[derefr]

I think the suggestion is that we can afford to oversubscribe a program like this, because it'd be a guarantee that you'd be able to eat (i.e. food on demand), not a push-based delivery of the resources (money/food stamps/etc.) required to be able to eat, that people would then feel that they "should" use up, thus using less of their own money.

Any American who didn't take advantage of a demand-driven food supply program on a given month, wouldn't be costing the program anything. It just means that they'd be able to instantly access food when in need, without first qualifying into the program.

Think less "food cash" (like food stamps essentially are), and more "no-limit food credit card" (with the government as the account holder.) You'd just go into a grocery store and buy whatever, and if you couldn't afford it, you'd pay for it with the food credit card (= the government would pay for it.) But if you don't use the card, it isn't accruing or expiring a balance. It's just there, waiting to be used.

One can think of this another way, with a different moral color but the same in-practice effects: imagine if they made shoplifting from grocery stores legal (i.e. every grocery store is now also required to act as a food bank), and the government promised to pay the store back for any shoplifting-related shrinkage. That's essentially what this program would be, except with the store able to track inventory through the till, since the food would still be being "purchased."

[leetcrew]

are you envisioning some mechanism to prevent people from having filet mignon and caviar every night for dinner? I'm not poor, but my grocery purchases would change a lot if I didn't have to pay for it myself.

[harimau777]

Presumably we could come up with some sort of middle ground policy. For example, there could be certain foods that are excluded from the system or maybe only certain products are included. Or perhaps different products could use up more of a person's "food credits".

[ryanbrunner]

This is basically Cuba's policy (well, Cuba in better times, their rationed food has decreased massively in quantity over time). Everyone has an allotment of basic staples (rice, beans, limited meat, coffee, etc.) that covers your basics with little / no extravagance, or you can go to a grocery store for a wider variety.

[derefr]

I think you wouldn't need to actually do any work to get this effect. Consider what happens if tons of people suddenly decides to take home a particular "fancy" food for free. The government pays the grocery store, but the grocery store also runs out of the food and buys more from its supplier. This is driving up demand for the fancy food. Now the fancy food is going to get more expensive, even though people are getting it "for free."

If you take my sibling comment about tax effects into account, this means that, as people over-consume a "free" food, and its price rises, they're effectively making larger and larger "purchases" which will have an effect on their taxes.

On the other hand, if it turns out that the food was only expensive because few people were buying it, in a sort of vicious circle—then when everyone buys it, and forces demand up, it'll force supply up, too, and the food will get cheaper for everyone, not just for people who get it "for free."

For example, if it turns out that we only weren't factory-farming caviar because of the low demand, but it's perfectly possible to do so, then we'll just turn into a society that farms and eats a lot of cheap caviar. No market distortion; just "unlocking" market efficiencies we couldn't previously reach, because the demand side didn't previously have the dollars to vote with. Everybody wins!

[leetcrew]

this seems needlessly complicated. it would be a neverending game of whack-a-mole to get the whitelists / credit multipliers adjusted for every food sku.

if we're already assuming people can budget reasonably well, why not go with a UBI-like food stipend and enroll every citizen? calibrate it so people with zero income get a reasonable (possible COL-adjusted) amount to afford a month's worth of healthy meals and phase it out smoothly respective to income. can't really be abused unless you hide your income and also avoids the fiscal cliff.

[derefr]

Nope; just assuming that the number of people taking advantage of this would be a power-law distribution rather than a gaussian, and so the economics would still work out in favor, even with people "abusing the system."

That, and perhaps the dollar-cost of your "free" food purchases would be taken into account in calculating your tax bracket.

[leetcrew]

maybe I'm just too cynical, but I have a hard time believing it would work out that way. the difference between the cheapest and most expensive brand of pasta is at least 4x. why wouldn't you buy the nicest brand every time? if the tax bracket adjustments had any bite, you would end up with poor families owing more tax than they earned income. this ends up basically equivalent to means testing anyway.

[derefr]

> if the tax bracket adjustments had any bite, you would end up with poor families owing more tax than they earned income.

I mean... they'd be told that that would happen in advance. Wouldn't that then serve as an incentive to avoid making a pattern of taking home the more-expensive food? (They could still do it rarely, though. A one-time $50 bump in spending isn't going to affect your taxes.)

[leetcrew]

if you're really willing to allow that outcome, then your proposal is just an implicit benefit limit that's a bit harder to calculate. how is that different from / better than saying "here's $xxx to feed your family this month; budget appropriately"?

[derefr]

Again, because if you give someone $xxx, they feel compelled to use it, and therefore to put $xxx less of their own money into the economy.

Here, people don't have any money or food stamps "burning a hole in their pocket." They just have their own money, and an unlimited line of credit for grocery stores that would "come due" in the form of taxes at the end of the year (but which would only end up costing them anything-at-all if they tried to live beyond their means.)

The only real presumption I'm making here, IMHO, is that people would be too ashamed to buy the "below your means" items (e.g. rice and beans) on this credit, if they didn't have to. Just like people are usually too ashamed to go to food banks if they don't have to.