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By Ari Armstrong, Westminster

To read various newspaper accounts of the Food Stamp Challenge, one would think that journalists have never looked around a grocery store or given much thought to nutrition on a budget.

The challenge asked politicians and public figures to eat on less than $3.57 per person per day in order to “prove” that tax spending on food stamps should be increased.

For example, a June 11 story in the Rocky Mountain News (“‘I couldn’t afford an onion’/Food stamp test leaves city exec hungry and tired”) states, “Roxane White, manager for Denver Human Services, said she went to bed hungry and was tired most of last week” while on the weeklong challenge. Yet we learn in the same article that White spent $5.46 on “7 instant soups” and $7.45 on “five prepacked frozen meals.” Why did the article fail to point out that instant soup and frozen dinners offer low nutrition for their cost?

Recently I’ve purchased a gallon of organic milk for $1, potatoes for 20 cents per pound, bananas for 25 cents per pound, and red-leaf lettuce for under $1 per pound. A 10-pound bag of dry pinto beens costs less than $7, I noticed.

My wife and I decided that we could each easily eat on less than $3 per day. We’re so confident about this that we’ve decided to do it for a full six months, not the mere week of the original challenge.

There is just one catch: For every dollar we come in under budget, supporters of increasing the food-stamp subsidy have to collectively pay $10 to a nonprofit of our choice. For more detailed rules, please see FreeColorado.com.

Both my wife’s family and my own had some financial difficulties when we were children. That didn’t stop my mom from providing her kids with good, nutritious meals. She told me that for a time she spent on groceries what in today’s dollars amounts to around $1 per person per day. My mom also pointed out that she’s observed food-stamp recipients load up on poor-quality foods like cookies and potato chips, and then spend their own cash on tobacco.

There is, of course, a broader issue here. What is the appropriate role of government-run welfare, if any? One side holds that income should be more evenly distributed by political force. I believe that individuals have a moral right to control their own income and associate voluntarily with others. Thus, I would like to see welfare phased out.

What is the appropriate way to help the poor, then? A free economy is a prosperous economy. Unfortunately, various economic controls, such as labor restrictions and protective tariffs, put some low-skilled workers out of a job and artificially increase the cost of some goods.

The poor pay a greater portion of their income to the Social Security tax than the rich do. True, most poor people soon gain the experience and knowledge to earn more money. Yet remaining legal barriers to their advancement should be removed.

Beyond that, voluntary charity is the best way to help those truly in need through no fault of their own. Voluntary charity respects the rights of donors, who are able to decide which charities are worthy of support. A dollar given in voluntary charity is more likely to be spent prudently than is a dollar taken by force for a tax program. Charities that must earn your donations have a better incentive to spend resources wisely.

On the narrow debate over food stamps, the Food Stamp Challenge hardly shows that food-stamp welfare should be increased. My wife and I are prepared to prove it.

Ari Armstrong, a resident of Westminster, edits the Colorado Freedom Report (freecolorado.com).

READER COMMENTS

Ari I would back your challenge but I KNOW you're going to win and I'm at poverty level myself. Go get them. And I share a Sam's card and a Costco card with other families so we all can save money as well as have room for a divided bag of flour etc. I also shop at a place called Colorado Share that has a monthly program anyone can participate in that provides a good quantity of wholesome food for twenty five dollars. Many of my friends go with me and we save a bundle.

On June 22, somebody posting under the name "[Repugnants are liars]" posted the libelous comment, "Oragnic [sic] milk for $1 a gallon is a lie."

An anonymous poster adds, "As already noted, $1/gallon for organic milk is incredible, in the true meaning of that word. The author shoots his credibility in the foot, so no suprise [sic] he's finding few takers for his self-designed 'challenge'."

I will post a photograph of the gallon of $1 organic milk on my web page (FreeColorado.com) later today (Sunday). I expect full apologies and retractions.

I do have a question for you cowards: Are you going to back the challenge, or do you plan to stick with your strategy of defamation of character?

By the way, I purchased all the items mentioned on mark-down at King Soopers.

Sincerely,
Ari Armstrong

AS already explained the low price for organic milk was a markdown. I have seen the same price at King Soopers in the past when the sell by date on the milk was almost up. Guess it's easier to just deny things than think. As for the wasteful spending by food stamp users just look the next time you shop. People who use the food stamp card often don't use sense. Buying a snack bag of chips is a luxury and all are entitled to some form of that. But it takes only a few seconds of thought to buy a big bag of chips that will give many servings rather than one serving. That is the problem because you will see many using poor judgement and that reduces the food they get and the nutrition they receive. Isn't the food stamp program supposed to be about nutrition?

