How do you feel about this?
 

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...95116846_n.jpg

I don't mean to imply that all food stamp recipients are spending your tax dollars in questionable ways, but the image got me thinking about how different people may feel about the welfare system we (in the U.S.) have, and whether welfare reform would be a good idea, and if so, how we should go about it, and if not, why?

Personally, I think the welfare system is a good thing in concept. It ensures that we, as a developed nation, don't simply let the poor and disabled starve. It ensures that everyone has an opportunity to have the basic necessities to live. It helps those who are unable, both permanently and temporarily.
On the flip-side of that coin, however, I think there's a tendency for some to take these things for granted and not utilize them to the extent they could be. I've grown up around many people who required some sort of government assistance, and it seems that now, more than ever, the majority feel as though these things aren't assistance, but bonuses.
I've known people to only disclose certain incomes in order to qualify for food stamps so they could buy things like lobster and steak while spending the money they earn on drugs, alcohol, and lots of Ramen noodles.
These are people with children...
And I've definitely heard of many cases where food stamps are outright traded for drugs. (Cue drug tests for food stamps debate)

I know I can't say that's the case for everyone, but it would be equally wrong to assume that it isn't the case at all. As a single taxpayer whose federal withholdings are quite sizable, I'd like to know that money is being spent wisely.
If I were to reform welfare, I'd probably pursue verification avenues that provided greater assurances that assistance was not being abused, but without making it harder for legitimate access.
And therein lies the problem. How do you accomplish that?
Do you think it's even necessary?
How would you approach something like that?

I don't know what it's like in the States but I live in a street with a high presence of public housing which seems synonymous with housing for junkies and dealers. Those with kids just don't give a **** about their kids getting any sort of future. They never send them to school unless they are forced to meet requirements for some sort of official scrutiny and then as soon as the pressure's off the kids are back out of school. I know resources are pretty scarce in the welfare sector but I really think the focus needs to be on kids getting the help they won't get from their wasted parents.

There's probably no way to accurately tell what percentage of people on welfare are abusing it, so there's no way for me to substantiate whether or not welfare is efficient. It's government operated, so I'd guess it's extremely inefficient, and that image is evidence.

Then again maybe it's just an overblown issue, and only a small percentage actually live off of it/abuse it, but I've actually been on food stamps, I got 200 month for 2 months earlier this year, and I have to say, keeping them obviously isn't a problem.

I know a couple that's had 300 a month for a few years now, and one of them has had a job the whole time.

I wonder if there could be a system in place that actually inputs legitimate food item codes into the same database that groceries use to scan items, and simply approves which foods are allowed?
I know that some people would probably feel like that is crossing some sort of dictatorship line, but I don't see how it would be. I mean, what if the food welfare system simply consisted of government trucks delivering nutritious, stretch-able foods to those who qualified? Would there be an outrage that those trucks did not deliver lobster and steak while the rest of the population could afford it? I think that doesn't seem too far-fetched of a possibility, but honestly, if the goal is to provide basic sustenance for those who can't afford it, I don't think I'd understand the outrage that it didn't include high-dollar, unnecessary items that ultimately use up those benefits inefficiently, which not only has an effect on the family in question, but the people paying into that system.

I sat next to someone who worked with a welfare office last year in one of my criminal justice classes and she shared a number of anecdotes about people completely abusing the system. It's an inevitability and as I slowly start to take on a more Conservative ideology in some areas, I've always supported food stamps. Shit like this is annoying and severely screws over the people that actually need the help, but it could be worse. I just wish there was an easier way to punish the people that do abuse the system, I'm sure there's a good solution that satisfies as many people as possible, but I for one don't know what it would be.

Regardless of whatever they are doing with their lives, I feel that food stamp recipients should spend their food stamps on whatever types of foods they want to eat.
What's the alternative? They can only purchase shitty food with them? Who would get to decide what they eat? What a horrible, even more fucked up system it would be if the government provided food stamps that can only be spent on macaroni and cheese. Especially considering that Medicare (not Obamacare but Medicare as we've known it for decades) will pay out for life-saving heart surgeries, etc.

Yeah, but then which foods do you decide people can and can't have? Where do you draw the line as to what is excessive? Is it a price range for the item? What if it's on sale?

Also, it would probably cost more tax money for the system/the effort to decide what is/isn't excessive.

Maybe just make sure these people are actually trying to get a job. I think the welfare itself just needs to be cracked down on. They should have to go to the workforce center every day except for weekends. I know I got ****ing sick and tired of going to the WFC even once or twice a week when I was on EBT.

I don't think that this illustrates abuse as much as it illustrates irresponsibility or just plain stupidity. As someone whose family has been on stamps for a few years now, I can tell you that that person went hungry later that month. We made 12K last year and get around $150 a month in stamps. So I guess we could be gluttons for a day and buy steak and lobster, but then we wouldn't get any more money until next month.

