Food stamps?? This is a ghoulish position, morally, financially, and as a matter of policy.

We live in the richest country on planet earth and we eliminated child hunger here during COVID only to roll it back.

It's not even 1.5% of the budget currently. Compare this to our military adventurism budget.

Every $1 invested in SNAP generates $1.80 in economic activity, right now.

Children need food to grow up and be 'productive', even if you don't see value in human life and are captial-maxxing; This is an important program for creating excess productivity. The same is true of well funded public schools. A well-fed and educated populous is optimal by every public metric.

I doubt you are an actual member of the bourgeoisie, so I must conclude you just enjoy a starving and undereducated mass of parents and children you look down upon for their poor moral character?

Adults need food to be 'productive' as well. Adults that are not afraid that they are going to starve commit fewer crimes.

You want to 'save' some money? Eliminate means testing entirely and give every American have a baseline EBT card food budget per person in the household. No special virtuous food categories to make sure the poor know they are being watched. Just a monthly cash infusion spendable at all grocers.

This way, walmart and other mega-corps won't be able to scam the government by creating positions that force their workers onto these means tested programs and lock them there.

Not even remotely related to what the parent comment said.

You are arguing against a different argument than your parent. He implied that people using food stamps do not respect the effort it took to provide the food. You seem to be arguing whether food stamps are profitable.

Your implication that people when not given free food will starve and that your parent commenter wants people to starve is clear manipulation.

> I doubt you are an actual member of the bourgeoisie

I wouldn't be so sure of that on HN. (Also noting you're using the Marxist definition rather than the default dictionary definition, which is "middle class".)

A well-paid tech employee with a non-trivial amount of company stock is, strictly speaking, an "owner of the means of production". Even if you want to quibble with that, their interests are certainly well-aligned with that group - to the point that you generally won't hear a peep out of them as things get more and more dystopian, because of what Upton Sinclair observed, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

> I must conclude you just enjoy a starving and undereducated mass of parents and children you look down upon for their poor moral character?

It's much simpler than that. It's pure, unadulterated "I got mine and you ain't touchin' it". There's no real thinking that goes beyond that purely selfish position. The consequences aren't seriously considered, they're just taken as part of the natural order. Any causal connection is denied, rationalized by accusations of laziness, inferiority, etc.

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Seems you have good intention at heart and clearly care about people, and from my observation have some emotional processing and clearing to do to avoid sounding like you are lashing out at whoever internet stranger could fit your mold of comfort to emotionally dump on.

Have you considered channeling that energy into advocacy or volunteerism? I feel you'd like that.