Are we princes or paupers?

WaPo reported reasonably fairly on Trump's plan to cut the cash payout of EBT/SNAP to those on the program.  As it is, they get vouchers accepted everywhere and they spend like cash with few exceptions.  Of course there are revenue hungry stores which have been caught ignoring the rules and selling alcohol and cigarettes for EBT.  Besides, even if you cannot spend EBT on these banned products, simply being able to use EBT for the approved products frees up cash that would normally have to be spent on eating / essentials.  And so no matter how you slice it, EBT ends up supporting the sale of the banned items. And EBT is being funded by national debt because, let's face it, the nation is broke and getting broker each month.

Nobody wants to see Americans starving in the streets no matter how useless of a human being they have decided to be.  Now that might sound harsh but it makes me angry to see perfectly healthy men and women panhandling on every street corner in Austin.  With unemployment at record lows, anyone who wants a job can have a job.  But that means keeping regular working hours, not using heroin or meth on the job, etc.  Since people have found that holding a paper sign on the road side enables them to eat and to otherwise live their lives as they wish, the streets are teeming with useless parasite people.  But still, I do not want to see these people starve to death.  Neither do I, however, wish to see the nation go into economic collapse trying to save those who obviously don't give a shit about themselves or have a modicum of self respect.

So when Trump says he wants to slash virtual EBT cash in half and give people actual food instead in an effort to save on program cost, I think it is absolutely right headed.  Yes, that does mean that EBT users (some small percentage of them really have no other choice) and losers (a much larger percentage than liberals are willing to admit) will no longer be able to shop at high end Whole Paycheck/Amazon foods.  And yes, the "America's Harvest" brand will certainly not be anything fancy.  It will look and taste just exactly like what it is: starvation avoidance rations. 

Of course, this same food would have been a prized possession for solders in wars like Vietnam where MREs made up a big part of the meal plan.  And yes, our fighters do deserve better than street corner panhandlers even if I do not always agree on what they are fighting for.  The men and women of the military are, from my personal experience in working and living with them, mostly good and honorable people.  In fact, most are better behaved in the military because of the threat of double jeopardy with the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) as well as civilian laws.

Trump's plan to slash EBT cash is perfectly sound.  Without killing the parasitic recipients of these social safety net benefits, Trump both cuts cost AND reduces the desirability of being on the program given that the food will not taste as good as the top brands that can be bought with EBT.  This will serve as incentive to go get employment that allows eating better food.  Yes, EBT should send a form of punishment food to its recipients so that they get what they need without getting what they want so that they get off the program as soon as they possibly can.  Liberals, who think that debt based government largess can last forever, will hate me for saying these things.  But true conservatives will see my words for what they actually are: unvarnished truth.