Limit food stamp use to nutritious foods

This is regarding the op-ed column by Joshua Green.

There isn’t a citizen in this country who wants anyone to go hungry, so the food stamp program was designed to help families make ends meet until one or both of the parents find better employment. It was never designed to keep you unemployed so that you don’t have to pay for food. This is the point Newt Gingrich was trying to make, and we all know it.

It is when I stand in line, with my cheap chuck roast, and witness a customer who is getting two live lobsters, three bags of candy and a full special order, sheet bakery cake — everything paid for using food stamps — that I walk away thinking people are getting food aid who don’t need it.

This same customer tried to push through cigarettes and beer but was told food stamps don’t cover those items. So she asked for $20 extra as cash that she is allowed to get on her benefit program. Then she used that money to buy the beer and cigarettes. Do you get my point here?

If the food stamp program can’t weed out the abusers, taxpayers should at least demand that the system limit junk food and high-end groceries from being covered. All candy and snacks should not scan as a covered item. Any meat/fish product over $6 per pound should also not scan on the food stamp program (this amount would actually allow a good rib-eye steak on sale to be covered). All grocery computers can be programmed for this.

We have a right to demand that our tax money go toward nutritious products, just like we have demanded it in our schools and through the WIC program. I encourage taxpayers to write to the Department of Agriculture, where the food stamp program originates, and tell them to use their heads on this easy fix that would decrease national debt by billions of dollars. It’s a start.

Linda Dudiak

Clayton