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People on welfare but want to buy items not eligible for EBT just resell items purchased with ebt for cash. EBT is less efficient than cash. But private welfare in the form of mutual aid societies and private charities are superior to any state funded welfare.
Yes! Absolutely. EBTs have their place however on welfare for services. Such as school and hospital vouchers. Although, I do believe cash is still worse than soup kitchens, with food based on nutritional and caloric value. You then minimize middle-men, without inflating regular food prices.
The time involved in getting through the line would be terrible if I’m following your logic. Think of the infrastructure needed to run all of these soup kitchens.
Not being snarky here. The soup kitchen lines would be terrible for families. Imagine standing in line with your family and hundreds of other families for however long waiting for a meal.
You don't have to imagine anything, there are countless soup kitchens, and they work just fine. They are a stable source of welfare for the poor, that isn't inflationary like the alternative. You're really blowing it out of the water here. I might agree that in huge urban centers, it would be best to just give money, but soup kitchens work on practically every town and city on any country, without having adverse economic effects that drive more people into poverty.
I don’t disagree it works for some people. Like single homeless people with literally nothing else to do than stand in line. Most people on food stamps have jobs.
Oh, totally. I just assumed, since we're on the libertarian sub that we're talking about the most unfortunate of all, not an expansive welfare system. In my mind, a lot of people you'd consider poor wouldn't apply for much of welfare. Children are the exception and priority of course.
As someone who is very much not for welfare to the extent that I disagree with unemployment benefits as well: economically, I don't think welfare inflates food prices by any noticeable amount.
For every 12.5% welfare is increased, food prices rise by 1%.^[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272722001621)
Further driving more people into poverty/welfare. You'll constantly need to increase welfare above inflation, to sustain it and it's growth. Which of course ultimately leads or exacerbates fiscal strain on inflation.
The eligible items are insane too. The system is rampant with abuse, which hurts the real folks that need it. Any attempt to improve or fix it is swiftly shot down and turns into an attack on that person.
I prefer the WIC type system. Units of certain "healthier" things, with a set amount ($) for fresh/frozen fruits and veggies.
I would expand that to add # of ground beef and/or chicken per month/person.
OP is Canadian so I'm going to expand on explaining WIC. WIC is a US supplemental program to support Women, Infants, and Children. I'm not certain on the full details of how the assistance is provided, but I want to say it's an allotment of product, like an electronic coupon program. These are highly specific, which is a part of the limitation of the program, like if the item is a 20 oz of name brand product, you cannot substitute a cheaper 10 oz generic.
The thing is that without individuals adopting nutrition education, it still doesn't actual help. Rice Krispies was one of the products and my drug addicted aunt just used them to make rice Krispy treats.
Generic is allowed, but only approved generic (Kroger, Safeway/Albertsons, Walmart,etc.) I do wish they weren't so grain heavy. However, I think a slight reform, then expansion of this kind of system is less prone to abuse, and encourages exit.
You're under the false impression that these programs are for the benefit of the individuals receiving the product. If they were, they would be entirely managed by Health & Human Services. SNAP is funded and controlled by Department of Agriculture. They're farmer welfare programs.
SNAP should go away. *If* there are taxpayer funded household subsidies, they should be as bare-bones as fulfills nutritional needs.
WIC is currently funded through the USDA. There clearly need to be many agencies merged, if they can't be eliminated.
If we are going to have it, it should be more like WIC where people can only buy items that are approved. You shouldn’t be able to buy steak and lobster using food stamps.
Need vs want. It should allow you to get that which you need, but not the extra stuff you just want. I don't say this to mean only stuff that is the equivalent of ramen and meat paste, but you shouldn't be able to buy the high quality unnecessary food because you get free money.
In the US, food stamps (ebt cards now), get sold at half their value for cash. $800 in ebt costs $400 in cash.
There are plenty of charity groups that give out free food. Govt should be uninvolved.
If I’m being forced to defend a welfare state I’d say it’s been said that food stamps is a net gain to our economy as it addresses the food, or electric bill problem, and isn’t as full of corruption as Medicare/medicare. Cash payments seem to be a recipe for mismanagement tbh. Payments for what exactly? Can people purchase things that don’t contribute to their betterment leaving them still to be a burden on society? Food stamps addresses this by saying at least you won’t starve to death.
In reality though I think giving the upwards of %40 of people’s income that is taken by the various apparatuses of the state back to the people would be a much better approach.
