Megan, you ignorant slut!

* This is from an old Saturday Night Live routine with Jane Curtin. I have a more explanatory comment on Megan's blog at the link if she leaves it there. This follows a long series of previous posts, starting here, where she wants to get rid of the food stamp program. Some of her arguments are reasonable but her powdered wig keeps slipping way too often.

What should you eat - the Mediterranean diet or Okinawa diet is very good and healthy. Why does the food stamp program in some states exclude fruits and all vegetables except carrots? Even without that restriction:

Current food stamp benefit amounts are inadequate to support a healthy diet for food stamp recipients. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, necessities for a healthy diet, are generally more expensive than less healthy foods like sugars and starches. Lack of purchasing power for or access to healthier foods can result in malnutrition and even hospitalization for low-income households.

Furthermore, food stamp households are finding that their benefits purchase less food each year. According to an analysis by Bread for the World, food stamp households spend 80% of their benefits by the 14th of each month. In addition, a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has found that “by 2017 a typical working parent of two will, over the course of a year, miss out on more than one and a half months-worth of food stamps, compared to the amount of benefits she or he would have received” prior to 1996. A chart in this report shows that shows a typical working family of three now gets about $35 less per month (in 2008 dollars) than in 1995....

Furthermore, as a results of the 1996 welfare reform laws, unemployed childless adults 18–50 years old were restricted to receiving food stamp benefits for only three months every three years, regardless of economic conditions or willingness to work. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated in 2000 that these changes denied benefits to 400,000 otherwise eligible people. Most of these people are very poor with little or no education, thus making it difficult to find even low-wage employment. Additionally, because they do not have children, they are ineligible for other poverty assistance programs. The Food Stamp Program is their only help, yet eligibility requirements substantially restrict their access to the program.