A day of someone on Welfare... according to the GOP

[Iroscato]

So this is basically the infantile 'poor people shouldn't have nice things' whine dressed up in different rags. Pathetic. I've known poverty and having to rely on government handouts, and I for one bloody appreciated even the slightest increase in the quality of food that I could very occasionally buy. I'll start moaning about welfare fraudsters just as soon as the rich are fairly taxed and the bankers who instrumented the global financial crisis are thrown into windowless cells full of wasps and razor wire dipped in salt.

But you keep banging that drum, TheHammer. There's a good boy.

[salm]

I going to point out that as per an above reference only 10% of food stamp recipients are single, and I suspect a very large majority of the remaining 90% of the recipients are receiving food stamps for their children as well as themselves. We rely on their parents to appropriately spend their children's share of their food stamp allotment. Does saving them all up to blow on a lobster dinner and then starving for the rest of the month sound cool to you then? Also, you understand the whole point of the food stamp program is to not have people starve, right? Let me quote the FNS's mission statement for you:

What does it matter if someone is single? Correct me if I´m wrong but I´d assume that if two people live together and don´t make enough money they´d both get food stamps.
Kids don´t matter either because if somebody doesn´t feed his kids adequately they need to be taken away no matter if this is due to badly managed food stamps, badly managed money or some other reason. It´s a different issue.

Is there anything in there about subsidizing lobster binges and follow on starvation? Did I miss a sentence in there somewhere? We give them food stamps for one reason, and as the mission statement sums up nicely its "No American should have to go hungry." If you are using them in any way other than to accomplish that or any of the rest of it you are breaking faith with the generous tax payers of this country that are helping you out. I don't give a fuck if its patronizing. If you don't like it, send your stamps back. And requiring you buy vegetables and eggs and other basic staples is not patronizing in the slightest.

There is nothing in there about not buying lobster either. Furthermore I don´t care what is in there. If it explicitly stated that poor people may not buy lobster then I´d be against it. The law has no bearing on my opinion of what is right.
But I guess here we see our fundamental differences. You don´t care about patronizing the poor while it is a big issue for me.
I am used to a system where poor people get housing plus a certain amount of money. In certain cases you can apply for more money if you need an expensive but necessary think like clothes or a washing machine. This system is still patronizing but far less than fucking food stamps with limitations.
The thing is, while you hear every now and then that some welfare recipient blows his money on crap most people actually try to manage their finances decently enough to feed their kids.
You will allways have a certain precentage of parasites and morons who will blow their benefits on crap and booze and have no ambition to leave this cycle but I gladly pay for these fuckers if the alternative is punishing all the legitemate welfare recipients. You on the other hand would rather punish everybody just to avoid handing out some miniscule amount of money to fraudsters and idiots. That is the fundamental difference between us and I don´t think we can resolve that. I think the welfare fraudsters give you a similar feeling the tax fraudsters give me. The difference is that you kick downwards and I kick upwards.

The beurocracy issues have allready been adressed by other.

[Borgholio]

Anyhow – not entirely sure.

Those are some pretty good reasons though...makes sense to me. Thanks!

OK, explain HOW that is somehow more efficient than the current system?

I meant it would be more efficient than the hand-out system in the past. It would not really be more efficient than simply mailing out a debit card and letting the recipient do most of the work.

Really, what's wrong with “here's your budget, go make your choices”? Again, no redundant delivery mechanisms, families can customize as needed, and you already can't purchase forbidden items.

Well the issue currently is that too many GOP assholes are using the current system as an excuse to further limit the system. If you removed cash from the equation, it could be easier to in fact give needy families MORE benefits because there's less chance of them being accused of fraud.

Because.. that's what “dormitory style housing" is? It's a room with a bunch of beds and people sleeping in them, and they're invariably segregated by gender, at least each room is.

I was thinking along the lines of a college-style dormitory, where there are apartment-style rooms.

TEN YEARS LONG!

Holy shit, really?

Right, we wouldn't want people who's major problem is a lack of money to have actual money, right?

