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I've never heard of such a thing...I used to take my great aunt shopping in the 90's she had a little booklet of food stamp coupons and could buy any food items she wanted, the only restrictions were the same ones there are now - no alcohol, tobacco or non-food items. And here's a history of the food stamp program and I can't find any reference to a restriction of any foods, congress has tried that a few times but it never passed. https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/h...pdf?sequence=1
I worked at a Food town location in 1995, the list was kept in the drawer to each register in order to show why a Food Stamp recipient had to pay for certain items. Yes there was a list and I used to be able to find it online and now it's gone.....
Most seafood was a no, higher end cuts of meats, ice cream, soda, candy, chips and a few other items. They also did ring up on the receipt as marked non food stamp. Not all stores followed but if audited they would lose the program certificate, which we were reminded of alot.... but people buying clams, lobster and steak slipped thru if they were "regulars" of the boss..... irritated the heck out of me.
Because no poor person ever has had a specialized diet, food allergies, or food restrictions. No, they HAVE to eat the generic peanut butter even if they're allergic to peanuts! Poor people have to eat what we TELL them to eat! And they should be grateful, right?
As for your last paragraph, that is BS and you know it. Post the link to the tv show and prove it, or stop telling lies.
It happens all the time. Don't need a link.
Here is a scam my ex husbands wh*e sister used to use. Get food stamps and buy meat at the store. Sell meat at discount prices to the people in the apartment complex for cash. Buy whatever you want with cash.
here is another
Claim your child is actually another relative. You are paid more to "foster" someone else's child than you are paid in welfare/food stamps whatever for your own.
here is another
Make the claim that your daughter is unfit, but not to the point that they put her in jail. Then you as the grandmother take custody and receive subsidies, while said daughter and grandchild live with you...this one I saw in the news about 5 years ago...they did get busted but said a lot of people they knew did it
My solution would be to require community service of anyone receiving welfare (except the severely disabled). That should discourage a lot of the deadbeats from requesting welfare.
I've advocated either community service or that they'd have to go to a designated location and sit in a room for 8 hours. No sitty downy = No payoutty. Punctuality would be important and a certain number of lates would get them booted, as would being violent or even uppity. Sorry Shaniqua, but you're gonna have to sit your giant butt down, shut your pie hole, and be quiet & humble for once.
If I have to go work my butt off to pay taxes then they can at least muster themselves to a designated area and sit. Two, maybe 4 bathroom breaks would be allowed and they can only drink water. No more X-box at home while drinking liquor on the taxpayer time. No TV or movies either. They can read books if they want, but no magazines. Obviously viewing a selection of help wanted ads and filling out applications would be allowed, but that activity should be supervised. No playing on the internet.
Once they're bored many will want to get jobs very very quickly.
Drug testing will occur weekly on a random day or at the supervisor's discretion. If I am subject to being drug tested (haven't been at my current job but my employer has that option should he ever choose to use it) then welfare recipients should be too. I don't care that it costs a bit because the fraud is more expensive and the moral implications of welfare are far too destructive to our society overall.
Sorry, but I don't understand the above. If people contribute to Social Security and Medicare to the tune of $737.34 per month, as my husband does (I have his paycheck stub in front of me, and I made about half as much as he did before I retired), then how is collecting Social Security after retiring considered a handout?
The sad fact is that it is entirely possible that we might not see a single cent of what we paid into those programs for the past approximately 40 years, if we should both die before filing for SS, or before reaching 65 in the case of Medicare. Both my father and my father-in-law died before the age of 60.
Also, unless I missed something, Social Security is only given out before retirement under very limited circumstances, and even then it is based on how much the household wage earners had put into it. Retiree social security payments are based entirely on what you paid into it and -- again, unless I am very much mistaken -- how soon after reaching age 62 you start taking Social Security payments. And retiree Medicare does not start until age 65.
Now, perhaps you are speaking only of widow(er)s and their children who collect Social Security after the major breadwinner dies, as his or her dependents -- but I don't begrudge this at all, as to me, the social security payments the breadwinner made was a form of insurance. And, as we all know, some people win by making insurance payments, and some lose.
