Buying Crab Legs with Food Stamps

Food Stamp Frenzy

You've heard the stories, right? People standing in line at the supermarket, pushing carts filled with expensive cuts of meat and crab legs, paying for their bounty with food stamps. Maybe you read about it on Fox Nation. Maybe you heard Louis Gohmert railing about it. (Caveat: Louis Gohmer is a certifiable idiot.) Maybe you even saw this response to what Louis had to say.

Here's the thing:. All of those stories are anecdotal. They all happened to a "friend of a friend" or it's "a story I've heard time and time again." There never is any direct documentation, never any filmed evidence of someone buying filet mignon with their SNAP card. And nobody ever thinks to wonder just how the food stamp recipient manages to pay for fancy food items, like king crab legs, out of an allotment that averages $4.50 per day. (I suppose the common assumption is that food stamp recipients get a credit card with which they can charge anything they want, at any price.) Frequently, these people paying with food stamps have "nice clothes," or maybe "cell phones," and even "nice cars." And, naturally, things like that fly in the face of our requirement that anyone seeking federal assistance must first divest themselves of all worldly possessions and must dress only in second-hand clothes.

The next time you hear something like this, hold your hand up in the universal "Stop!" position and yell, loudly, "BULLSHIT!" The next time you read something like this, head straight for the comments section and post "BULLSHIT!" And then post this link: http://goo.gl/0UBt4. You probably won't change any minds; preconceived notions are the hardest things in the world to dispel. But you can at least try.