The thing is, it's not some arbitrary source (the government) that's providing its own money to support welfare out of the goodness of its heart. It's the taxpayers. There has to be some sort of effort to ensure that the money that we put into that system is being utilized efficiently and to the benefit of the families involved. Multiple lobsters and steaks taking up about half of the entire highest monthly payout is obviously not efficiency, and would not benefit a family for 2 weeks. Not even a single individual.
140 dollars worth nutritious meal ingredients you can cook at home and stretch for 2 weeks is efficient. I don't think anyone who supplies their own sustenance on a budget would disagree (unless you live in some crazy high-priced place like NY).

And I don't think anyone is suggesting that food stamps should be restricted to cheap, processed box food. The suggestion implied that it should simply restrict high dollar items that don't stretch. Because why would you provide a service that intends to meet the basic needs of people when you don't have some oversight into making sure that your entire goal is actually being met?

Simply giving people 300 bucks a month to spend how they want is not achieving the goal of ensuring low-income households have what they need to survive. It's simply spending tax dollars on the assumption that most of them will be responsible enough to utilize government assistance responsibly. I'm sure most of them do, too. But I don't see the harm in ensuring that those who don't are unable to neglect the purpose of the funds to begin with.

It's living assistance, not splurging assistance...

Agreed. I think most states have fairly strict unemployment benefit systems now. Food stamps are food stamps. Why should the government pay employees to monitor the spending of food stamps? The cost/benefit ratio would just get even more ridiculous.

Sounds like y'all should start cooking meth. Just as a side income generator (tax-free until the US acknowledges that its War On Drugs is a complete disaster).

And that is probably one of the biggest underscoring factors here, because the adults are the ones making these decisions, and when there are children involved, they don't have a say in how their parents spend that government assistance.
Irresponsible decisions in how that assistance is utilized is very likely to affect those children negatively, and offering assistance without more oversight into preventing that is simply not doing any more good.

I can't believe anyone would want to eat giant red sea bugs!

They aren't bugs, and they taste fantastic.

They are bugs filled with slime that smells like farts.

My dad's side of the family does that. Didn't work out too well lol. Though it was always funny to see my uncle wear three sweaters at once when it's 102 degrees F outside...

ANYWAY to answer the OP, I think the verification process needs to be better. We're given a phone interview every six or so months and have to send our tax return every year to Human Services. There is a lot of room for deceit in that system, especially if you get paid in cash. I'd only support drug tests if the government was willing to provide rehabilitation services and temporary food stipends in lieu of food stamps if they were truly starving. Then again, that is a lot of extra funding, and may just be cheaper to give them food stamps (albeit less moral imo).

Also, lobster is delicious wtf is wrong wit chu.

Haha, touché.
And, I also feel that lobster is a disgusting food choice no matter who's paying for it.

I always knew you were one of the smartest people around.

It's like butter. In meat form!

Oh god, yes! **** crab as well.

I love seafood but I have never tried Lobster or Crab. I'm too broke for fancy shit like that.



LOL I wrote crap instead of crab.

I think lobster meat is ridiculously overrated. It tastes fairly bland without the butter, lemon or other dips/seasonings that usually go with it.
It used to be considered fit only for bait or fertilizer and only food for the poor or lower classes until around the mid 1800's when it started to become more popular on the American east coast.
So, from a historical perspective, it's actually the type of food one would associate with someone who's down on their luck (those porterhouse steaks are another matter, however.)

The problem with restricting what items can be purchased with food stamps is the complications which would arise for grocers & what have you. As most grocery stores have such dramatic diversity of products stocked, it’s simply subdivided into various groups for various reasons, one of which is – simply – “groceries”, with a few subdivisions such as dairy, fresh produce, etc. To require further subdivisions, which would be in constant flux due to the inevitable revisions which would take place the Government & constant changes in stock, this would likely result in a cluster****. Whether or not the push-button-monkeys who work as cashiers at grocery stores have the mental capacity to remember an ever fluctuating list of what is questionable, but I doubt they’ve the inclination. So it’d have to be automated somehow, but I dunno how feasible that’d be considering the how much the administration of these programs is left up to individual states….

Then there’s the whole issue of how programs like these end up benefitting, you know, multinational corporations – link, that’s from the liberal viewpoint, but it gets the gist across.

Regarding abusing foodstamps – it’s stupidly easy and the amount of money you can get from it is retarded. In Montana you’ve no dependents, you don’t even have to bring in a bank statement or what have you – and you can get two hundred a month, for one person. Seriously, the only real deterrent to abusing food stamps is the threat of bureaucracies working together, which is to say there is no real deterrent.