If you actually read about how social security and Medicare work, you will learn interesting things. For starters, the amounts that they take out of your paycheck labelled Social Security and Medicare don't actually go into some sort of Social Security and Medicare money pools. They are put in with the rest of the money as if they were plain old taxes, which they are. They are just extra taxes with misleading labels. Then, when you get old enough to receive social security, they use a formula which may or may not have a little something to do with what you "paid in" over the years. And that money is paid out to you, as a handout, if you qualify, from the general federal tax pool.
Also, you cannot opt out of Social Security and Medicare payments from your paycheck. It is not a voluntary retirement program. It's just plain old taxes. You have to pay them no matter what.
The thing you use to save for retirement where you get out what you put in is the 401k. That's your money, and yours alone, and the brokerage firm pays you interest for you letting them use your money for a bit. If you were allowed to opt out of Social Security and Medicare and instead put that money in a 401k, you would have a whole lot more money saved up by retirement age than you would ever get from Social Security and Medicare payouts. The government does not pay you interest. They tax you, and then later give you a handout, if you qualify. It's a handout. The old person who receives the handout does not provide any good or service to the government in return for the money. They just get a handout.
See this is where you're wrong. If I'm hungry and my children are starving, I'm going to feed them by any means necessary, even if that means holding you up by gunpoint. My children are more likely to be less disciplined and act out in school, and getting them under control takes time away from teachers actually teaching...taking time away from your child's education. My child is more likely to get involved with and sell drugs to earn money, and might be selling drugs in school to your children.
Any behavior in your community that goes along with desperate behavior will negatively affect you in some way eventually. You do not live on an island, you live in a community. Your taxes, for roads you may not drive on, libraries you may not attend, schools that your children don't attend, services for the disabled that you don't need, and of course Medicaid, Medicare, and funding our billion dollar war in the Middle East are all services YOU are already paying for. It's the tax one pays for living in society, for living in America. If you don't want to pay for these things, you should go live in the woods, live off the grid and be 100% self-sufficient.
And like someone said upthread, welfare costs are a drop in the bucket as far as federal spending is concerned. If you want your taxes to go down significantly you should save your outrage for military spending. The amount spent on welfare is only about 4% - 5%. That means 95% of your tax dollars are going elsewhere. When you factor how many people and corporations pay into the tax system, and how low the percentage going towards Food Stamps, you are probably paying something like $.10 per day towards Food Stamps, depending on your tax bracket. You want to see a big break in your taxes? Get angry about military spending. That's where all our tax money is going.
You are saying that I should be okay with paying taxes towards government assistance, because if I didn't then poor people would hold me up at gunpoint to steal my money to feed their kids? You are saying, then, that you feel that GA is stealing, and that the poor are stealing from the not poor under threat of violence. And that's your rational for GA. Amazing.
I have no problem paying taxes for services, like roads, schools, police, etc. I don't even have a problem contributing to a social safety net. It does lead to a more stable economy. My only assertion is that we are currently spending too much on the social safety net and jeapodizing out ability to afford a social safety net in the future. We're racking up huge amounts of debt, and when we get to the point where the debt interest payments become unsustainable, we won't have enough money for a social safety net, the military, schools, anything. That needs to not happen. Defense has been cut big time in the past couple years, but the handouts have grown. The handouts need to face the same cuts as defense has, so that we can get closer to a balanced budget. Handouts have the most room to be trimmed right now, we need to do it.
Oh, and I believe I demonstrated in another post the percentage comparison between handout spending (69%) and defense spending (18%).
I worked at a Food town location in 1995, the list was kept in the drawer to each register in order to show why a Food Stamp recipient had to pay for certain items. Yes there was a list and I used to be able to find it online and now it's gone.....
Most seafood was a no, higher end cuts of meats, ice cream, soda, candy, chips and a few other items. They also did ring up on the receipt as marked non food stamp. Not all stores followed but if audited they would lose the program certificate, which we were reminded of alot.... but people buying clams, lobster and steak slipped thru if they were "regulars" of the boss..... irritated the heck out of me.
It's a federal law, states can't add food restrictions and none were added in the 90's:
In 1995, the house version of the Personal Responsibility act had an amendment banning ice cream soda and candy from the food stamp program (which of proves they were permitted at that time) But the final version signed by Clinton in 1996 did not have any restrictions on the kinds of food that could be purchased.
Could this have been a local welfare program for people who weren't getting food stamps? The only other thing I can think of is that it was something implemented by the owner of that chain of grocery stores, but if they did so they were acting outside of the law. It's interesting, I wish I could figure out how that happened because it wasn't happening in California, same food stamps, same federal rules.
