How much food and what quality? Do I get to ask for tomahawk steaks every meal and an extra one to bring home to my dog? Is everyone entitled to an avocado or just those that live close to an avocado farm? There is no easy answer to this and you bet a government mandated system would be heavily lobbied to include/exclude certain things. For housing, do you get to decide where you live? Or does the government set up a massive new settlement of block housing in the cheapest part of the country? Do I get to ask for an apartment close to my family or do they just add me to the next unit available?
We can argue about how many funds should be directed to certain programs, but SNAP and no taxes on food essentially is what you are suggesting while allowing for individual choice. Same for housing. The US basically gives your first house away for free which is part of the reason housing is so expensive.
This type of discourse seem to be more focused on affirming how this can't possibly work than on genuine interest in discussing the issue.
Imagine I propose that everyone should get access to free universal healthcare or education. You can make all these kinds of questions to defend how these things can't possible work and yet they do. Are these "perfect" in all instances? Of course not, but they are a net positive and much better than nothing.
The same can be implemented for the basic necessities. The best way to figure out what the really important questions are, is to implement a system and iterate on it.
Food stamps are degrading and paternalistic, though, by design. Their whole point is "we won't give you real money because we don't trust you to not misuse it."
Eh, there is a reason for this mistrust along with the limits on what you can buy with them in US. My wife used to work in Jewel and she has no end of stories about people and snap cards. Maybe they are paternalistic, because, well, you can't take care of yourself and your family. Little help is needed.
> Their whole point is "we won't give you real money because we don't trust you to not misuse it."
Their whole point is to ensure the money gets used on what it was intended for.
People don't want the "money for the poor" food stamps being used to give the wealthiest citizens a small discount on their Ferrari - which means you then have to start means-testing. In OP's original point, you might be able to give everyone food stamps to basic rice for example without means-testing (because the rich aren't going to worry about going out of their way to pick up a packet of cheap rice).
I mean we could just give money to people instead of bailing out corporations, that would be good enough by me. Or place strict conditions on corporate recipients of welfare. I'm just tired of news like this.
How much money to spend on a decent diet is much easier to ask than how many apples and, if the person wants to substitute apples, how many pears is that?
> How much food and what quality? Do I get to ask for tomahawk steaks every meal and an extra one to bring home to my dog?
You would get rice, lentils, beans, vegetables, grains, etc. The raw food ingredients to live a healthy lifestyle.
Nobody on this type of welfare would be entitled to “luxury food”.
> For housing, do you get to decide where you live?
This would be the toughest part of implementing this system, I think. Managing the demand for welfare housing on the regional level. Ideally you would just move to one of the several social housing complexes in your city, but managing capacity would be tough since it can take years to build new accommodations.
We can argue about how many funds should be directed to certain programs, but SNAP and no taxes on food essentially is what you are suggesting while allowing for individual choice. Same for housing. The US basically gives your first house away for free which is part of the reason housing is so expensive.