Comment by xp84
2 days ago
Honestly when it comes to SNAP there's no good answer that achieves all of the reasonable policy goals ('make sure the kids have something to eat', and 'avoid wasting benefit money on crap')
You can replace it with cash aid, and there's a good chance a good chunk of recipients will spend most of it on drugs, lottery tickets, or alcohol while the kids go hungry.
On the other hand, you can have the way it is now, where the same kind of person who would do the above, sells $200 worth of SNAP benefits to whatever corrupt bodega owner in exchange for $100 to spend on drugs, lottery tickets, or alcohol while the kids go hungry.
In both situations the government is spending $200 to buy the poor harmful vices. We're just choosing between fraudster shop owners getting a cut, or the addict being able to buy twice as much malt liquor.
And in case it isn't clear, I don't think the majority of SNAP recipients sell their benefits or don't feed their kids. But the responsible group, well, it makes little difference to them whether they have EBT or cash aid as they're going to buy food anyway.
> We're just choosing between fraudster shop owners getting a cut, or the addict being able to buy twice as much malt liquor.
I don't agree with these zero friction in a vacuum takes. Difficulty in access does shape choices, a lot in fact.
If you make it easier for people to use handouts to gamble or do drugs or whatever then more people will do it and ones doing it will do more of it. This isn't even a take its the null hypothesis.
The null hypothesis could just as easily be if they get a 1:1 dollar exchange rate versus a 1:2 rate on their food stamps, they can afford to buy drugs AND food instead of just drugs. Guess which one they buy if they can only buy one? Guess what they are incentivized to do if they have less cash than they need on hand to do both? I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with teal.