Quote Originally Posted by BananaStand View Post
Furthermore, this would DESTROY the rampant black market for food stamps. I wish I had numbers on this one because there is a massive population of drug addicts out there who sell their food stamps at a heavy discount for cash.

In other words, a person might buy $100 in food stamps from an addict for $50. Then he goes to the store and buys $100 worth of rib-eyes for himself, and it only cost him $50. If the food stamps themselves were rigged to only buy $X worth of rib-eyes....then there is no incentive to engage in this activity.
The market for this is a lot bigger than I think many people realize, particularly if they're not in the US. The standard rate is 2:1, so like you said, someone might take $50 for $100 worth of food stamps. This is a major issue with the current system that needs to be addressed, but ultimately, there's nothing that could really be done about it if they try hard enough.

For a simple example: The person with the food stamps could just meet someone who wants to buy X dollars of beef (or whatever), and they tell them what they want. They meet them outside of the store with the beef and pay them half of X, or whatever similar approach would work out.

Regardless, I think they should make it more difficult for this type of transaction to take place compared to the current system.

I've received text messages from people (sending to the wrong number) asking if I want to buy an EBT card. There are ads on Craigslist. You'll see people standing around outside of grocery stores doing the same thing asking people if they want to buy a card. The market is huge.