Las Vegas Mayor Living On Food Stamps

“The biggest thing I’ve noticed is my cognitive skills have diminished,” Livingston said. “It takes me a longer time to process things.”…………………………………………So is she saying poor people are stupid?

The spokesperson for the Las Vegas Food Bank made that statement. Not the mayor.

Glad to see out mayor doing something for us people of Las Vegas

Gal in front of me got 2 Red Bulls and a pack of gum….out came the EBT card. Can she survive on that for a day, or is there a whole lot of fraud and lying going on?

Jim, I really think you need to be minding your own business. What is it to you if she bought Red Bull and a pack of gum and why were you eyeing what came out of her wallet anyway? Stop being so nosy…

La la la la loooo If us bears don’t eat we get dizzy and light headed too.. seriously. I wonder how the senior citizens can make it on 13.00 a month on food stamps or 16.00 a month on foodstamps..They are supposed to get at least 16.00 a month and a lot of them dont even get that. How does the government expect people to live on even 200.00 per month in foodstamps?? Okay 200.00 a month is better than 16.00 a month but..that is the most foodstamps available to women with children.. or to those who dont have an income. ugh..

“They were NEVER meant to be the entire food budget.” What happens to a family that went from a good, well-earned income to a part-time is all the work I can get income? What happens when there is a seasonality to that income with 1-2 month gaps where there is no money coming in and the state says you don’t qualify for unemployment to cover the gap? Food stamps have gotten my family through some devastating changes since the economy tanked and my job went with it 3 years ago, and yes, some months it is the only source of buying food that we had. It’s hard to only use food stamps to supplement the family food budget when there is no budget there to supplement.

@VIC: I agree about restricting certain items. Its ridiculous that some of us have to learn to budget meals for ourselves or families while others get to splurge on junk food like candies, chips, or soda.

Isn’t SNAP supposed to be a “nutrition assistance program”? Then, like WIC, they should only offer healthy options. They gov. needs to step up cuz we are getting taken advantage of.

Vic, judge not, lest ye be judged. While I generally tend to agree that food stamp use should be restricted to healthy food options, I also resent the hell out of people who feel they have the right to micro-manage what other people buy/eat just because they are “on welfare”.

When my late husband became disabled several years ago due to a genetic condition diagnosed late in life, we went on food stamps for a while. 99.9% of what I bought was healthy groceries to cook from scratch, and even THEN some gave me the stink-eye because I bought something THEY felt was extravagant (whole grain pasta or bread instead of white, which cost more; fresh fruits and veggies instead of canned or frozen, etc..)

I REALLY got some dirty looks the day I bought a bag of M&Ms, a 2 liter soda, and a quart of ice-cream. For my 6 yr. old daughter’s birthday party (at our home, and for which I made the cake from scratch, and topped it with the M&Ms). They had no way of knowing that my purchases were a rare treat for a little girl whose dad was dying and who really wanted to have a party with her friends and be able to have soda and ice-cream and “the works”.

For all you know, that woman you saw also spent 99.9% of her EBT funds on “groceries for her family/herself”. Maybe she had a job interview and needed the pick-me-up and fresh breath. Or maybe it was just a rare treat (we ALL need them). The thing is, you DON’T know, and maybe shouldn’t be so eager to dictate or condemn (or ask the government to).

And FTR, both my late husband and I worked most of our lives, even owning 2 small businesses, and paid our taxes. For a brief period, we needed to get some BACK in the form of public assistance during a time of crisis. We were spending OUR tax money as much as we were spending YOURS.

My family was on food stamps for four years, also welfare, due to a severe mental illness in my husband, who I was caretaking. We would go to Erie, PA to Erie County Farms. Chicken wings–.15 a pound, pork chops were cheap, a chunk of mozzarella lasted us all month for pizzas, and pasta. And of course, we always bought our share of canned tomatoes and boxes of macaroni. Big can of tomatoes, and a box of macaroni can be a meal when you are broke. We went home past the day old bread store and we did pretty good. Also a lot of my neighbors were deer poachers, poaching to eat. So every once in awhile, I would go out the front door and find a deer back leg on my porch. I’d pick it up, bring it in and cut it up for the freezer. It can be done. But it takes friends, bulk food stores and no packaged foods.

So, is the mayor promoting the expansion of the welfare state by saying food stamps should be more rewarding for people? Aye ya aye! Get an education, hold off having children until you are married with steady income. Do those 2 or 3 things and you are much less likely to ever be forced onto welfare. We need a small and limited social safety net, but this is getting out of control. Coincidentally, the article fails to mention that food stamp enrollees have increased 46% under Obama. When asked about this, Obama bragged by saying (paraphrasing) that we are working hard to get people signed up. Liberals have an interesting view of compassion: if you make someone dependent on you, thats the liberal version of compassion.

I’d love to see every politician in DC be put on the same regimen for a month. If nothing else it would teach them humility. Plus, I’m sure most could afford to lose a few pounds.

I commend her for at least making an effort to understand what the poor suffer through on a DAILY basis and without an END IN SIGHT. I also hope she does something with the info she has learned about how it diminishes cognitive thinking…because had she stayed on it at least a year, she would have also learned that it also diminishes a LOT more then just thinking, but motor skills, energy levels, emotional and psychological behavior…but then again no one would want to suffer those symptoms by choice now would they?!

