edited 19th Oct '11 1:20:46 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

They call it the value menu at Burger King because not everything on it is a dollar.

x 2 It's taxpayer money that funds their food stamps, so it's not unlibertarian to add parameters to how they spend the govt's money.

edited 19th Oct '11 1:22:28 PM by secretist

Food stamps... are money from the government, correct?

So paying Taco bell in food stamps is essientially the government paying corporations directly.

It's taxpayer money that funds their food stamps, so it's not unlibertarian to add parameters to how they spend the govt's money

Well, telling them they can't eat unhealthy if they go out is pretty iron fist to me.

edited 19th Oct '11 1:24:08 PM by Erock

Tomu@I always wonder what can you afford on a food stamp budget plus it would be good if the food stamps only were good for health related places.

Hey, I just remembered you could afford a whole bunch of ramen on food stamps!

edited 19th Oct '11 1:23:29 PM by secretist

Paying food stamps for groceries is just paying Publix or Kroger though, and all of their suppliers.

The big moral issue regarding food stamps for food service is that you're basically letting people get less actual food (which is what we want the people to have) dollar per dollar than if they were forced to eat groceries.

Another issue is that, Food Stamps can't be used on prepared food. If you have to microwave it, then that's generally fine, but if you go to that part of the grocery store that has hot food in a little paper and plastic container, that's generally not covered. Likewise: no sushi. So again, I sincerely doubt Yum! is going to win here.

But the point I'm getting at is, stimulus is, quite frequently, politically non-feasible. If paying Taco Bell more thus making them hire minimum wage laborers is politically feasible when nothing else is, well, maybe it's worth it. But again, I don't know the specifics on how injecting money into the economy in that fashion works.

TBH, if you're not increasing the net amount of food stamp money people have available, I sincerely doubt there's going to be a huge surge in spending food stamp money on fast food in any event.

In Georgia, we were getting about 370 a month for a family of two, which was actually quite generous. But in Florida, it was only 200 a month, which really wasn't enough.

I don't know what the point of subsidizing a person's living conditions are if you're only subsidizing them for a condition that's really not worth living. At that point, you might as well just pass out cyanide tablets.

edited 19th Oct '11 1:27:09 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Paying food stamps for groceries is just paying Publix or Kroger though, and all of their suppliers

Yes, but they didn't sue for the right for that. It's impossible to give people money for food without someone maing money, but the variety of places you could go is wide enough to not be a monopoly on government $$$.

Putting aside the healthy food vs. unhealthy food issue for a moment, why does anyone care if recipients of food stamps spend them on restaurant meals as opposed to groceries? They still get the same stipend in dollars every month, and if they use it up too quickly, that's their mistake and their problem.

That is, I understand why those of us who want to help their poor maintain a decent standard of living would care, but if your opposition to the idea is that you don't think the poor "deserve" luxuries like food service, what's the big deal? It's their loss.

edited 19th Oct '11 1:30:31 PM by Karalora

Tomu@I don't know I think it be punishment for people to eat at TacoBell.