[quote name='dohdough']Considering your abhorence for paying for the current state of things from the last part of your post, wtf makes you think that you'd be ok with paying for a program that would maintain your suggestion from the first part of your post? Hell, wouldn't that administration cost MORE?[/QUOTE]
You should really pay more attention in this thread. We've already discussed how poor eating habits cost the government more when they have to then pay for health care on top of the poor diet. Thus, logically, it would cost less combined, even if one aspect costs more to maintain.
[quote name='dmaul1114']You're not looking at it the right way.
You have a budget of $X a month for food. A head of lettuce is $1 out of that.
Someone on food stamps has a budget of $X income and $X worth of food stamps each month to feed themselves. A head of lettuce is $1 out of that.
In either case it's a $1 out of each of your monthly food budgets--the fact that part of their budget is food stamps doesn't change that. Every item they buy is still part of the budget spent that thus can't be spent on other food items.[/quote]
Perhaps. But giving a discount on a head of lettuce is going to to do one of two things.
Either the head of lettuce is now $1.25. but $1 on food stamps - raising the price for those who are paying their own money, but still taking the same $1 out of the budget of those on food stamps (because the store isn't going to eat the discount) or,
A $0.75 of food stamps becomes worth $1 when used towards a head of lettuce. Which is simply increasing the food stamps budget (because the store is still going to want to be reimbursed their $1). I think this program would be overly complicated and would be better replaced by...
Change food stamps so at least some can only be used for fresh produce etc., and they can't make that decision anymore and have to get those things or just not use those particular vouchers.
This.
[quote name='RedvsBlue']These restaurants have to be up front about their nutrition information. If someone wants to eat unhealthy when they have all the information, that's their choice to make I suppose but they should at least be given the tools to know what is healthy and what isn't healthy.[/QUOTE]
Ugh... While it sounds good in theory, the hell this would be for small mom-and-pop eateries would be painful. Instead of serving delicious, homemade coconut pie from Grandma's recipe, these places will switch to even more pre-processed, preserved foods so they don't have to worry about attempting to figure nutritional information and getting some crazy fine or lawsuit because they miscalculated by 5%...
[quote name='Salamando3000']WIC as of five years ago (I believe my sister was still on WIC then) still used paper. You'd get one giant coupon that granted you a number of food stuffs. Not specific items, just specific quantity/sizes (Up to 2 gallons milk, 1 dozen eggs, etc.). If there was an item you could've gotten on that coupon but didn't get, you permanently lose it once you use up that coupon. I believe the coupon could be scanned, and the local super market was able to determine which items were acceptable under WIC and which weren't.[/quote]
Yup - pretty much how it all still works. Great program and I'd wholly support a WIC-type replacement for the current Food Stamps-type programs we have now.