There are so many judgemental comments here, about folks on assitance, it’s amazing. I have never seen so much self rightous harrumphing.

If you have never needed food stamps, consider yourselves lucky. If you need them, use them wisely. If you see someone using an EBT card, mind your own business. The right wingers love to say they are all for freedom and liberty, but want to know what’s going on in your bedroom, your lady parts, and now a persons food stamps. I pay taxes, and I think we need to feed people that can’t afford to feed themselves.

“Let’s give the government servants free food, free housing, free medical care, free cell phone service, free education and free transportation. Then they will vote for us to be re-elected. After all, we are using the taxpayer’s money and getting paid well to do so. The bureaucrats needed to run all this free programming will also owe us their vote”, said the wiley politician to his/her politically correct teacher’s union lobbiest. Keep this plan secret and it just might work.

I am a mother of 4 with a full time job making $30,000 a year. For all of you who self righteous ignorant finger pointers out there. Five years ago I paying that same amount $30,000 in taxes for the business I owned. Now in the current economy I need some of MY tax dollars back to help feed my children. There are times I do splurge on special items, but for the for thousands of dollars I and my family have put in it is MY money coming back to me.

To those of you so very critical of people who are using the program: Do you think the same things of the military member with a family who is eligible for “welfare”, as you call it? Are they lazy? Are they taking advantage of the system? Just wondering.

Not sure what state you live in, but redbull and gum cannot be purchsed with a SNAP foodstamp card in Illinois… Can’t purchase energy drinks, deli items, ready to eat or reheat foods…

That being said my husband, daughter and I live on about $400 per month in groceries by couponing and planning meals around what is on sale. But I also have a vehicle to go to multiple stores and we live in an area with plenty of choices to shop at.

A ten pound bag of chicken is at %59cents per pound, rice about $2.00 a bag, in the bargain stores canned goods are about 33-50cents a can…dried beans are delicious when flavored with a little low cost pork, and nutritious, bread, here in the bargain store is 99cents a loaf, during harvest season, vegetables, grown in your own yard or bought from the side of the road are available for next to nothing, we find that our neighbors give us more than we can manage to eat…A ham, is economical and provides a handsome meal, then sandwiches, omelets, and with the bone ham and beans or ham and cabbage…many meals from one piece of meat….With careful planning, coupons and buying in season and on sale, you can feed your family well on food stamps….

Our mayor is just one big publicity stunt after another. Ask her what she has ever done for the poor or homeless here in Vegas other than shoo them out of the way. This organization is one of the best in town so I’m glad they’re getting publicity, but, the Mayor is a fraud.

So one week on a program that is there for those who need it. Who is paying for the week long experiment of the mayor? Who was denied their benefit so she could partake in a useless abuse of the progrm? Is this considered fraud because she clearly does not meet the requirements of recieving the benefits. Somebody has got to pay for it! Our tax dollars pay here salary so if she is paying for then WE are paying for it! This insane abuse of spending OUR money on wasteful ideas has got to stop! What is next twoo week vacation to an exotic location to determin if suntan lotion works in that climate?

Before these programs existed people survived by finding odd jobs, gardening, canning, hunting, and as a LAST resort charity. Families and communities pulled together and took pride in doing so. Then these programs came into existence, charity became manditory in the form of taxes, and families and communities fell apart. The people working hard for the money were given no real say in how it was spent. Politicians realized that by increasing benifits and relaxing the restrictions on whom could get them they could get reelected. The sad fact is that these people are being use by a government that has a vested interest in KEEPING them in need of got. assistance to the eventual destruction of the country. At some point the amount going to these programs will exceed the amount those who are producing it will be able to bear. This is exactly what is happening in Greece today. Is this what we want for our country?

that’s why you have a bunch of kids, because they EACH get more gubment aid – good stamps, transpo, stipends, housing allowances, free clothes.
more kids = more dole!

To all the people who are lumping all food stamps recipients as LAZY. What about all the elderly and disabled who have paid into the system all of their lives and are left to live on a measly ssi or ssdi check? Is it their fault they make too little to purchase food and must rely on food stamps? Many of the elderly and disabled don’t have the luxury of being able to work to supplement their food stamp allotment. These are the people who are stuck living on $4.03 cents per day for food.

I myself am disabled and live on Social Security benefits. I am unable to do any work to try and make a little extra here and there. As most know, the SSDI benefits aren’t very good. My 28 year old mentally retarded son who is unable to work also lives with me. His Social Security benefits are cut in half because of the fact he lives with someone, yet he is unable to live on his own. Yet when I applied for food stamps here in PA, I was approved for an entire $16 a month. Most months, by the middle of the month, I have no money left in the bank. Personally I think they should put all the government officials (local and federal) onto the same amount of pay as a person gets when they are on Social Security and also the same insurance as Medicare. Then lets see them survive on what they say we all should be able to survive on.

since when were food stamps suppose to cover someones entire food bill? The stamps are to suppliment someones food supply, not be the total amount spent. Typical liberal thinking that the government should provide everything for people.