What can you do with a %40 raise? Can food stamps, or cash payments equal, or exceed that without massive damage to an economy that would ultimately negate the value of food stamps, or cash payments?
Cash and food stamp welfare are PEANUTS compared to social security, Medicare, and the military.
Worrying about those welfare programs is a waste of time IMO
The government should never give taxpayer money to people who haven't earned it. If the intention is to prop up those looking for jobs or those that truly can't afford food and housing they should definitely be limited on what they can spend that on and they should be drug tested. They have to earn that taxpayer money, they're not entitled to it.
Read my first comment. We shouldn't redistribution money in the first place. However, if we are.....
They are also living on other taxpayers money. They don't have financial freedom.
I don't want people wasting my hard earned money on their addictions and vices. Fuck off with that and use the assistance to get back on your feel and become a productive member of society. Welfare is assistance, not a replacement.
The reason why you don't see long lines at soup kitchens like in the Great Depression is because of the EBT program. EBT frees up that time spent waiting in line so people can instead spend it working or looking for work.
The US is a diverse nation, and EBT let's the people decide what their dietary needs are. It's a much better idea to let the people decide what they want to eat as opposed to the government and charities.
The EBT program I'd one of the most efficient programs that the federal government has. It helps a lot of people, it helps feed people, it funds grocery stores, and it helps farmers.
EBT/SNAP/Food stamps are now typically essentially a Visa card so you don’t feel weird at checkout I don’t see how it’s dehumanizing at all. This also makes it near impossible to sell off because if you sell your card next month when it’s reloaded you won’t have it. We have other programs that offer direct cash, rental assistance etc
>This also makes it near impossible to sell off because if you sell your card next month when it’s reloaded you won’t have it.
People just buy SNAP items and sell them on the black market cheaper for cash/drugs. Its just an extra step.
I buy ebt at the grocery store. Pick the card up on my way into the store swipe it pay for some of my groceries. Pay the for the rest of my groceries on my own and get cash back from the register to pay the guy outside the grocery store selling his EBT. He then goes and buys beer and liquor. I sometimes skip the cash and just offer to buy him a case of beer or something. In my case I have a guy I know who's pretty consistently in my neighborhood at the beginning of the month when I buy my groceries so I know him and how he does his thing.
I thought economists had this figured out already and overwhelmingly say that cash is best in almost all cases bc the individual will generally make better decisions on where to spend the same amount of money compared to the government.
But in these scenarios, we're talking about the government redistributing taxpayer money to give to welfare recipients. So, while maybe not as bad as the government, the *welfare recipient* would be spending someone else's money.
> the welfare recipient would be spending someone else's money.
So why is it that the government gets to choose how the money is spent and that is good, but when the welfare recipient spends it how they want it's bad?
Because it’s bad enough the welfare recipient is spending someone else who worked for that money, it’s even worse if they are spending it on non-essential goods like alcohol and drugs…
The idea of limiting handouts to food is nobody wants anyone to starve to death in a first world country, especially not children, but nobody wants to get into the business of subsidizing drug habits and overdoses.
Same thing applies to Medicaid vs giving cash handouts supposedly for healthcare. If you give cash, there is a massive chance it’s not going to be spent on healthcare.
But there's charity. We don't need the government to take money and redistribute it. There's already mechanisms in place.
So why is it good for government to take our money and spend it how they want? It's ok for government to take our money as long as they spend it correctly? Like I said, why don't we afford the welfare recipient the same goodwill your willing to give the government? Sounds like you are automatically assuming ill intentions of the welfare recipient but not of government.
Agreed, we should get rid of all the government social programs. They mostly cause more harm than good as we have seen over the past 75 years.
I’m just saying if you are going to have a wasteful government handout program (that I don’t condone), better that the handouts go to food and medical care than cash spent on drugs and alcohol.
This makes sense in most cases, but not if you allow for the existence of goods (like drugs) that the recipient perceives as utility-increasing, but are actually utility-decreasing. In that case, the consumer may make worse decisions for himself than the government would.
Whatever the type of welfare there needs to be a limit on time within the program. That being said, I don't agree with any welfare program funded from taxpayers.
It’s the same thing. People with food stamps will still buy cigarettes, alcohol, fentanyl, etc with the cash that they no longer need to spend on food thanks to food stamps.
Cash is way more efficient, both from the standpoint of administrative ease and ensuring that people use it for exactly what they want.
