Welcome to the discussion, Mr. Barranco. I just read your response to my most recent letter. I find it fascinating how two people can look at a situation and have totally different view points. I never said that our government shouldn’t give benefits to people with three-to-five children and instead give these benefits to seniors. The point that I was trying to make was that “many” but “not all” of these people “only” have these children so they can qualify for free food every month. I admit that I was not aware that senior citizens received such a large percentage of SNAP benefits. I am assuming that your statistics are national statistics and not state statistics. I have personally ”never” seen a senior citizen with a full grocery cart, which cannot be said of other recipients. Have you ever seen a senior citizen with a grocery cart crammed full top to bottom?
My point was that this program has been abused for decades and needs to be downsized. If people cannot afford to feed their children then maybe they should not have children. Oh, by the way, many school-age children do not go hungry over the summer – they get free breakfast and lunch at their local schools and eat free food for supper when they get home. All of the senior citizens that I know pay for their food, just like I do. Here are a few more points for you to ponder/respond to: Can you tell me how many SNAP recipients work 40 hours per week? How many only want to work part-time so they won’t “mess up their benefits?” How many eat free lunches at Loaves and Fishes every time they are serving and then go to their local grocery store to fill buggies with free food? I think this would be considered “double dipping.” How many of these people only work part-time so they can qualify for earned income tax credits? This could also be considered “double dipping.” They have three-to-five children so they can qualify for free food for most of their lives and also receive thousands of dollars from the earned income tax credit every spring. Some, but not all of these SNAP recipients are taking advantage of our government by doing this. You can tell me that this isn’t happening, but you are very naive and gullible if you think this is not a fact.
Stan Wheeler
Columbus
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