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"Fresh from his re-election in the deep-blue state of Maine, Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, is carrying through with his election promise to make sure the state doesn’t indiscriminately hand out free stuff to the unworthy. Able-bodied adults can receive food-stamp assistance only if they try to work, at least part-time...Work requirements are nothing new. Republicans and Democrats worked together to put it in place in the 1996 Clinton-era welfare-reform law. President Obama ruined this bipartisan compromise in his stimulus bill, distributing an “information memorandum” making it clear that the administration would approve any state’s request for a waiver. Maine won’t seek a waiver, and able-bodied food-stamp recipients between the ages of 18 and 49 will have to work at least 20 hours a week or perform volunteer service to get the benefit. This affects about 12,000 current beneficiaries who collect $15 million in free stuff every year."
Some history on welfare to work (not food stamps) is in the 2012 article from which this paragraph comes:
"The 1996 welfare reform law required that a portion of the able-bodied adults in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program — the successor to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program — work or prepare for work. Those work requirements were the heart of the reform’s success: Welfare rolls dropped by half, and the poverty rate for black children reached its lowest level in history in the years following. But the Obama administration has jettisoned the law’s work requirements, asserting that, in the future, no state will be required to follow them."
First question is: Are states reinstating a work requirement for food stamps due to an improving economy, because food stamp issuance is killing their budgets, some political reason (Why did the governor of Maine wait until after his re-election to do it?), concern for the taxpayers in their state shouldering the burden, some other reason?
Second question is: To your knowledge, did any politician at any level of government in your state campaign on the issue of taxpayers bearing the burden of government "free stuff"/food stamps/welfare in 2014?
It's not slavery, nobody is forcing you to take food stamps or other benefits, if you don't want to work you don't have to accept the benefits.
Plenty of us worked crappy low paying jobs, for low pay, and didn't take food stamps or such. I recall the day I was standing in a checkout line with my mac and cheese and hamburger while the guy in front of me paid for a steak with food stamps. Good for him I guess, glad I could help out with my tax money, thank God Reagan came in and lowered my taxes!
Why should one not have to work for it? Tell them to grab a reflective vest, a trash bag and tell them they'll have to clean up the public roads for their food stamps. See how quick they come off of it.
I don't have a problem with work requirements, as long as the government guarantees that anyone wanting food stamps will have access to that work. Otherwise, you're just guaranteeing that some families will not have enough food.
It's not slavery, nobody is forcing you to take food stamps or other benefits, if you don't want to work you don't have to accept the benefits.
Plenty of us worked crappy low paying jobs, for low pay, and didn't take food stamps or such. I recall the day I was standing in a checkout line with my mac and cheese and hamburger while the guy in front of me paid for a steak with food stamps. Good for him I guess, glad I could help out with my tax money, thank God Reagan came in and lowered my taxes!
Were you a homeowner at the time? When Reagan came in and lowered my taxes, rents necessarily skyrocketed and I became worse off, keeping less of what I earned.
I don't have a problem with work requirements, as long as the government guarantees that anyone wanting food stamps will have access to that work. Otherwise, you're just guaranteeing that some families will not have enough food.
No-one is guaranteed anything in life. No-one owes anyone anything. If you want to eat bad enough you'll do what you have to do to get food on your table.
I don't have a problem with work requirements, as long as the government guarantees that anyone wanting food stamps will have access to that work. Otherwise, you're just guaranteeing that some families will not have enough food.
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