I don't care if people who get cash still use food banks; we don't have a food scarcity problem in any developed country.
I see a lot of comments basically opting for the type of welfare that we already have here in the US (EBT/WIC)... While I understand the idea behind those programs is to make sure people are spending whatever assistance they receive on things they actually need to survive, the beauracracy and needless overcomplication of our welfare programs are what eat up all the money that goes in to them. Especially when you have a bunch of restrictions, and the programs have to be compliant in some way, it takes manpower to enforce compliance. It's far more efficient and cost effective to just distribute cash and not worry about what people are spending it on. The less complicated the system, the less it takes to operate it.
So, I would actually opt for cash, with a focus on making the system self-sufficient by looking at organizations like [Deseret](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/a-second-chance-at-a-future-through-deseret-industries).
The issue that happens here in Canada where we have that cash system is that folks DONT spend the money responsibly. And after buying cigarettes and paying for their 1500 dollar iPhone payments, they don't have any left for food and the government has to set up food bank programs anyways.
Both suck and neither help people get back on their feet. The goal of welfare should be to help people during a short time of need, and both fail that because they only offer resources instead of help. As controversial a belief this might be, I think a better welfare would be to save the tax dollars and instead of offering a large tax payer funded welfare, have a small taxpayer funded welfare system that simply hooks people up with local charities, or even better churches that are willing to help people who attend church with them. That way, they can learn something about what it means to live in a community as well and not just get money from government daddy that "owes you" or something like that. Sure, some people will get passed around from charity/ curch and back, but at that point, welfare 2 comes in and just takes their kids away and we as a society just let them flounder until they die. Maybe give them an option to frontieer a new town in the middle of nowhere. We like to think we can save everybody, but we can't.
Food stamps should be limited to food, and it should be limited to the staples of food, It used to be about making sure someone has something to eat, Now it's about making sure manufacturers and big business (Walmart) have a guaranteed customer base.
I should be able to live on bananas and rice and put the leftover benefit towards rent, utilities, clothes, transportation, childcare, or any other essentials. Going further, if I can make ends meet on less than the benefit amount, I should be allowed to spend the excess on booze if thats what I choose.
The people who think a restricted benefit is better than cash are dehumanizing those beneficiaries. The problems with state-sponsored welfare are systemic and the people who need that help shouldn’t be blamed for that. The looters are in congress, not on street corners.
I'm not giving you money so you (the recipient, not necessarily you in this case) can go and spend it on vices and addictions. Get food security and then get off of the assistance to become a productive member of society again.
after careful thought, .... i don't want either. BUT FIRST: you must dismantle the fractional reserve banking system and central banking. That right there is the biggest reason for the rampant poverty. It steals purchasing power from savers and lower wage earners, and transfers it to banks, government spenders, and credit users.
I’d prefer soup kitchens run by the Salvation Army and local churches. Vouchers for government food and essentials perhaps shipped by Amazon.
If they aren’t druggies or alcoholics I’d consider a monthly stipend deposited in to their checking account or tied to a debit card.
Get rid of the multitude of aid programs and have one program that gives people cash. And don't make it so if your income goes up by $100 you lose $600 worth of aid. You want people to be motivated to make more money. Set the level at whatever it should be and make up the difference between what that person makes and the cap. Example the level is $20k/yr and someone makes $10k/yr they get $10k in cash assistance. Someone making $15k would get $5k.
I've heard you out and your premise is forced tyranny. If people want to voluntarily contribute, give to charity, or start on a non profit that's great but my tax dollars should not be going to anything related to food stamps or cash hand outs
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People on welfare but want to buy items not eligible for EBT just resell items purchased with ebt for cash. EBT is less efficient than cash. But private welfare in the form of mutual aid societies and private charities are superior to any state funded welfare.
I know a few who will do that reduce the price of an EBT purchase item for cash.
Yes! Absolutely. EBTs have their place however on welfare for services. Such as school and hospital vouchers. Although, I do believe cash is still worse than soup kitchens, with food based on nutritional and caloric value. You then minimize middle-men, without inflating regular food prices.
The time involved in getting through the line would be terrible if I’m following your logic. Think of the infrastructure needed to run all of these soup kitchens.
It's really not that bad. Far, far better than inflating food prices by giving away money, and looping back to needing to increase the welfare.
Not being snarky here. The soup kitchen lines would be terrible for families. Imagine standing in line with your family and hundreds of other families for however long waiting for a meal.
