Dear Editor:
Mr. Sica thinks money to hire sanitation workers can be gotten by not giving Food Stamps to obese people. A few facts are in order. The amount of Food Stamps given to one person is maximum $5 per day. You’d have to cut 100 people off Food Stamps for one year to get enough money to pay just two more annual workers. Food Stamps are an excellent economic stimulus, creating demand for grocery and food businesses to hire new workers. Finally, obesity is a disease of poverty, not of eating too much. Obese people, even those who get Food Stamps, can only afford cheap, protein deficient, high fat foods—Food Stamp amounts are pegged so low that they are not enough to eat properly.
The solution to obesity is to give LARGER amounts, not cut people off of Food Stamps. This would also stimulate the economy more. The solution to finding the money for more sanitation is to stop giving tax breaks to corporations, like the $12 million NYC gave Pfizer to “create jobs.” After taking the money, Pfizer just announced it’s cutting 1,400 NY jobs. Mr. Sica, stop drinking the Kool Aid of the elite corporations, and look where the real waste is: it is not in giving Food Stamps to New Yorkers who are struggling to buy groceries.
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