No wonder she was on food stamps. And you know what? I have little sympathy, because assuming her luxurious spending habits landed her there, those were choices she made on her own. She didn’t have to buy designer clothes, pop out 4 children, or get plastic surgery.. she CHOSE to.
I don’t like hearing about people gaming the system, but you know what? It’s not like they are taking any food out of my mouth. My life is not going to improve if they decide to swap the lobsters for Spaghettios. And I don’t care so much stopping them if that means making it harder for law-abiding citizens to get them. It already is too hard, IMHO.
They are. You lose money from your paychecks to fund their EBT cards/food stamps, and that is money that could be going to a meal for you should you want it .
Okay, I’m about as venomously conservative and “personal responsibility and accountability” as they come, but I disagree that a person who has accumulated debt (yes, even foolishly), prior to losing their job or whatever, should be denied assistance for food.
I have a bit of experience from both sides of the issues. First, my sister worked for the State of Alaska in the welfare department for several years, so she’s seen much of what you gripe about here, that of the fur coat wearing-Cadillac driving welfare recipient. Yeah, it’s frustrating when you’re the one working at the state, and you’re driving a beat up dodge and they’re tooling around in a late model luxury liner.
Like someone else says, you don’t know what they did for a living before they had to go on welfare, or what caused their “fall from grace” so to speak. However, when you see the same “patrons” coming in year after year and they’re always decked out in the latest fashions, it’s no longer a matter of “well, they had those things before they got laid off (or whatever)”. You’re wondering how they manage to keep up with all of that expense on what welfare pays.
There ARE a lot of people who do their best to defraud or push the boundaries of the system. The most frustrating thing is that because of the bad apples, the way the system treats regular “I just need help getting back on my feet” folks is BRUTAL. It’s humiliating and dehumanizing, you’re looked at as presumed guilty and treated as such. I’ve never, in my life, had to keep SUCH frequent or perfect personal finance records, nor had someone scrutinizing my life (unannounced home “inspections” etc.), not even for purchasing a house or qualifying for a security clearance.
I agree with the need for welfare, but I agree with its intended purpose, that is that of a temporary help for people to get back on their feet, NOT a as an acceptable life-long lifestyle career path. So I agree with whatever rules and regs they need to put into place to try to decrease the fraud while a person is actually IN the system, but I think that it’s wrong to try and put those sorts of rules and regs into place before the person even applies for welfare. You gotta draw the line somewhere. In other words “Indulgent” spending is pretty subjective, and hard to prove imho.
Pretty much this. I’m way less outraged about people scamming the system than I am that poverty exists in the first place.
Other people are perfectly free to wail about all the lost meals they otherwise had coming their way.
Me? I think we could wipe out all the cheats and it would just bump up the people on the waiting list for food stamps a couple of notches. Which would be great for those people. And great for people who are currently on waiting lists to use the local food pantry, but can’t because the people on the food stamp waiting list is using it. But me? I’m not on any list.
That puts me in an enviable position, so no, I’m not mad.
(It occurs to me that cattle ranchers and lobstermen are probably the biggest lobbiest for welfare programs. If it weren’t for food stamps, no one would have any money to buy steak and lobsters!)
No, because the money to pay for the plasma-TV-and-designer-shoes police is going to have to come from somewhere.
Not to mention…do you really want to deal with MORE beaurocrazy when it is your turn to seek benefits? I know I don’t. If steak-and-lobster queen over there got an EBT card with no problem, I don’t want a problem either.
What is it with people like apple who think that poor people should be really, really downtrodden before they can beg the state for enough food stamp money to sustain life? What a petty and mean existence.
I, personally do NOT want to make sure everyone who gets food stamps is utterly destitute before the government will give them a dollar to eat. And if they want to buy lobster with it, so what? Why should anyone object? Lobster is too good for poor people? Poor people should go around in burlap and ashes to satisfy those too selfish and mean to want to subsidize a meal?
You all realize that “welfare” was reformed under Clinton and you CANNOT stay on it for years and years on end anymore, right? That there is a cap on how many years you can collect? Thieves and defrauders need to go to jail just like any other crook but what percentage of people on food stamps do you think are defrauding the government? A big enough percentage to fuck those who are truly hungry because some are to miserly to hand over a dime for food?
My issue is not with people who truly need help, nor do I think people should be completely downtrodden. However, if you have the money to afford luxury items, then I do not think that I should have to subsidize your meals. If you can afford a fur coat or a pearl necklace, you have the money to buy your own food. There is a huge range between destitute and able to afford luxury items.