Well like I said before, it's more along the lines to keep certain blowholes from crying "FRAUD!" and using that as an excuse to curb benefits. With that said, if people didn't have to pay for their food and had help paying for housing and medicine, they would have more actual money to spend or save.

[Broomstick]

Really, what's wrong with “here's your budget, go make your choices”? Again, no redundant delivery mechanisms, families can customize as needed, and you already can't purchase forbidden items.

Well the issue currently is that too many GOP assholes are using the current system as an excuse to further limit the system. If you removed cash from the equation, it could be easier to in fact give needy families MORE benefits because there's less chance of them being accused of fraud.

Yes, ironically some of the restrictions are to prevent morons from imposing more restrictions - but that's a bureaucracy for you.

Maybe a system where you get a food allotment, a clothing allotment, etc. might work... except it would largely eliminate the use of second-hand clothing stores which are an enormous savings for the poor, and you'd have GOPpers screaming about people buying coats that are too good for them.

At base, you've just got some people who really fucking hate the poor.

Because.. that's what “dormitory style housing" is? It's a room with a bunch of beds and people sleeping in them, and they're invariably segregated by gender, at least each room is.

I was thinking along the lines of a college-style dormitory, where there are apartment-style rooms.

Er... I realize there are probably a few decades between when I went to college and you went to college, but in my day "college dorm" was not "apartment-style rooms" unless you're talking about a studio apartment with the bathroom down the hall serving the entire floor. What you're talking about used to be called "married housing".

TEN YEARS LONG!

Holy shit, really?

Yes, really.

[Borgholio]

What you're talking about used to be called "married housing".

In college our dorm rooms were usually 4 to a room in a studio-sized area but we had our own kitchen nook and our own bathroom. I did the "100 people per room" thing in boot camp and yeah I would not suggest that for families.

[Elheru Aran]

Because.. that's what “dormitory style housing" is? It's a room with a bunch of beds and people sleeping in them, and they're invariably segregated by gender, at least each room is.

I was thinking along the lines of a college-style dormitory, where there are apartment-style rooms.

Er... I realize there are probably a few decades between when I went to college and you went to college, but in my day "college dorm" was not "apartment-style rooms" unless you're talking about a studio apartment with the bathroom down the hall serving the entire floor. What you're talking about used to be called "married housing".

These days dorms tend to come in two formats: apartment-style blocks where residences are a bunch of rooms around common areas, each room being a living room with single bedrooms around, or more cramped living areas which are basically bedrooms along hallways. The open multi-bed dormitory is just not really a thing anymore. A little too institutional.

Regarding the discussion: I don't have any experience with SNAP or EBT, but my wife and I did use WIC (Women, Infant and Children) for a while after we had our baby. It's more of a supplement than anything else-- you get a bunch of vouchers with the options listed on them and a brochure specifying exactly what you can buy. Store labeling is painfully inconsistent, so you learn quickly to identify just a few reliable products and grab those. For example, you could buy canned green beans... but you couldn't buy canned tomatoes or tomato sauce. You could buy bananas, but you couldn't buy potatoes (never mind that a bag of potatoes could be a week's worth of meals or side dishes). So it was pretty lacking in the 'women' part. For the baby it was pretty sufficient though-- you got something like 60 little things of baby food and, what, 8 gallons of whole milk in a month? That's a pretty good savings when milk costs something like 3 bucks a gallon. So WIC allowed us to save around... $60? a month on our food budget. Yeah, it wasn't a whole lot, but we made do.

For comparison, my wife is a public librarian, making around $16K a year (yes, librarian pay is shit in Georgia). I'm a part time employee at Home Depot. Together we probably make around... 26, 27K. Our monthly food budget is around $160. That's for two adults and one toddler.

[Broomstick]

Yesterday at work I heard something about potatoes now being allowed on WIC... which is another thing about that program, it's always changing around.