A government is supposed to protect its citizens both externally and internally. The government should protect us from enemies outside our borders, but it should also help protect us from each other (police, FDA, etc.) and protect us from extreme poverty and hardship. If we're well protected from terrorists, but if 45,400,000 citizens inside the US are starving and may die from malnutrition, then what's the point? What are we really protecting if we can't help our own citizens? Oh great, we're protecting our lands. The people in the lands may actually be dying, but at least our physical property is safe? That makes no sense.
Okay, if I take your assumption that the government is supposed to protect us from extreme poverty and hardship, then we definately need to cut some handout spending now, in order to protect us from the extreme poverty and hardship that will happen down the road if we don't cut handout spending down to sustainable levels. We are spending more than we can afford on handouts now, and borrowing against our future ability to provide any social safety net whatsoever. You prove my point, thanks!
You are saying that I should be okay with paying taxes towards government assistance, because if I didn't then poor people would hold me up at gunpoint to steal my money to feed their kids? You are saying, then, that you feel that GA is stealing, and that the poor are stealing from the not poor under threat of violence. And that's your rational for GA. Amazing.
I have no problem paying taxes for services, like roads, schools, police, etc. I don't even have a problem contributing to a social safety net. It does lead to a more stable economy. My only assertion is that we are currently spending too much on the social safety net and jeapodizing out ability to afford a social safety net in the future. We're racking up huge amounts of debt, and when we get to the point where the debt interest payments become unsustainable, we won't have enough money for a social safety net, the military, schools, anything. That needs to not happen. Defense has been cut big time in the past couple years, but the handouts have grown. The handouts need to face the same cuts as defense has, so that we can get closer to a balanced budget. Handouts have the most room to be trimmed right now, we need to do it.
These are handouts too, but I don't hear too many people clamoring to cut them, I wonder why not? Maybe because it's easier to grab money from the poor, most of them don't vote anyway, right?
deductions for donations to a church or charity
mortgage deduction which does little for the middle class
Read your own quote again, pkbab5. Did you blame the deadbeat for not supporting his children and forcing the mother to seek outside assistance? Nope, you sure didn't.
Did you specifically blame the mother for having kids with a "deadbeat?" Yep, you sure did. Do you really think that women, when they get involved in a relationship or get married, think "I sure hope this guy will leave me with little kids to support on my own so I can go on public assistance!!!" No, they have the same expectations that everyone else does that the relationship will last. So when the man bails on his family, doesn't pay child support, pays as little child support as legally possible, doesn't help out financially where and when he is supposed to (morally AND legally), please explain to me exactly how that is the fault of the mother who is doing everything she must to take care of her family.
Please take your time coming up with an answer that is based in reality.
Huh? You have a really strange interpretation of my sentence. I did not say that everyone deserves money that someone else earned EXCEPT you, and the reason for that is that you had two kids with a deadbeat. Therefore putting some sort of "blame" on you. That's an absurd interpretation of my words.
What I was trying to say is that NO able bodied adult deserves money that someone else earned. The fact that you had two kids with a deadbeat does not make you all of a sudden deserve it. It does not make you special. There is no blame, you didn't do anything wrong, but you don't get some special thing that no one else should get either. You are not entitled to someone else's money just because you had two kids with a deadbeat. Just as I am not entitled to someone else's money because I have black hair. It's not relevant. The fact that you had two kids with a deadbeat is not relevant. You shouldnt be entitled to other people's money. Period.
I don't even know where you get the "blame" thing? Is it because you want to appear a victim? So that someone will feel sorry for you? Why? So they will give you money? Ugh. Don't do that. It's behavior not befitting a lady, a strong single mom to two great kids, which I'm sure you are. Don't play the pity card. You don't need it.
It's a federal law, states can't add food restrictions and none were added in the 90's:
Perhaps there is some confusing between Food Stamps and WIC. Food Stamps have no restrictions on types of foods that can be purchased, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) does.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pkbab5
in order to protect us from the extreme poverty and hardship that will happen down the road if we don't cut handout spending down to sustainable levels.
Considering how little of the budget goes to "hand outs" as you call them are we talking about the same 8% of the Federal budget? And what defines, "sustainable" levels?
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