Now , since you seem to think that those advocating good sense in shopping are all wrong, what would you do to break the cycle of dependency and the bad nutrition that is the result of the present program?

...My mom also pointed out that she’s observed food-stamp recipients load up on poor-quality foods like cookies and potato chips, and then spend their own cash on tobacco....

A regular Woodward and Bernstein bit of investigative journalism...using one's mom as a source...check out this "publisher's" website for the full 'story' and direct quotes from mommy.

As already noted, $1/gallon for organic milk is incredible, in the true meaning of that word. The author shoots his credibility in the foot, so no suprise he's finding few takers for his self-designed 'challenge'.

coupon clipper

Yes some on food stamps don't waste. Problem is the program encourages it. Requirements for learning good food habits are not any part of the program. Sometimes the program works. The problem is that many aren't using it for a help or for something to tide them over. They use it as a crutch. The reason I say this so loudly is I have a sister who was on welfare for 10 years and on food stamps for 15. She bought frozen food dinners, fast cook items, chips, cookiies and lots of soft drinks. She used the welfare money for cigarettes and lottery tickets. She would go hungry rather than buy marked down food and she never learned how to cook anything more complicated than jar sauce spaghetti. She moved from her mother's house to her husbands's house had three children and then was abandoned by her husband and moved back to momma's house. She has never supported herself. She currently is not employed but she has to take care of my invalid mother which is a full time job. Of course she still doesn't know how to cook. Her three children, one 24, one 21 and a 13 year old live there too. They all live on my mother's pension and the child support my sister's husband is still catching up on.
The boys come over to my house every few weeks to help me out with cleaning and heavy yard work. They never ask for money but always ask me to cook for them. Our budget here is limited so the fanciest food is usually a large pork roast or some beef chuck cubed and stewed with vegetables. I probably spend less per person than she does if I count only the money she spends on her 13 year old. Reason I mention this? My sister didn't have to learn to save money, get a job or do anything productive for ten years. She then worked for four years before my mother needed her home full time.

Her two oldest sons didn't graduate from high school even though both had good grades. Neither of them is working and LEAP denied her help because the boys could work and contribute and none of them have jobs except the 13 year old. They learned they don't have to work so they don't.
This is why welfare is bad for people. When it becomes a way of life those on it don't grow.
My mother tried for years to teach my sister to use good shopping and cooking skills. She would rather sit at the kitchen table and watch soap operas than learn anything. Stage is set for another generation that sees nothing wrong with living off of others. So who was really helped?

People that get food stamps get a bad rap...
There's a lot of people that shop wise take time to cook nutricius meals, they buy meat on sale..a big chunk..cut it up and seperate it ,freeze it and use it for different meals.same with a bag of potatoes..they also go to the store and buy sale only. You don't have to buy outdated items...or have to live off food banks tuna,mac'n'chz ,and beef
stew..Homemade is easy..if you're concerned of decent meals. Living off spagetti and baking bread isn't good for diabetics. There's veg,fruit,oatmeal,with 1/2teas cinn to lower blood sugar, and beans of al kinds. People who have food stamps get critiziced alot for buying chips for a sandwich or a pack of cookies. I'm sure Aris mom who observed that family buying cookies and chips don't live off it. Probly was a little treat. So, don't be a hater Ari.
Crock pots are used also for good meals.
and Organic milk ? Bananas 25cents. let us know.

[40acres] "Behind the Cotton Curtain"- seek help asap for your bigotry, lack of education and overall stupidity.
You make the case for an ignorant black man like no other commenter that I have seen excluding jay whom I believe is white albeit trash.

Aaron and others,

Those prices are the markdowns available in every store. You just have to know to look when you shop. No, the price won't be that low everday but it is like the markdown on the meat in the case. I have purchased extra rich buttermilk for 7 cents a quart because it was marked down at King Soopers. Many times we just pick up the items we are accustomed to buying without looking at the other items in the store. Trying to get that price every day isn't possible that is why you have a flexible shopping list. I bought raspberries for a dollar a pint last week. This week they aren't on sale.

In every store there is a markdown section where food is available at reduced prices. It might not be what you want but there is almost always something usable.

Denying that price reductions exist doesn't address the subject of welfare being better thatn private help.

Oragnic milk for $1 a gallon is a lie.

Where?

When is the last time you saw a skinny poor person?