This personal experience actually illustrates exactly why this weird anti-welfare camp annoys me. They'll use images like this as memes to circulate the idea that the welfare system is a scam and everybody is getting free money for not working. It's a wholly Republican feeling where I'm located, but ignorance knows no political boundaries.

My family has also used foodstamps in the past. If we hadn't been granted them, we would have gone hungry. Foodstamps are not checkcards with no limits, and as a large family we had to be selective with what we bought with them.

I'll often see sentiments such as "If you can afford cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, cable, and porn, you don't need food stamps."

Not only are such memes attacking strawmen, they show zero empathy for their fellow man. I've personally witnessed an astounding lack of altruism coming from Christian conservative Republicans, in my state at least. Jesus was a socialist passing around free welfare, according to their holy book. I don't mean to set up my own strawman, but these people, whom I know personally and work with daily, disgust and morally offend me.

Now, if we're not speaking personally, I don't think wanting welfare reform is a bad thing. I can understand that people don't want their tax dollars going to waste. I am, however, in favor of a type of socialist and non-judgmental Government mandated altruism which extends to all citizens, not just the financially insecure -- so I find arguing welfare as a United States political issue a waste of time with my views being so far left field.

No one thinks welfare/food stamps are limitless credit cards. The image at the very least displays irresponsible behavior, and more often than not they don't run out and realize they need to get a job. A lot of people on welfare don't want to get a job. I realize that may apply to a minority of those on welfare, but I think it's still a significant problem. Most of my friends and their families have or have had welfare benefits. I know a lot of them are trying to make it work, but I know some total pieces of **** who don't deserve anything.

We don't need to get rid of it, and we don't need to force regulations, but I think it either needs to be tougher to get benefits or tougher to keep benefits. Force them to go to 2-hour classes or something.

Rip Van Winkle most cash registers are computerized by now, and it's programmed in the system whether or not something can be paid with food stamps. These cashiers you called "monkeys" are actually working. They could have possibly a college degree or working for one, or been laid off from a job and now have to work those service jobs you think are "monkey" jobs - you really don't know so you really shouldn't judge. Besides your negative epithet to those who work in the service industry, I like your up-beat attitude for those who abuse the system.

There will always be those who abuse a system, but if, according to your own words, those who abuse welfare are in the minority of those who use it responsibly, why should you make it more difficult for those who genuinely need it to obtain/hold onto those benefits? You're punishing many for the acts of a few.

I don't know the percentage of people who genuinely need welfare vs. those who could do without. It's a tough thing to gauge considering all of the factors involved. But to me, the benefits of the current system far outweigh the faults -- and if there were one person genuinely in need to 10 who weren't, I'd still advocate the current system or an even easier one.

If a system can be more efficient, then it should be. You're making it seem like money grows on trees, and this day where the economy is completely ****ed, it's ignorant to just look at it in a humanitarian way. Granted, it's equally ignorant to just look at it from a business POV.

The problem with welfare is that when people misuse it, then they're essentially spending more money than they have (it's the taxpayers' money) and that's a huge problem. When you're spending other people's money, you're hurting them financially, and that hurts the economy.

How much money was spent on welfare this year? How much will we be spending on it for 10 years? 20? It doesn't matter, but let's pretend you're in charge of welfare, you're being paid essentially to make sure your program works, and that it's not wasting money. You sound like you would be pretty bad at that job, and you sound like you'd just pull a laissez-faire on welfare reform. You don't seem very bothered at all by whether or not it's efficient.

Ensuring the system works as intended has absolutely no negative side effect, unless the system is aimed at ensuring its own abuse. You hurt no one by ensuring that only the people who legitimately need a service are the ones able to access that service.
It's not about making it harder for legitimate needs to be met. It's about making it harder for illegitimate needs to be met.

One of the big problems is that it's very hard to determine who's abusing the system and who's not. Short of monitoring purchases made with EBT, the tax-payer-funded money is simply "trusted" to those who apply and qualify, and that's even if they were honest about their income to begin with.
Due to this, there can't be any effective statistics drawn from who is using the system as intended and who is not. This creates a situation where you either "hope" everyone is using the service legitimately, or simply put in place a system that ensures it.

Since the system is meant for legitimate use, resisting efforts to ensure that it cannot be used illegitimately is basically pushing for a government sponsored, tax-payer funded free "whatever you want" program. Given the options of providing food to the needy, versus providing funds to the irresponsible or dishonest, I'm sorry, but I gotta go with the former.

Did not know this. I guess the job is even easier than I thought.

Now, yes, of course people who abuse welfare are preferable to those who "need it". The former will trade me food for cheap vodka/drug money. The latter are sadsacks.

