In his big budget proposal Monday, President Trump offered a novel idea: Instead of giving needy people stamps they can redeem for food, why not just give them actual food?
As you might guess, liberals were enraged by the notion. How dare Mr. Trump try to take food stamps away from hungry people and give them — of all things — food?
Here’s how the liberal HuffPost saw it: “Facing a trillion-dollar deficit because of his just-passed tax cuts, President Donald Trump has an idea for how to get some of that money back: making poor people eat beans and rice.”
Oh, the humanity!
Currently, food stamps — known officially as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — are provided for some 42 million people, 80 percent of whom get food vouchers each month worth at least $90 per person. They can be redeemed at many stores for food, but the program is rife with abuse.
For example, an Oregon minimart owner was recently sentenced to nearly two years behind bars after being convicted for food stamp fraud totaling $189,000. In that case, prosecutors said he overcharged food stamp recipients’ benefit cards and then gave them in cash half of what he’d overcharged.
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