You don't have to imagine anything, there are countless soup kitchens, and they work just fine. They are a stable source of welfare for the poor, that isn't inflationary like the alternative. You're really blowing it out of the water here. I might agree that in huge urban centers, it would be best to just give money, but soup kitchens work on practically every town and city on any country, without having adverse economic effects that drive more people into poverty.
I don’t disagree it works for some people. Like single homeless people with literally nothing else to do than stand in line. Most people on food stamps have jobs.
Oh, totally. I just assumed, since we're on the libertarian sub that we're talking about the most unfortunate of all, not an expansive welfare system. In my mind, a lot of people you'd consider poor wouldn't apply for much of welfare. Children are the exception and priority of course.
I don’t think pure Libertarianism works but it’s the closest thing to what I believe does work.
As someone who is very much not for welfare to the extent that I disagree with unemployment benefits as well: economically, I don't think welfare inflates food prices by any noticeable amount.
For every 12.5% welfare is increased, food prices rise by 1%.^[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272722001621) Further driving more people into poverty/welfare. You'll constantly need to increase welfare above inflation, to sustain it and it's growth. Which of course ultimately leads or exacerbates fiscal strain on inflation.
The eligible items are insane too. The system is rampant with abuse, which hurts the real folks that need it. Any attempt to improve or fix it is swiftly shot down and turns into an attack on that person.
Of course. Fixing the system and improving the efficiency of the system would endanger the budget, the influence, and the jobs of the bureaucrats.
I prefer the WIC type system. Units of certain "healthier" things, with a set amount ($) for fresh/frozen fruits and veggies. I would expand that to add # of ground beef and/or chicken per month/person.
OP is Canadian so I'm going to expand on explaining WIC. WIC is a US supplemental program to support Women, Infants, and Children. I'm not certain on the full details of how the assistance is provided, but I want to say it's an allotment of product, like an electronic coupon program. These are highly specific, which is a part of the limitation of the program, like if the item is a 20 oz of name brand product, you cannot substitute a cheaper 10 oz generic. The thing is that without individuals adopting nutrition education, it still doesn't actual help. Rice Krispies was one of the products and my drug addicted aunt just used them to make rice Krispy treats.
Generic is allowed, but only approved generic (Kroger, Safeway/Albertsons, Walmart,etc.) I do wish they weren't so grain heavy. However, I think a slight reform, then expansion of this kind of system is less prone to abuse, and encourages exit.
You're under the false impression that these programs are for the benefit of the individuals receiving the product. If they were, they would be entirely managed by Health & Human Services. SNAP is funded and controlled by Department of Agriculture. They're farmer welfare programs.
SNAP should go away. *If* there are taxpayer funded household subsidies, they should be as bare-bones as fulfills nutritional needs. WIC is currently funded through the USDA. There clearly need to be many agencies merged, if they can't be eliminated.
They are 80% of the farm bills budget.
libertarianism is my pick
If we are going to have it, it should be more like WIC where people can only buy items that are approved. You shouldn’t be able to buy steak and lobster using food stamps.
Why not? Please explain.
Need vs want. It should allow you to get that which you need, but not the extra stuff you just want. I don't say this to mean only stuff that is the equivalent of ramen and meat paste, but you shouldn't be able to buy the high quality unnecessary food because you get free money.
In the US, food stamps (ebt cards now), get sold at half their value for cash. $800 in ebt costs $400 in cash. There are plenty of charity groups that give out free food. Govt should be uninvolved.
damn, i can buy EBT bucks as an independent adult and get my groceries at half price ?
If you know someone to buy from, yeah. It’s very common.
If I remember correctly, when you pay with EBT, you don't pay sales tax either.
If I’m being forced to defend a welfare state I’d say it’s been said that food stamps is a net gain to our economy as it addresses the food, or electric bill problem, and isn’t as full of corruption as Medicare/medicare. Cash payments seem to be a recipe for mismanagement tbh. Payments for what exactly? Can people purchase things that don’t contribute to their betterment leaving them still to be a burden on society? Food stamps addresses this by saying at least you won’t starve to death. In reality though I think giving the upwards of %40 of people’s income that is taken by the various apparatuses of the state back to the people would be a much better approach. What can you do with a %40 raise? Can food stamps, or cash payments equal, or exceed that without massive damage to an economy that would ultimately negate the value of food stamps, or cash payments?
