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Get rid of all this infantilising and shaming and penalising people for being poor. Give everyone earning below a certain amount enough cash enough to bring their income up to the amount needed to just get by (housing, food, transport, clothing) and let them live as they see fit. You'd probably save so much money in administration, enforcement and compliance costs for stores that it would be revenue neutral.
This is what we do in Australia, and it works very well. The only part of welfare which has extra work associated with it (outside of the simple jobseeking activity test) is rent assistance, where you need to show your lease to make sure they don't give you more than you pay.
I completely agree but there are too many people in the US who really get off on coming up with new schemes to make the poor suffer for that to ever happen. As I pointed out in another thread, if we gave people cash instead of food stamps they wouldn't be selling them for 50 cents on the dollar. That remark was met with some really bizarre responses like "we can't give them cash if they spend it all they will come back for more", as though they can go back for more food stamps if they use them all... lol
... chuck the EBT card, and return to stamps. It worked once; it will work again.
Hard copy paper food stamps had a lot of fraud.
1) People would sell them for cash. Maybe sell $100 worth of food stamps for $50 cash. The buyer, someone that isn't even on food stamps, uses the $100 in food stamps that they bought for $50 so they could get their food for half price. Because they are hard copy paper stamps, this fraud could occur easily because they simply hand the paper food stamps to the cashier. At least with an EBT card, the person buying the food has the card in hand. Because the same card is refilled each month, the recipient is less likely to give that card to someone else for a one time deal because then their card is gone.
2) Another fraud problem with old fashioned hard-copy paper food stamps is counterfeit food stamps. These have been occurring for many decades but it's much easier and cheaper these days to create them due to cheaper printers and readily available graphic software. I was a cashier in a grocery store many years ago and actually was handed counterfeit food stamps. I identified them as counterfeit and discreetly went to my manager(per procedure) while the person trying to use them was still in line. I thought security/police would be called to catch the person. Instead the manager instructed me to tell the person that they are not valid and cannot be used and to hand them back. I did this (against my will), and the person quickly gave me a $100 bill-real cash(it was valid cash) and they quickly left the store. The counterfeit food stamps looked almost identical to the real ones except a few vertical lines in the paper.
The current EBT card method saves a lot of money because it avoids much of the above fraud.
Back to corporate wellfare of sugar and farm subsidies. The people that take those subsidies don't get shamed at the store. Nobody in the store knows that they got the money from the government because they get the money indirectly (no shameful EBT cards). So they could drive around in nice cars, wear nice clothes and buy whatever they choose from the stores and nobody is shaming them and judging them for buying a bag of Doritos with government money. Some of the farmers are millionaires. Big sugar farmers - many of them live in mansions and have personal butlers and maids. Nobody shames them. They get a lot more 'welfare' than poor people and disabled people get. They get so much corporate welfare that they can afford to hire lobbyists and also pay money to political campaigns. This silences some politicians, who instead like to talk about 'welfare queens', which causes people to shame/look down on poor and disabled people and look the other way at the farm subsidy recipients that are not shamed at all. The corporate welfare recipients sit in the background laughing at the fools, falling for the smoke and mirrors that takes focus off them.
Last edited by sware2cod; 01-23-2016 at 10:14 AM..
If food is the only thing they need to keep from starving:
Eliminate EBT cards and just have a location they go to, to pick up food. They shouldn't be given the option of being able to go to the same grocery stores that people who are using money they work for go to get food at.
And have a rule: Anyone that qualifies to pick up food at a designated location who also does not work, has to wait in a line (standing) for at least three hours to get their stuff.
If I have to work to buy food, then lazy people should have to wait in line to get free food. Note: no $600 smart phones allowed in line either. Poor is poor. . . . Not poor after having a bunch of stuff.
Food banks serve this purpose. Unfortunately, sometimes they'll run very low on food, or be totally out. All food is donated, so whatever they have on hand at the time is donated.
It's overall cheaper just to hand someone a card with a set amount of money on it.
People need to start getting used to large swaths of the population living on welfare. With jobs being automated and outsourced, with the remaining jobs only for high IQ, highly creative, and highly skilled people, this is only inevitable.
I completely agree but there are too many people in the US who really get off on coming up with new schemes to make the poor suffer for that to ever happen. As I pointed out in another thread, if we gave people cash instead of food stamps they wouldn't be selling them for 50 cents on the dollar. That remark was met with some really bizarre responses like "we can't give them cash if they spend it all they will come back for more", as though they can go back for more food stamps if they use them all... lol
Yeah, instead of understanding that if you give people food stamps but not a cent of other assistance (which is the case for the majority of people - only mothers can get cash assistance, and they can only get it for 60 months total) they need to sell something to buy shoes, medication, bus fare. Of course they'll be willing to go hungry every so often in order to buy shoes at Goodwill, or catch a bus to the doctor.