Good news! The law has been very specific about that for decades. No tobacco, no alcohol, no soap/paper plates/household goods. You can buy seeds and seedlings for a garden with food stamps, though.
So I ask again, what percentage of people receiving food stamps can afford a fur coat and pearl necklace?
I am thinking some of them need food stamps BECAUSE they spent their money on those luxury items when they did not have the means to do so.
You are right, some of them probably do. Do they represent a significant percentage of the total receiving food stamps?
There is no way of knowing. However, I have overheard people bragging about their “free” money, how they found ways around the system, and how they sell their food stamps so they can buy drugs.. I by no means think these individuals are the majority of food stamps recipients, but measures should be taken so that this does NOT happen. Ever.
No one is going to argue that people should be able to spend SNAP benefits on anything and everything, without judgment.
But “should” belongs in the abstract world of lollipops and rainbows, where people don’t speed or smoke weed or don’t name their babies D’Crazy.
We know people are doing bad things 24/7 and getting away with it.
The question is what are you willing to do about it? Are you going to make it harder? OK, but at what expense? And will it eliminate the problem or just make the fraudsters step up their game?
Getting angry is easy. Coming up with workable solutions is not.
You do know that it’s possible to lose one’s job/income after having purchased expensive things, right? You may have noticed this little recession we’re in wherein many many people have lost their jobs and have much less money than they used to. The fact that they are on food stamps NOW doesn’t require them to throw out their nice stuff, first.
Also, they do check. We have to prove our income (with paystubs, UI benefit letters, and/or other written proof of income, as well as declaring assets like a car or savings account) and expenses (copy of lease, what utilities we pay for, is heat or a/c included in rent or not) in order to qualify and to determine how much we qualify for. I promise you, if someone makes enough to go out and buy a Benz, they don’t qualify. The agency responsible for food stamps also, generally, can’t find their ass with both hands – we’ve applied three times in the past two months, and still haven’t gotten them. We haven’t been denied, either – they just never call us back or finish processing our application.
You can’t even buy prepared food with food stamps. No one’s eating out on their benefits – they have to cook.
And just to show how much this conversation is made from the glands found inside the spincter of miserable people, here’s a fourteen dollar “pearl necklace” and afifteen dollar fur coat.
Good God do Holier Than Thou people piss me off!
You know what else is annoying? Selling those for cash. The EBT card hasn’t stopped fraud, either. Or the SNAP program.
It would be nice to require an ID when you use that stuff.
I could’ve easily lied and qualify for Medicaid several months ago, but I didn’t. Now I’m considering bankruptcy because of medical bills. I could’ve qualified for Food Stamps if I had lied in my Super Poor Days. And in my Super Poor Days, there’s no way I could’ve even afforded a knockoff purse. Ramen at lunch every day! I was so much skinnier then. 
One pack = 2 meals. In my Super Poor Days, I could’ve qualified for some things but I didn’t apply because of the paternity thing. Didn’t want the government forcing me to take someone to court. It was hard, but we survived. I recall two birthdays and two Hannukahs that were supplied from the Dollar Tree.
As a teacher in a low-income, high crime neighborhood, I can assure you that a lot of those kids have things that we can’t afford (multiple pairs of Jordans, iPods, gaming systems).
I can also assure you that there are kids who are desperately poor and for whatever reason, they can’t get help through the system. Some kids without citizenship routinely go to the Children’s Hospital for care and never pay the bills. One has a deadbeat dad who cant be tracked but the caseworker accused his mother of lying - so no more food help for that family. I’ve bought him lunch and food several times this year. He sneaks back into his old school to get lunch because he has his old school I.D. and qualified for free/reduced lunch a few years back. It makes me angry when I hear about kids who ADMIT their moms are welfare queens and they’re sitting right next to a hungry child. Donno how many kids I’ve fed breakfast (keep a Sam’s Club sized box of oatmeal in the back), bought a bus pass for, or whatever. Oh, and clothes for teenage girls. One girl has a mom who is a ‘welfare queen’ and claims her even though she kicked her out of the house. So the girl has little to no food and no help from mom and guess who bought her bus passes this year so she could get to school? Yeah. Also cleaned out my closet for her. Since I don’t have to eat Ramen as much, I porked out.
GAAAAH. I hate people.
Biggirl, you’re going on the idea that you are somehow entitled to or “deserve” specific items. If you are not paying for them, you do not deserve them and as one of the millions who fund the system, I would expect a little bit more gratefulness and not so much of an “I deserve x, I am entitled to y, give me z”!