The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia

I saw the broadcast of this story on Fox News last night....

The Governor of Minnesota has looked into banning the use of food stamps to purchase junk food and candy. The thought being that since the tax payers are paying for their food to allow them to survive, it should only be used on actual food. This has raised the ire of food stamp recipient Angel Buechner (who by the way is grossly obese). Here is her logic:

>>>Angel Buechner, a working mother of four boys, says junk food is a bad buy for people who use food stamps like her family, but she doesn't believe the federal government has the right to prevent her from buying something special for her sons.

"Why should I have to shop on the other side of the grocery store just because I get food support?" asked Buechner, a food stamp recipient.<<<

We don't have the right? We don't have any say in the matter? Doesn't she understand that we pay for this food and therefore we have EVERY RIGHT to tell her what she can and can't use it on. If she doesn't like the restrictions, don't use the food stamp program at all! If we are going to pay for the food, she should use it on actual nutritious food to feed her four boys so they don't end up grossly overweight like she is.

Abuse is so rampant in this system. When we were first married my wife and I lived in a pretty poor inner city neighborhood. At the convenience store across the street, welfare recipients would constantly be using food stamps to buy a pop or candy bar one after another in separate transactions to get change back in cash, and then once they had enough cash use it to buy cigarettes. The clerk always just went along. So through willful fraud, they would use the tax payers generous support intended to feed them and their family to buy cigarettes, pop and candy. No doubt when they end up in the hospital with lung cancer, diabetes and heart disease the tax payers will be called upon once more to pay their bills. We better make sure they get junk food from the hospital cafeteria though, because THAT IS THEIR RIGHT!