The problem with restricting what items can be purchased with food stamps is the complications which would arise for grocers & what have you. As most grocery stores have such dramatic diversity of products stocked, it’s simply subdivided into various groups for various reasons, one of which is – simply – “groceries”, with a few subdivisions such as dairy, fresh produce, etc. To require further subdivisions, which would be in constant flux due to the inevitable revisions which would take place the Government & constant changes in stock, this would likely result in a cluster****. Whether or not the push-button-monkeys who work as cashiers at grocery stores have the mental capacity to remember an ever fluctuating list of what is questionable, but I doubt they’ve the inclination. So it’d have to be automated somehow, but I dunno how feasible that’d be considering the how much the administration of these programs is left up to individual states….
Then there’s the whole issue of how programs like these end up benefitting, you know, multinational corporations –
link, that’s from the liberal viewpoint, but it gets the gist across.
Regarding abusing foodstamps – it’s stupidly easy and the amount of money you can get from it is retarded. In Montana you’ve no dependents, you don’t even have to bring in a bank statement or what have you – and you can get two hundred a month, for
one person. Seriously, the only real deterrent to abusing food stamps is the threat of bureaucracies working together, which is to say there is no real deterrent.