How do you "gracefully ease into 2000" with a computer???LINK

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. food-stamp recipients should have no problem receiving their benefits after January 1, the Clinton administration said Friday, declaring the computers used in the $20 billion program Y2K compliant.

More than 20 million needy people receive food stamps from the U.S. government to buy food at grocery stores and at farmers' markets each year. More than half of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's budget is devoted to domestic feeding programs.

The department also said many of its other programs were set up to gracefully ease into 2000, a change that is presenting headaches because of old shortcuts that recorded the year with two digits only. This means that some computers may malfunction because they read ``2000'' as ``1900.''

Recipients in the School Lunch and in the Women, Infants and Children feeding programs should also see no problems in the new year, the department said.

The nation's food-safety and inspection systems also should be in the clear as well as computers run by Forest Service workers, a division of the USDA, the department said.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), October 03, 1999

Answers

hey i was raised on the school lunch program and I turned out just fine-right?

Nothing like those square pizzas to fight of the munchies.

Have you seen Juniors grades?

-- David Lee Roth (Diver Down@Van Halen.ou812), October 03, 1999.

Sounds good... but where is the proof????

-- sandy (rstyree@overland.net), October 03, 1999.

Total B S - but then again, most of what we hear from the fed is.

-- Dan G (thepcguru@hotmail.com), October 03, 1999.

I don't know - I have the feeling that the food stamp recipients won't be biting anything either.

-- Y2KGardener (gardens@bigisland.net), October 03, 1999.

Sounds like a democrat: make sure that their method of transferring money remains intact. Assume for a moment that the program is compliant. Will those food stamps do anything for their when the shelves are empty, when the power is down or when the streets are too dangerous to travel on?

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), October 03, 1999.

i think food stamps will come in real handy. people will be able to trade them for gold because all the folks holding gold are going to find out that merchants don't know how to make change for a krugerrand. we might actually come to see a true redistribution of wealth that will make the Great Society attempts of the Lyndon Johnson admin. look like childs play. oh the irony.

-- corrine l (corrine@iwaynet.net), October 03, 1999.

Isn't this the same administration that on December 28, 1998, said SSA was 100% compliant, though GAO said that SSA was still fixing date-field errors in mission-critical systems as of July 23, 1999?

(references in Y2K: Where are we Now?

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), October 03, 1999.

How about the link between the fed 'puters and the state 'puters...clinton is the master of double speak. When the check's not in the mail the clinton admin will be able to say that the fed was ready but the states fumbled the ball. The point missed by Joe Sixpack is that it's not a question of fault anymore, it's a question of how to remedy the problem. Unfortunately I believe that there will be so much finger-pointing the first quarter of 2000 that not much will be fixed.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Y2KOK.ORG), October 03, 1999.

I had to really laugh at this one. Even if the Cocoa Puff crowd gets their food stamps, where are they going to get the food? This is going to be really interesting to say the least. There's going to be some really upset people if the supplies just aren't there. They are going to be really pissed when a box of Cocoa Puffs will cost them $8.00 a box! BAAHAHHWAAAAAAAAA! I've done my part to help the poor prepare, the government taketh and the government gives away, and not one single time I have every been thanked for it, have you?

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), October 03, 1999.

Bardou: Obviously you are suffering from burn out, all poor people do not eat cocoa puffs, and all poor people are not to be shunned and treated as idiots, alot of poor people got a better chance of making it then some of you highly educated helpers of the poor. some poor people are smart some helpers of the poor are stupid.

-- sandy (rstyree@overland.net), October 04, 1999.

Sandy,

I agree with the majority of what you've said; that it's a mistake to count all the poor people out. I, too, believe it would be wrong to think that they'll all be hosed. Many of the people I have worked with in our neighborhood revitalization group are 'income challenged', yet this group of people (by and large) had more of the 'inner resources' needed to improvise and 'make do'. They've always had gardens, put food 'by', and ate lower on the food chain than some of their neighbors. I've learned a lot from some of these folks. But, I've also seen 'income challenged' folk spend more than $100 of their food stamp allocation on a child's birthday cake, too.

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), October 04, 1999.

Sandy--You say that I am suffering from burnout? You don't even know me, and I can tell you that I have only just begun. I have been posting on this site for over two years, and I have never changed my opinion of the "Cocoa Puff" crowd. Of course not all welfare people eat Cocoa Puffs, it's a catch phrase that I use to identify people on welfare who do not know proper nutrition. My husband calls them "porch people." I'm sure there's several people here who can tell you stories about food stamp abuse. Obviously you don't go grocery shopping on the first and 15th day of the month and watch the "poor," hop in their expensive cars along with their food stamp groceries. Your right Sandy, us "smart" people are definately dumb, we haven't figured out how to work the system to our benefit.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), October 04, 1999.

As to the food stamp problem in my neck of the woods(ne ohio), they no longer get the coupons and will be up the creek without a paddle if the state computers and the POS terminals as not compliant as their stamps as now plastic cards. There is nothing left to sale to anyone.

I expect major problems when someone trys to swipe their government card and no balance shows for the month or it completely rejects the card. Looting or being carted to a shelter will be the course for the day.

-- kitten (kitten@vcn.net), October 05, 1999.