I'm not stupid, I've been doing grocery cashier work for most of a year now, but I still have a supervisor come over during WIC transactions to make sure I'm not screwing them up. The program is a headache for the vendor end of things. We put up with it, though, because making sure moms and babies eat properly is a long-term good for society.

[ArmorPierce]

If cash is to be given instead of stamps I think cash should be made available to everyone and be phased out as you climb up in income rather than an all or nothing affair. Having it be all our nothing is too much of a disincentive to work because you are working for the same or similar money.

[TheHammer]

Meanwhole the USA loses over 300 billion due to tax evasion. That is 400 times more than lost due to food stamp fraud:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasio ... ted_States
http://www.demos.org/data-byte/federal- ... ax-evasion

For that matter, it is four times more than the entire cost of the food stamp program.

TheHammer, please remember this day, because it is clear that you did not already have a rough order-of-magnitude sense for how much food stamps cost the US (what, did you think it cost a trillion dollars a year or something?) Or for how much tax evasion costs the US (what, did you think Americans pay their taxes with 99% reliability?)

So you've just learned something, which is good.

Again, classic tu quoque. Please cite where I said "Tax evasion is ok" or that "welfare scams are a bigger problem" or shut the fuck up. Since this particular thread is about welfare that's what we are talking about. Anything else is a redherring. Feel free to start a thread regarding tax evasion and solutions you'd like to propose.

Go to fucking hell.

I could draw up a budget that, without cheating, allows someone to take their monthly allotment, eat a very dull and cheap diet for 29 days, and on day 30 have enough to purchase some discounted lobster for dinner. Why the fuck do you not understand that? Why the hell should you CARE that someone on food stamps, once in awhile, gets to eat something like lobster so long as no cheating is occuring?

You're like the people who say “that person doesn't need help – they have a leather jacket!” or “they don't need help, they have a TV!” Or air conditioner. Or some other out of context imagined luxury. It's a kneejerk assesment.

Because the system is fucking broken. In a working system you wouldn't be living on welfare, it should be there is a safety net and a basis from which you can eventually get off of welfare. Which is why I feel welfare reform should be tied to minimum wage increase to a livable rather than the institutionalized welfare dependent employment that Walmart offers and reformed such that you don't make it more desirable to remain on welfare than to work a relatively low paying job.

If cash is to be given instead of stamps I think cash should be made available to everyone and be phased out as you climb up in income rather than an all or nothing affair. Having it be all our nothing is too much of a disincentive to work because you are working for the same or similar money.

I could get behind such a system, but you'd have to give it to everyone and NOT phase it out so there isn't a disincentive for people to improve their own financial situations. If someone can work 40 hours and get X dollars (Welfare+Pay) or they can work 30 hours and get X dollars (Welfare+pay) then you're really not giving them much reason to put in that extra effort. Instead, i'd raise tax rates on the top tax brackets, give EVERYONE a basic food allowance and let the rest sort itself out.

[TheHammer]

Yesterday at work I heard something about potatoes now being allowed on WIC... which is another thing about that program, it's always changing around.

I'm not stupid, I've been doing grocery cashier work for most of a year now, but I still have a supervisor come over during WIC transactions to make sure I'm not screwing them up. The program is a headache for the vendor end of things. We put up with it, though, because making sure moms and babies eat properly is a long-term good for society.

There's the whole MAKING MONEY thing too.

[Elheru Aran]

Yesterday at work I heard something about potatoes now being allowed on WIC... which is another thing about that program, it's always changing around.

I'm not stupid, I've been doing grocery cashier work for most of a year now, but I still have a supervisor come over during WIC transactions to make sure I'm not screwing them up. The program is a headache for the vendor end of things. We put up with it, though, because making sure moms and babies eat properly is a long-term good for society.

There's the whole MAKING MONEY thing too.

Well, no shit. The stores are businesses, of course making money is part of it. Does that somehow invalidate the fact that even this minimal amount of public assistance is helpful to the customers who use it? What's your fucking point?

[TheHammer]

Yesterday at work I heard something about potatoes now being allowed on WIC... which is another thing about that program, it's always changing around.

