Letters: Strict about food stamps

Re “California no friend to food stamps,” Aug. 18

This sentence from the article: “It also has two clear consequences: Millions of Californians don’t get help, and the state leaves hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money on the table,” is a typical misrepresentation of how government works.

The money is not “federal money,” it is taxpayer money. It is not free; it comes from someone’s hard-earned wages or salaries.

It doesn’t just appear like manna from heaven.

Jim Toomey
Reseda

The writer of your article is amazed that liberal, magnanimous, Democrat California has such (overly) stringent qualifications for receiving taxpayer assistance in the form of food stamps. Fingerprinting, he notes, “is an exercise typically associated with criminals.” Actually, many of us noncriminal, taxpaying, legal residents and citizens are subjected to this exercise quite regularly — when we get a passport, driver’s license, notarization, mortgage, work in certain jobs or volunteer in our children’s schools.

The article considers proof of need “onerous paperwork.” Has he applied for a loan, gotten a building permit or filed a tax return lately? Or started a business?

Is it possible that the real issue isn’t being more lenient with government giveaways but rather finding ways to make those programs unnecessary, even if it means smaller government, fewer laws and less red tape for those of us who pay for government benevolence?

Mary Villar
Sherman Oaks

If California denies, say, $1 billion in food stamps, that is $1 billion that people cannot spend on other items.

With the multiplier effect, that could be many, many dollars not spent in California. How many fewer jobs are created here due to this policy?

Mike Schooling
San Diego

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