If rehabilitation is the point of our justice system, government agencies shouldn’t punish people who’ve paid their debt, and who are trying to do the right thing.

Altimont owns Carmen’s Corner Store in Hagerstown, Maryland, a community where around 20 percent of people rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to buy their groceries. But a federal agency decided that Altimont can never accept SNAP as a form of payment at Carmen’s.

That decision isn’t because Altimont has done anything wrong as a business owner, but rather because of unrelated crimes from 2004, for which he’s already served his time.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) permanently bans anyone with drug, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms convictions from participating in the SNAP program—a harsher punishment than the agency dishes out to those who have actually defrauded the program. That’s not just irrational, it’s also unconstitutional, which is why Altimont teamed up with our organization, the Institute for Justice (IJ), to file a federal lawsuit against the agency on Tuesday.

  • Osirus@sh.itjust.works
    02·
    1 year ago

    And you and all your little friends here are weak. Just want to complain. I’m a fucking Democrat and I find all your bitching to be nauseating. Just a generation of confused fucking babies. I’m a piece of shit of served my country and fought long and hard for every inch of success I’ve been given amidst being poor, physically and sexually abused, being a former drug and alcohol addict, having ptsd and generalized anxiety disorder due to those circumstances and having my 3 best buds growing up come home from war to all die from lack of mental health help here in the states even tho we were all “heroes”. Fuck you you miniscule piece of shit, you don’t know what HARD is.