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Why would "the government" do that? I hate it when people talk about "the government" doing something. The real mechanics you'd see in your example is that the

Why would "the government" do that? I hate it when people talk about "the government" doing something. The real mechanics you'd see in your example is that the business elite would begin astroturfing support from the American public, with some nonsense about helping the poor better control their finances. Nobody would believe it, and progressives would be against it. In reality it will be driven by the commercial desire to FORCE people to purchase coca cola or whatever.

Galatians4_16 2y ago
You can think of it in terms of political parties, if it helps. "The Democrats would never do that" then Republicans pass the bill, and the Democrats protest, but run with it and don't abolish it when back in power… Swap parties as required for your flavour of government.
dghlsakjg 2y ago
The government already does this. SNAP, colloquially foodstamps, can only be used on certain forms of food. Frozen goods are fine, but cannot be prepared hot, even if there is not a charge or it is the exact same food product. So my local corner grocery is allowed to sell anyone frozen food, whether they pay with SNAP or cash. But they also have a microwave that anyone can use to heat up purchased food, except for SNAP buyers. It is interpreted as unlawful for a SNAP recipient to use that microwave to heat up their subsidized food at the place that they bought it, so there is a government policy, enforced at the point of sale, severely restricting the use of SNAP.
- bear141 2y ago
  Requiring people who get government money for food to not use it on prepared food is a good thing I would think. Technicalities like the one you presented do seem ridiculous on their own however.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    If you're so poor that you can't afford food, what are the chances that you have access, time, and ability to turn ingredients into meals every time you need to eat. I'm totally fine with a person on SNAP using it to get a hot or prepared meal if that's what they need. We have already decided to allocate the resource to them for the purpose of buying food, why does it matter if they spend it on a premade sandwich instead of a frozen burrito.
- yfw 2y ago
  This is all seen as acceptable but try tying a tax break to hiring or investment and you'll hear screams from the stock buyback board
- gosub100 2y ago
  It's meant to prevent side hustles like buying Big Macs and selling them for cash.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    Sure, but it also prevents poor people without access to a kitchen from having hot food. Do we even know that people reselling hot food would be more of a problem than people reselling cold food? Wouldn't it just be easier to review the transaction data and detect patterns of actual fraud? Is the cost of doing any of this actually lower than the cost of fraud?
    - Galatians4_16 2y ago
      Exactly. Poor people are then forced to burn stuff to make heat, which often releases carbon dioxide, unlike clean burning methods using magnetrons.
      - gosub100 2y ago
        Forced to? No.
- delusional 2y ago
  This was actually a fascinating research topic for me, because I can only agree that it seems arguably hostile or at least silly and backwards. I found that the provision in question. The part of the bill defining "food" as "any food except hot food" was actually from the rewriting in 1977, where it was added to (and this comes from a single second hand source) supposedly ensure fair competition with fast-food joints that can't accept foodstamps. To me, nothing indicates that the intention of the government officials was to restrict the choices of recipients, but rather to ensure fair competition. One member, along with a few (maybe two) supporters even bring up the idea of restricting choice based on "nutritional value", but the others tear it down calling it wrongheaded and administratively impossible (my words). This is interesting because what we don't see is a majority of the house that is OK with restricting choice for the subjects own good, or for some notion of health. Instead we actually see members very hostile to the idea of restricting choice based on "health". The path for such members to accept a restriction anyway is by putting it against something they value more, the fair competition of the free market. The people who are restricted by the "hot food" limitation is not the recipients of snap, it is the store owners, who are supposed to be banned from competing with KFC.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    In 1977 I can believe it as an anti competitive thing. Today though, there's plenty of legislators who are happy, and vocal, to keep something like this there out of a paternalistic spite towards the poor.
    - delusional 2y ago
      The house has actually introduced legislation to remove the "hot food" part. It's been referred to a subcommittee of the Agriculture committee, but I can't find any hint that they've even discussed it. I've actually struggled to find any evidence that the subcommittee has discussed anything. I agree with you that it seems likely that some legislators would fight to keep it with some bad arguments, but right now they haven't even had to make those bad arguments because nobody is pushing it. The conclusion I can draw is that nobody cares about it. It was included for free market reasons and kept around because nobody gave a shit.
StackRanker3000 2y ago
I don’t really understand your point. The United States Congress, and the executive branch, they never do anything, to the point where you find it absurd to suggest that they would? Everything is done by the ”business elite”?
- delusional 2y ago
  That would indeed be a bad point, and basically a conspiracy theory. I do not believe that. My point is that "The Government" is not a singular hivemind, and can't be meaningfully analyzed as such. There are people, those people operate as part of The Government, but any analysis cannot be separated from the person or their affiliations. Saying "The Government did X" only leads to the misunderstanding that "X" wouldn't have happened without The Government. In reality, "The Government" was the hammer that person "A" used to do "X". Had he not had that hammer, he could have used another.