The best way to lower the costs of welfare, is to simply remove Mormons from the rolls. Clinton stripped blacks from the welfare rolls, but he forgot the Mormons. US Sen. Reid (Mormon) stated he would investigate the Mormons.

I often wonder if the staggering sum of campaign funds ($25 million) raised by Mitt Romney, is in reality, public welfare monies. Back when I was kid, "Behind the Cotton Curtain", white welfare workers would terrorize us by coming to our home and investigate us like they were the Gestapo.

WHITE HOUSE "MORMON" FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE: President Boy-George and Billie Mae Owens, created a major local "cash-cow", just for the Mormon Church. The Fitzsimons redevelopment project was a windfall for the Mormons and an economic lynching (water-boarding) for black disabled Vietnam veterans. Former UCH and UCDHSC President/CEO Dennis Brimhall, was the project and program manager for this project.

Brimhall with the assistance of Mayor Tauer, Forest Cason, James Shore (draft-dodgers), and our bipartisan state legislative body, took all of the plum jobs and contracts in this prject, which were federally funded, and gave them to business owners, who are members of Denver's Mormon Church community. The SLC Mormon Church was so pleased with Brimhall's and his posse's, fraud, waste, and abuse of federal funds, that upon his retirement from UCHand UCDHSC, they appointed him as their new Director, International Mormon Missions. This club was also a NAM sanctuary for Uncle Mitty too.

US senators Allard/Salazar (draft-dodgers) have totally ignored the plight of black disabled Vietnam veterans and how our federal job and contracting preferences were "vaporized" at Fitz, by Mormons (racist freak-a-zoids). The SLC elder called us "black devils", and stated we couldn't get into Heaven, unless we remain slaves, however, these "freak-a-zoids" have no problem stealing our "blood-loot".

Please tell me where to get organic milk for $1/gallon. Pretty please? Same for bananas at $.25/lb...

Aaron

Ari you are so right. Too often people complain about the poor being hungry but don't want to look at the reasons.
A reason both sides will cite is time.
It is quicker and easier to cook frozen meals and instant soups. Putting leftover vegetables and meat scraps in a pot to make soup takes time and knowledge. Cooking from scratch can take two hours a day. We can share the knowledge but the proponents of welfare claim that the time isn't there for the poor because they have to spend it working.
So do those not on welfare. Asking the poor to spend time is considered insensitive.
Now we come to your main proposal: public versus private welfare.
The government claims too many will not get help with only private entities helping. Others claim that there is so much waste in a public system that there is plenty of room for the truly needy. Both sides have merit but the center of the argument is the mandatory nature of public welfare. We have no choice about giving and, from personal experience, those who qualify are hounded to participate in every possible way. We are poverty level because we are raising my grand daughter and her medical needs are greater than our insurance used to be able to cover so she was on medicaid for the first year. That year I got a monthly call reminding me we qualifed for food stamps and perhaps more if we would only apply. We let her coverage lapse when we got better insurance. We still get calls begging us to apply for the benefits (as a grand child living with low income grand parents she qualifies for medicaid, a full monlthly allotment of food stamps and a housing credit none of which we want) she is "entitled" to receive. We want her to learn that money comes from a paycheck not a mailbox.
It would be much better to go back to the original proposal that was turned into the food stamp program.
Originally the proposal was that existing grocery stores would supply a package containing dried milk powder, peanut butter, dried beans, canned vegetables and (I'm guessing on this one) vegetable shortening. There would be no qualifying, no questions and no cost. The contents of the package would vary slightly with the canned vegetables but would provide good nutrition. The government would contract with private companies to provide the packages. It was seized upon as a way to help the Anerican farmer. When the politicians were done it was food stamps. At first a family would get a flat dollar amount per person and would have to buy their stamps on a sliding scale. After several scandals concerning missing money and news reports of people turned away because they were a few dollars short of their payment, the government decided to merely adjust the amount of food stamps. Now we have fancy little plastic cards and billions of dollars spent to feed people. And many claim too many are hungry.
So what is the purpose of the food stamp program? If it is to feed people it works a little. But there are still food banks. Would the food banks have more food if the government took less money from people? Who would lose out if the government stopped paying welfare?
Perhaps it would be the five guys hanging out by the front of my local grocery store offering to buy my groceries for me in return for a cash payment equal to half of the total. (I don't see some of them since I called Social Services but three of them are still there the first of every month.)
Your experiment of having people live on food stamp budgets is informative. Lets get more informed. Find the statistics for how much help food stamps and other welfare programs are supposed to "help" people and compare it to your own income after taxes. Then lets try to join Ari and her friends in growing a system of helping out instead of handing out.

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