I'm not stupid, I've been doing grocery cashier work for most of a year now, but I still have a supervisor come over during WIC transactions to make sure I'm not screwing them up. The program is a headache for the vendor end of things. We put up with it, though, because making sure moms and babies eat properly is a long-term good for society.

There's the whole MAKING MONEY thing too.

Well, no shit. The stores are businesses, of course making money is part of it. Does that somehow invalidate the fact that even this minimal amount of public assistance is helpful to the customers who use it? What's your fucking point?

Because I find the idea that they were doing it out of the goodness of their heart to be laughable.

[ray245]

So this is basically the infantile 'poor people shouldn't have nice things' whine dressed up in different rags. Pathetic. I've known poverty and having to rely on government handouts, and I for one bloody appreciated even the slightest increase in the quality of food that I could very occasionally buy. I'll start moaning about welfare fraudsters just as soon as the rich are fairly taxed and the bankers who instrumented the global financial crisis are thrown into windowless cells full of wasps and razor wire dipped in salt.

But you keep banging that drum, TheHammer. There's a good boy.

I think it is a little more complicated for that. I think it's more along the lines of poor people could not escape being poor after they received those benefits. Upper class would have less problems with say giving a scholarship to someone who is poor but has overcame the odds to get accepted in a good university than giving add to someone who simply isn't so "smart" to use the benefits to climb the social ladder.

That allows them to view those receiving benefits as people "wasting" those "donations" they have given them.

[Broomstick]

I could draw up a budget that, without cheating, allows someone to take their monthly allotment, eat a very dull and cheap diet for 29 days, and on day 30 have enough to purchase some discounted lobster for dinner. Why the fuck do you not understand that? Why the hell should you CARE that someone on food stamps, once in awhile, gets to eat something like lobster so long as no cheating is occuring?

You're like the people who say “that person doesn't need help – they have a leather jacket!” or “they don't need help, they have a TV!” Or air conditioner. Or some other out of context imagined luxury. It's a kneejerk assesment.

Because the system is fucking broken. In a working system you wouldn't be living on welfare, it should be there is a safety net and a basis from which you can eventually get off of welfare. Which is why I feel welfare reform should be tied to minimum wage increase to a livable rather than the institutionalized welfare dependent employment that Walmart offers and reformed such that you don't make it more desirable to remain on welfare than to work a relatively low paying job.

Part of the problem here is that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Like all too many Americans you have a ton of assumptions and half-truths about “welfare” but you don't know the facts.

Facts: NO ONE is “living on welfare” anymore. TANF is ONLY for families with children, and technically only goes for the needs of the kids. Section 8, the housing assistance, has waiting lists for fucking long it might as well not exist for most people – as I've said, the waiting in my area is 10 years. SNAP is the only benefit open to able-bodied adults, and for most it is a SUPPLEMENT and not the whole of their food bill.

There is NOTHING desirable about remaining on welfare. NOTHING. You are routinely humiliated by others, the forms and re-assessments are, to be honest, like having to re-do your taxes every six months (or worse – my tax form, even when self-employed, runs about 8-12 pages. I've had food stamp applications run to 30 pages of documentation), and you are treated as if you are lying and disreputable at every turn. You have to worry about rules imposed by others and your own behavior is constrained. Its sucks, get it?

That's why when the SNAP benefit drops to under $80 or so a month a lot of people just simply stop bothering – it's not worth the time and effort to stay on the program. You just say fuck it, I'll eat rice and beans on more day a week and somehow pull that money out of my ass because I just can't fucking put up with the bureaucratic shit any more.

Second – I AM in agreement with the need for LIVABLE minimum wage. Speaking as someone making above minimum wage, working full time, AND still qualifying for food stamps.

[

Yesterday at work I heard something about potatoes now being allowed on WIC... which is another thing about that program, it's always changing around.

I'm not stupid, I've been doing grocery cashier work for most of a year now, but I still have a supervisor come over during WIC transactions to make sure I'm not screwing them up. The program is a headache for the vendor end of things. We put up with it, though, because making sure moms and babies eat properly is a long-term good for society.