Galatians4_16 2y ago

You can think of it in terms of political parties, if it helps. "The Democrats would never do that" then Republicans pass the bill, and the Democrats protest, but run with it and don't abolish it when back in power… Swap parties as required for your flavour of government.

dghlsakjg 2y ago

The government already does this. SNAP, colloquially foodstamps, can only be used on certain forms of food. Frozen goods are fine, but cannot be prepared hot, even if there is not a charge or it is the exact same food product. So my local corner grocery is allowed to sell anyone frozen food, whether they pay with SNAP or cash. But they also have a microwave that anyone can use to heat up purchased food, except for SNAP buyers. It is interpreted as unlawful for a SNAP recipient to use that microwave to heat up their subsidized food at the place that they bought it, so there is a government policy, enforced at the point of sale, severely restricting the use of SNAP.

bear141 2y ago
Requiring people who get government money for food to not use it on prepared food is a good thing I would think. Technicalities like the one you presented do seem ridiculous on their own however.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  If you're so poor that you can't afford food, what are the chances that you have access, time, and ability to turn ingredients into meals every time you need to eat. I'm totally fine with a person on SNAP using it to get a hot or prepared meal if that's what they need. We have already decided to allocate the resource to them for the purpose of buying food, why does it matter if they spend it on a premade sandwich instead of a frozen burrito.
yfw 2y ago
This is all seen as acceptable but try tying a tax break to hiring or investment and you'll hear screams from the stock buyback board
gosub100 2y ago
It's meant to prevent side hustles like buying Big Macs and selling them for cash.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  Sure, but it also prevents poor people without access to a kitchen from having hot food. Do we even know that people reselling hot food would be more of a problem than people reselling cold food? Wouldn't it just be easier to review the transaction data and detect patterns of actual fraud? Is the cost of doing any of this actually lower than the cost of fraud?
  - Galatians4_16 2y ago
    Exactly. Poor people are then forced to burn stuff to make heat, which often releases carbon dioxide, unlike clean burning methods using magnetrons.
    - gosub100 2y ago
      Forced to? No.
delusional 2y ago
This was actually a fascinating research topic for me, because I can only agree that it seems arguably hostile or at least silly and backwards. I found that the provision in question. The part of the bill defining "food" as "any food except hot food" was actually from the rewriting in 1977, where it was added to (and this comes from a single second hand source) supposedly ensure fair competition with fast-food joints that can't accept foodstamps. To me, nothing indicates that the intention of the government officials was to restrict the choices of recipients, but rather to ensure fair competition. One member, along with a few (maybe two) supporters even bring up the idea of restricting choice based on "nutritional value", but the others tear it down calling it wrongheaded and administratively impossible (my words). This is interesting because what we don't see is a majority of the house that is OK with restricting choice for the subjects own good, or for some notion of health. Instead we actually see members very hostile to the idea of restricting choice based on "health". The path for such members to accept a restriction anyway is by putting it against something they value more, the fair competition of the free market. The people who are restricted by the "hot food" limitation is not the recipients of snap, it is the store owners, who are supposed to be banned from competing with KFC.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  In 1977 I can believe it as an anti competitive thing. Today though, there's plenty of legislators who are happy, and vocal, to keep something like this there out of a paternalistic spite towards the poor.
  - delusional 2y ago
    The house has actually introduced legislation to remove the "hot food" part. It's been referred to a subcommittee of the Agriculture committee, but I can't find any hint that they've even discussed it. I've actually struggled to find any evidence that the subcommittee has discussed anything. I agree with you that it seems likely that some legislators would fight to keep it with some bad arguments, but right now they haven't even had to make those bad arguments because nobody is pushing it. The conclusion I can draw is that nobody cares about it. It was included for free market reasons and kept around because nobody gave a shit.

StackRanker3000 2y ago

I don’t really understand your point. The United States Congress, and the executive branch, they never do anything, to the point where you find it absurd to suggest that they would? Everything is done by the ”business elite”?

delusional 2y ago
That would indeed be a bad point, and basically a conspiracy theory. I do not believe that. My point is that "The Government" is not a singular hivemind, and can't be meaningfully analyzed as such. There are people, those people operate as part of The Government, but any analysis cannot be separated from the person or their affiliations. Saying "The Government did X" only leads to the misunderstanding that "X" wouldn't have happened without The Government. In reality, "The Government" was the hammer that person "A" used to do "X". Had he not had that hammer, he could have used another.