The comments in a Balloon Juice thread illustrate the divide in thinking one often encounters when debating conservatives: the problems they see have liberal fixes, but because they don’t see the same world we do so it never occurs to them how overlapping our problems and solutions are. The subject of the thread, by way of an unfortunate remark by DougJ, turned to welfare recipients and commenter Michael D said:
Actually, I live in an area where there a lot of “Young Bucks” (and Does) – both black and white – who use their Georgia EBT (electronic benefits transfer) cards to buy the most insane things ever. T-Bone steaks included – although less things like that than potato chips, Coke, donuts, and general junk food that no one should be buying in any quantity when they have to use “the system.” I shop in a VERY poor area of Atlanta, and to see what is on the grocery carts of some people makes me want to scream.
Now, this is boilerplate southern conservative stuff, although as Lt. Gov Bauer showed us this week the usual conservative solution is to stop feeding the “stray animals.” But Michael D’s observations do at least bring up the question of how much welfare abuse and fraud really occurs, and whether it is even a fair question to ask if using government money to buy unhealthy food is something we should worry about, given the idea that, as Steven Colbert put it last night, we have “reached the biological limit” in national obesity. Naturally in a thread at BJ, a true liberal steps up:
What really should be happening is that fresh and frozen veggies and fruit should be encouraged or required somehow. Card technology is pretty smart these days. Seems like a percentage of the monthly allotment could be required to be used for health foods like fresh fruits and vegetables. Donuts and other crappy foods shouldn’t be completely disallowed, but perhaps a penalty or restriction on the amount spent on them should be enforced. You only get $15/month to spend on crappy sweet stuff. You choose how it’s spent – or something like that.
This admittedly pie-in-the-sky liberal answer does in effect address many of the food issues that liberals like to talk about, such as the overindulgence in corn which massive subsidies and sugar tariff controls enforce. Addressing obesity in this country would need a comprehensive solution, involving restructuring our farm subsidies to, yes, considering whether a government “food pyramid” type nutrition structure should be a mandated part of the food stamp program. Which leads to the punch line:
see, if you complain about people eating all sorts of bad stuff, you’re a liberal. if you complain about people on foodstamps eating all sorts of bad stuff, you’re a conservative.
Which obviously gets Quote Of The Day.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | diet, food, Lib v Con, policy, welfare
