Debunking "Food Insecurity"

What Food Insecurity DOESN’T mean:

HUNGER

What it DOES mean (as defined by The Left):

Rachel Sheffield, who researches welfare policy at the Heritage Foundation, explains, “Food insecurity is not the same thing as hunger. It just means that they had to rely on cheaper foods, store-brand alternatives … or reduce variety.”

Really? That’s it?

So, keep that definition in mind when you see those commercials with the kids looking all sad and Hongry.

I have no problem with providing actual hungry people with food. That’s what food banks and community meals are about.

But even the food banks are having to admit that a sizable portion of the people pulling up in their cars to collect food are repeat moochers - and, too often, treat the food bank like their own personal grocery store, complaining about the available food, and turning their nose up at less-favored selections.

It’s not that they generally cannot manage to cook food that is not ready-to-eat. They just prefer the high-priced convenience foods (rice in a microwavable bag, rather than dry rice, which is a LOT cheaper).

I do, at times, use convenience foods. When we have a particularly busy schedule, and little energy to manage full-on meal prep. When someone in the house is sick. When I have to leave the house in a hurry, and simply don’t have time for more than cereal or a breakfast bar.

The Dollar stores (Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Dollar Store, to name just a few) have done amazing things with providing cheap food that can be cooked quickly - often in a microwave. So, MOST people should not need ongoing assistance, month after month, from the EMERGENCY food sources. That for some, this is a regular part of their shopping reflects very badly on them.

The Covid Shutdown was different. Many people weren’t able to work, or even leave their homes regularly. Many places had significantly reduced hours. After a while, and with the transportation snafus that Butthead Buttigieg all to happen, some people who were normally self-sufficient found empty shelves in stores. So, for a brief time (well, too long, but not THAT long), people used food pantries to keep their families fed.

That was then, this is now.

We need to get control of the infrastructure of the Entitlements programs, starting with EBT. Need to verify:

• Do these people exist?

• Do they live at the house their benefit is tied to?

• Are all the people that are part of that benefit qualification entitled to continue (still in household, living, not working or not having income greater than stated)?

• Are they LEGALLY present in the USA? That means getting birth certificates AND social security cards/numbers for ALL those part of the household.

That’s a HUGE job. It would require what amounts to a PHYSICAL audit of those who currently collect those benefits (AND others tied to qualification of EBT - getting EBT qualified automatically gets recipients signed up for MANY other programs).

That audit needs to be conducted by people OTHER than those that originally signed up the recipients. Too many of them let sketchy documentation/assertions slide by. I HOPE that such actions would be undertaken because the person doing so is ‘merely’ a soft-headed idiot, rather than someone who is either taking kickbacks or cynically ripping off the government.

But, either way, such people need to be, in this process, identified, and removed from any job permitting them to allow fraud/incompetence to occur.

Last, and completely off topic, I noticed that John Stossel is now writing on Front Page Magazine - here is one post that I thought worthy of note. I’m going to peruse his previous posts - I’ve always enjoyed his perspective on the news.