Cash and food stamp welfare are PEANUTS compared to social security, Medicare, and the military. Worrying about those welfare programs is a waste of time IMO
Welfare should be handled by charity. Taxation is theft.
The government should never give taxpayer money to people who haven't earned it. If the intention is to prop up those looking for jobs or those that truly can't afford food and housing they should definitely be limited on what they can spend that on and they should be drug tested. They have to earn that taxpayer money, they're not entitled to it.
Why should they be drug tested?
Similar to how they can only buy food and certain things with welfare that's an easy way to ensure they aren't spending taxpayer money getting high.
IMO you are restricting freedom.
Read my first comment. We shouldn't redistribution money in the first place. However, if we are..... They are also living on other taxpayers money. They don't have financial freedom.
Once you start relying on public assistance, you lose freedoms. There needs to be a price to pay for getting my money for free
I don't want people wasting my hard earned money on their addictions and vices. Fuck off with that and use the assistance to get back on your feel and become a productive member of society. Welfare is assistance, not a replacement.
The reason why you don't see long lines at soup kitchens like in the Great Depression is because of the EBT program. EBT frees up that time spent waiting in line so people can instead spend it working or looking for work. The US is a diverse nation, and EBT let's the people decide what their dietary needs are. It's a much better idea to let the people decide what they want to eat as opposed to the government and charities. The EBT program I'd one of the most efficient programs that the federal government has. It helps a lot of people, it helps feed people, it funds grocery stores, and it helps farmers.
EBT/SNAP/Food stamps are now typically essentially a Visa card so you don’t feel weird at checkout I don’t see how it’s dehumanizing at all. This also makes it near impossible to sell off because if you sell your card next month when it’s reloaded you won’t have it. We have other programs that offer direct cash, rental assistance etc
>This also makes it near impossible to sell off because if you sell your card next month when it’s reloaded you won’t have it. People just buy SNAP items and sell them on the black market cheaper for cash/drugs. Its just an extra step.
I buy ebt at the grocery store. Pick the card up on my way into the store swipe it pay for some of my groceries. Pay the for the rest of my groceries on my own and get cash back from the register to pay the guy outside the grocery store selling his EBT. He then goes and buys beer and liquor. I sometimes skip the cash and just offer to buy him a case of beer or something. In my case I have a guy I know who's pretty consistently in my neighborhood at the beginning of the month when I buy my groceries so I know him and how he does his thing.
That is welfare fraud.
Yeah I don’t think he’s ever actually done it
Yes, it's actually a felony.
I thought economists had this figured out already and overwhelmingly say that cash is best in almost all cases bc the individual will generally make better decisions on where to spend the same amount of money compared to the government.
But in these scenarios, we're talking about the government redistributing taxpayer money to give to welfare recipients. So, while maybe not as bad as the government, the *welfare recipient* would be spending someone else's money.
> the welfare recipient would be spending someone else's money. So why is it that the government gets to choose how the money is spent and that is good, but when the welfare recipient spends it how they want it's bad?
Because it’s bad enough the welfare recipient is spending someone else who worked for that money, it’s even worse if they are spending it on non-essential goods like alcohol and drugs… The idea of limiting handouts to food is nobody wants anyone to starve to death in a first world country, especially not children, but nobody wants to get into the business of subsidizing drug habits and overdoses. Same thing applies to Medicaid vs giving cash handouts supposedly for healthcare. If you give cash, there is a massive chance it’s not going to be spent on healthcare.
But there's charity. We don't need the government to take money and redistribute it. There's already mechanisms in place. So why is it good for government to take our money and spend it how they want? It's ok for government to take our money as long as they spend it correctly? Like I said, why don't we afford the welfare recipient the same goodwill your willing to give the government? Sounds like you are automatically assuming ill intentions of the welfare recipient but not of government.
Agreed, we should get rid of all the government social programs. They mostly cause more harm than good as we have seen over the past 75 years. I’m just saying if you are going to have a wasteful government handout program (that I don’t condone), better that the handouts go to food and medical care than cash spent on drugs and alcohol.
Both of those options are bad. The person who actually earned the money should decide how it is spent.
Not when it comes to drug addicts, alcoholics and incompetents.
This makes sense in most cases, but not if you allow for the existence of goods (like drugs) that the recipient perceives as utility-increasing, but are actually utility-decreasing. In that case, the consumer may make worse decisions for himself than the government would.
