🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 23:45:18 -0700, "Curt" <cje@hevanet.com> wrote:

>
>"Don Homuth" <dhomuth1@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:nmore2pmdrufentcfk7uih6qfgk6hlohku@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:06:23 GMT, Lobby Dosser
>> <lobby.dosser.mapson@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> >The question was: Did the majority of Americans clamor for Food Stamps?
>>
>> The key players in the food industry certainly did.  Most Murkens
>> weren't aware of them.
>
>I could be wrong here but it seems I've read that when that program came
>around, it was popular.

It was.  Why was it popular?  Because it was a Lower Cost solution to
dealing with the distribution of food to the needy.  The previous
method was cumbersome and labor intensive, and it required a separate
distribution system to handle the commodities, inter alia, that were
provided.

The grocery industry lobbied the LBJ administration to note that it
had a fully functioning and Very efficient distribution system all its
own -- known as Food Stores.

What was required was a way to let folks shop at them.  Hence food
stamps.

That worked reasonably well, with some problems around the side,
including but not limited to Fraud on the part of some food stores,
which would redeem the stamps for Cash (at a large discount, of
course) and then -- being (hallowed) Private Sector folks motivated
only by their concept of Social Justice and all -- would turn them in
for a full reimbursement, thereby Hugely increasing their "profit" on
the transaction.

Various administrations, most notably the RMN one, refused to police
the system thereafter, letting the perpetrators of the Frauds get away
with essentially milking millions from the public purse.

But even with all its problems, it was a Huge improvement on the
previous system.

> Wasn't it one of those Great Society things? We were
>gonna whip poverty, blah blah.. ?

It was that, and less.  It was instituted to be a Lower Cost system
than the previous one, and it was all of that.