I hate government programs in the US bc conservatives are always trying to dismantle them so the lefty byline is always like “these programs are vital and lifesaving and keep so many people from starving and being homeless, they’re Very Good and you have a moral obligation to protect and defend them!” and the program is question is something called the National Anti Hunger Initiative or NAHI and it only applies to people who have $527 or less a month in Net Perforated Index-Subnet Income (NPISI) before taxes and housing costs and the program gives you a $99 a month voucher that reloads every 1/80th waxing moon that is only good for buying specific brands of gruel BUT you only get to take 200 breaths a day when you’re on the program and for every breath over 200 you take they subtract one dollar from the vouchers you receive and you have to count and report your own breaths bc they don’t have the funding to do that and if you misrepresent the amount of breaths you take that’s Breath Fraud and there’s a hotline you can call to report someone’s Breath Fraud and you can be denied gruel vouchers for the rest of your life if youre accused of Breath Fraud. And you’re just like. Not allowed to complain abt this bc apparently the only alternative to this is no one ever gets gruel vouchers
Plus they use the crappy gruel program to guilt you into reinforcing the two party status quo rather than voting for a 3rd party that might expand the gruel program or stop you from withholding your vote in protest of the party that uses the gruel program as a bargaining chip and will sometimes add more restrictions to the gruel program to pacify the party that wants to repeal the gruel program