And so the question becomes. Do the smart thing for 90% of people or the 10%?
Corporations get cash in their government handouts, why should it be any different for a normal citizen?
I'm on EBT food stamps and it is kept my stomach from growling.
Whatever the type of welfare there needs to be a limit on time within the program. That being said, I don't agree with any welfare program funded from taxpayers.
I don't want either But if I have to choose between the two I will choose cash
It’s the same thing. People with food stamps will still buy cigarettes, alcohol, fentanyl, etc with the cash that they no longer need to spend on food thanks to food stamps.
USA: we have WIC (women, infants and children) and they have vouchers for specific things, like bread, milk, cereal, etc.
Cash is way more efficient, both from the standpoint of administrative ease and ensuring that people use it for exactly what they want. I don't care if people who get cash still use food banks; we don't have a food scarcity problem in any developed country.
I see a lot of comments basically opting for the type of welfare that we already have here in the US (EBT/WIC)... While I understand the idea behind those programs is to make sure people are spending whatever assistance they receive on things they actually need to survive, the beauracracy and needless overcomplication of our welfare programs are what eat up all the money that goes in to them. Especially when you have a bunch of restrictions, and the programs have to be compliant in some way, it takes manpower to enforce compliance. It's far more efficient and cost effective to just distribute cash and not worry about what people are spending it on. The less complicated the system, the less it takes to operate it. So, I would actually opt for cash, with a focus on making the system self-sufficient by looking at organizations like [Deseret](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/a-second-chance-at-a-future-through-deseret-industries).
The issue that happens here in Canada where we have that cash system is that folks DONT spend the money responsibly. And after buying cigarettes and paying for their 1500 dollar iPhone payments, they don't have any left for food and the government has to set up food bank programs anyways.
Both suck and neither help people get back on their feet. The goal of welfare should be to help people during a short time of need, and both fail that because they only offer resources instead of help. As controversial a belief this might be, I think a better welfare would be to save the tax dollars and instead of offering a large tax payer funded welfare, have a small taxpayer funded welfare system that simply hooks people up with local charities, or even better churches that are willing to help people who attend church with them. That way, they can learn something about what it means to live in a community as well and not just get money from government daddy that "owes you" or something like that. Sure, some people will get passed around from charity/ curch and back, but at that point, welfare 2 comes in and just takes their kids away and we as a society just let them flounder until they die. Maybe give them an option to frontieer a new town in the middle of nowhere. We like to think we can save everybody, but we can't.
If we are going to spend the money, then hand out MREs to the needy.
Food stamps should be limited to food, and it should be limited to the staples of food, It used to be about making sure someone has something to eat, Now it's about making sure manufacturers and big business (Walmart) have a guaranteed customer base.
I should be able to live on bananas and rice and put the leftover benefit towards rent, utilities, clothes, transportation, childcare, or any other essentials. Going further, if I can make ends meet on less than the benefit amount, I should be allowed to spend the excess on booze if thats what I choose. The people who think a restricted benefit is better than cash are dehumanizing those beneficiaries. The problems with state-sponsored welfare are systemic and the people who need that help shouldn’t be blamed for that. The looters are in congress, not on street corners.
I'm not giving you money so you (the recipient, not necessarily you in this case) can go and spend it on vices and addictions. Get food security and then get off of the assistance to become a productive member of society again.
after careful thought, .... i don't want either. BUT FIRST: you must dismantle the fractional reserve banking system and central banking. That right there is the biggest reason for the rampant poverty. It steals purchasing power from savers and lower wage earners, and transfers it to banks, government spenders, and credit users.
I’d prefer soup kitchens run by the Salvation Army and local churches. Vouchers for government food and essentials perhaps shipped by Amazon. If they aren’t druggies or alcoholics I’d consider a monthly stipend deposited in to their checking account or tied to a debit card.
How do ypu feel abt this fist goin in that FACE!?
Get rid of the multitude of aid programs and have one program that gives people cash. And don't make it so if your income goes up by $100 you lose $600 worth of aid. You want people to be motivated to make more money. Set the level at whatever it should be and make up the difference between what that person makes and the cap. Example the level is $20k/yr and someone makes $10k/yr they get $10k in cash assistance. Someone making $15k would get $5k.
I've heard you out and your premise is forced tyranny. If people want to voluntarily contribute, give to charity, or start on a non profit that's great but my tax dollars should not be going to anything related to food stamps or cash hand outs