What's sad is the widow who gets only $16 a month while those who know how to bilk the system get hundreds of dollars. If the guy is buying five cases of Mountain Dew and (8) lobsters you can safely assume he's not living the life of Riley and eating lobster every night for dinner, it's possible he's going to resell that stuff for cash.

I was hearing today off someone that over here, they will be bringing in that if alcoholics/drug addicts refuse to go to rehab they will lose the benefits they claim for? I think I may have misheard though.

I dont think there's anything wrong with helping your fellow man. However I work part time and I dont even eat that good LOL I need to get foodstamps if I can spend $150 on lobster LMAO but you know what, if the people really need the food money, there's nothing wrong with them eating like a king once in a while... lobster is pretty damn good

I do agree that there is abuse sometimes, but the extent is unknown

In my hometown, there was a Chinese couple that were selling all types of illicit drugs, lived in a multimillion dollar mansion and also scammed welfare for money... brethren was caking it in all different ways LOL

I think, by it's nature, welfare is hard to understand politically. And usually things like that are negator. However, the job market sux and if you don't have a college degree odds are you will be on welfare sometime.

my thought process is that if having welfare means that some good, needy ppl will be greatly helped then im willing to sacrifice the fact that idiots will abuse the system

i think things like this become personalized. i know my opinion has changed greatly. i worked with a woman through college. she was in her late 40s, had been in a physically abusive relationship for yrs, had leukemia, needed blood transfusions on a semi reglar basis etc. that lady busted her ass at two jobs to pay for her medical bills. she lived in a trailer with a bunch of cats.

another coworker had a deadbeat ex husband who didnt pay child support for 2 kids and was in and out of jail, takin under the table construction money when he was able to work.

my point being i saw those ppl work hard for what little they had and it still wouldnt have been enough without some assistance.

people abuse every system. theres always loopholes or shady stuff with everything and i certainly dont want to paint the majority of welfare recipients to be saints or evil either. theres plenty of ppl who both need the help and are legit tryin to better their lives and be productive members of society and plenty of ppl who are doin the opposite. they are the riff raff that come into the small town bar from their section 8 housin across the street and start fights every wknd.

so not sure where im goin here but yea i support welfare

That's a very big generalisation there, I live and work in Melbourne. I work with children in one of the poorest regions of Victoria and my school has one of the lowest socio-economic indexes statuses in Australia- most families are on welfare. Many of the recipients of welfare packages are recent refugees or migrants who want the best for their children and are so happy to be in Australia but it is very difficult to them to get employment. Many of them survive on welfare while they are taking English classes, then once their English is up to scratch they mostly commence employment in a valuable sector of our society. They care so much for their kids and only want the best for them. There are also a couple of single parents on welfare with disabled children who are so demanding they can't work enough hours to make ends meet. Not all people on welfare are drug dealers and junkies who don't give a **** about their kids. That is a very strong generalisation about the kinds of people who are on welfare.

Then there are also the children from Australian families of generational poverty who are very different, however. It sometimes seems like they don't care about their children, because many of them have mental disorders such as depression or are too concerned about putting food on the table that for them school is not a priority. The point of action there, I think, is helping and educating the parents as WELL as the children to help them create a better life. My job means that I liaise a lot with public housing and DHS, and DHS research has shown that the most effective action plan is to have people actually work with these families, show them life skills and educate them on money/budgeting/employment to help them live a better life.

So basically... It's a huge sweeping statement to say that most people on welfare and in public housing are junkies and drug dealer-types who don't give a **** about their kids. When you get to know these families you realise that it is very different and very complicated. As much as everyone criticises it, I think that the welfare system that is in place is very good considering the resources that are given and the budget that is allocated to it. Services like DHS do A LOT to help these families and educate them with life skills, as opposed to just handing out cash and food stamps, they actually do a lot more.

The myth about welfare queens needs to be addressed in my opinion. People harp on and on about the level of fraud that goes on but in reality it's not as great as people actually think. Also if you were ever on welfare you would know that it's not that easy to just get away with fraud in the first place. This also depends on the area you live in as well but majority of the time. Case workers at least in my area are so quick to sanction people's cases at the slightest hint of fraud. They also make you jump through so many hoops like the stupid little amount of assistance they are giving is coming out of their pockets. Their general attitude is one of disdain most of the time.

If I have to hear someone whine about "this is where my tax dollars are going to helping people commit fraud.." STFU. I swear I will punch the next person in the throat that gripes about their "tax dollars". Those same tax dollars would still be taken out of your check regardless of where it ****ing goes. Even if it wasn't going towards this program it would still be taken out to go towards other programs so just shut up about it already. You live in and area and just face facts you have to pay a fee for living in said area and call it a day.