Food banks serve this purpose. Unfortunately, sometimes they'll run very low on food, or be totally out. All food is donated, so whatever they have on hand at the time is donated.
I don't know if you have been to a food bank lately, but the ones I am familiar with do not provide enough food for sustenance. I used to drive people to the food bank and they usually only had one or two kinds of food available and it would change every week. Sometimes it was canned string beans or peaches, other times cereal or bread- once all they had was coffee. Most are only open for a few hours a few times a week and usually run out of food quickly. I have never seen one that provided enough food that they could replace SNAP benefits. Not to mention, it might make even the poor shamer's embarrassed if food banks became the only source of food for the elderly who have no transportation to a food bank.
Yeah, instead of understanding that if you give people food stamps but not a cent of other assistance (which is the case for the majority of people - only mothers can get cash assistance, and they can only get it for 60 months total) they need to sell something to buy shoes, medication, bus fare. Of course they'll be willing to go hungry every so often in order to buy shoes at Goodwill, or catch a bus to the doctor.
Thank God someone here understood my point. It's considered fraud if you sell your foodstamp benefits but if you live in a state like Mississippi with a monthly benefit TANF cash benefit of $170 for a family of three, I don't see how you can even get school supplies for your kids without selling your food stamps. When I did volunteer work with poor women some of them would buy candy their kids as a birthday gift because they didn't have the cash to buy them toys. It was really heartbreaking to see that happening. I think it's demeaning and unnecessary to treat the poor as if they are too stupid to make the same choices that we all make. Give them the cash equivalent of SNAP & WIC benefits and let them decide how to spend it.
What a peachy attitude to have! No blame for the deadbeat male at all, huh? The fault lies entirely with the woman. Since apparently you are female (and it shocks me that a woman with any life experience would make a statement like the above), I'm guessing you must be a conservative, likely a conservative christian.
After this are you going over to the rape threads to tell the women that being raped is all their fault too?
I don't understand your reasoning. There's no blame on you. Yes, I do blame the deadbeat male, absolutely the father should be paying you child support. 100%. But *I* should not be paying you child support. The deadbeat male should.
I am a female. I am fiscally conservative (in favor of reducing federal spending and balancing the budget) but socially liberal (pro choice, in support of gay marriage, etc). I am also atheist, I have learned about many religions around the world past and present, and while they are all nice, they are all most decidedly fiction. I don't know what those things have to do with anything, but you seem to want to know.
I do not "blame" you for having 2 kids with a deadbeat. That was your choice, your life, doesn't bother me one bit. Your children are most likely lovely and sweet. But none of this means you deserve to get the money I earned. it should not be related whatsoever. You have your life, you kids, I have my life and my kids, we each have whatever money we earned, period. Done. Not I give you my money because I have more and you have less. Not the government gives you money they taxed from me because I have more and you have less. If you do that, you're punishing ME. For what? What did I do to you? Nothing.
Here we go again. It's not the non-producers (generations after generations of welfare recipients) bankrupting us, it's the producers. Give me a break.
Those who support this monstrous albatross always repeat the fable that it's not costing taxpayers money. Really? Let's see...monthly SNAP benefit ("food stamps"), monthly cash benefit (all of which can be allowed to accrue from month to month), monthly daycare allowance, monthly heating and cooling allowance, WIC (not just milk and cheese anymore), coupons for farmers markets produce, monthly housing allowance, transportation to medical appointments, "Baby Love" program, etc., etc., etc. That's what's breaking the bank.
Some people do need assistance. Tighten requirements, chuck the EBT card, and return to stamps. It worked once; it will work again.
Oh, and BTW...Social Security and Medicare are not handouts.Although there are no shortage of socialists at the federal and state level who would like the uninformed to THINK that they are, so that seniors' pockets can continue to be picked to accommodate the welfare bloat.
Stop making things up. Those who spout fiction to others to convince them to believe falsehoods are as bad as the moochers.
Go pull the actual, real, cold hard numbers from the US budget, US tax receipts, and actual federal spending. Get your excel spreadsheet and your calculator. And if you need to, go take an accounting class (I aced mine). Run the numbers, and then come back with the truth.
SNAP fraud by itself is infitismal when compared to all of the handouts added all together, including SS and Medicare, which yes are handouts. SS and Medicare are contributed to based on ability, and distributed based on need. Definition of a handout, right there.
There is a strong need for some successful people to punish the poor for being poor. I think this is misplaced envy based on the idea of "if I have to work so do you." Most of the folks on these programs cannot work but hat is ignored by the selfish.
That's silly. No one wants to punish the poor. They just don't want to give the poor the money that they earned, that's all. They just want the poor to LEAVE THEM ALONE.
If I don't want to give my neighbor my money for no reason, that's not a punishment. Thats not envy. That's just I want to keep my money. That's all.
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Although there are no shortage of socialists at the federal and state level who would like the uninformed to THINK that they are, so that seniors' pockets can continue to be picked to accommodate the welfare bloat.