There's the whole MAKING MONEY thing too.

Somehow, given that it can easily take 15 minutes to process a WIC purchase for 6 items, I don't think my employer is actually profiting on any of this. In fact, it's probably a financial loss. Made up for by these same families purchasing other items and some positive PR.

[TheHammer]

I could draw up a budget that, without cheating, allows someone to take their monthly allotment, eat a very dull and cheap diet for 29 days, and on day 30 have enough to purchase some discounted lobster for dinner. Why the fuck do you not understand that? Why the hell should you CARE that someone on food stamps, once in awhile, gets to eat something like lobster so long as no cheating is occuring?

You're like the people who say “that person doesn't need help – they have a leather jacket!” or “they don't need help, they have a TV!” Or air conditioner. Or some other out of context imagined luxury. It's a kneejerk assesment.

Because the system is fucking broken. In a working system you wouldn't be living on welfare, it should be there is a safety net and a basis from which you can eventually get off of welfare. Which is why I feel welfare reform should be tied to minimum wage increase to a livable rather than the institutionalized welfare dependent employment that Walmart offers and reformed such that you don't make it more desirable to remain on welfare than to work a relatively low paying job.

Part of the problem here is that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Like all too many Americans you have a ton of assumptions and half-truths about “welfare” but you don't know the facts.

Facts: NO ONE is “living on welfare” anymore. TANF is ONLY for families with children, and technically only goes for the needs of the kids. Section 8, the housing assistance, has waiting lists for fucking long it might as well not exist for most people – as I've said, the waiting in my area is 10 years. SNAP is the only benefit open to able-bodied adults, and for most it is a SUPPLEMENT and not the whole of their food bill.

There is NOTHING desirable about remaining on welfare. NOTHING. You are routinely humiliated by others, the forms and re-assessments are, to be honest, like having to re-do your taxes every six months (or worse – my tax form, even when self-employed, runs about 8-12 pages. I've had food stamp applications run to 30 pages of documentation), and you are treated as if you are lying and disreputable at every turn. You have to worry about rules imposed by others and your own behavior is constrained. Its sucks, get it?

That's why when the SNAP benefit drops to under $80 or so a month a lot of people just simply stop bothering – it's not worth the time and effort to stay on the program. You just say fuck it, I'll eat rice and beans on more day a week and somehow pull that money out of my ass because I just can't fucking put up with the bureaucratic shit any more.

All of which points to the fact that it is a broken system.

Second – I AM in agreement with the need for LIVABLE minimum wage. Speaking as someone making above minimum wage, working full time, AND still qualifying for food stamps.

Which speaks to how much the minimum wage would need to be increased to be deemed "livable". Of course there is the whole "you'll hurt/kill small businesses!" you always hear about, but that will play itself out soon enough in Seattle and other areas who've moved or are moving to $15 per hour minimums.

Personally, I'm in favor of a social security like system that would replace welfare - something that provides a monthly stipend to every citizen young or old, paid for with taxes similar to FICA - The key difference being that there is no cap on wages that can be taxed (as there is with FICA) and income from investments is treated the same as income from any other source, so that ultimately "the rich" pay more in than they get out, but they'll live. Under that scenario, you don't need to raise the minimum wage so much (thus diffusing fears about small business), there is no bureaucracy and there is no dis-incentive to work since everyone qualifies and receives benefits.

[Flagg]

I'm sure there are some abusers of the system, much the same way you've got wealthy abusing the systems they are subject to. I've got no problem with reforming welfare. Personally I'd like to see the system scrapped and replaced with a basic needs (cheap but nutritional massed produced meals, government provided dormitory style house etc) system. I'll spare you the point by point details, but I think the system could be better.

Yeah, go fuck yourself. I get $90 in food stamps per month. You really think anyone could survive on that? Used to get just shy of $200, but then I got approved for federal Disability SSD. Which means including automatic Medicare and Medicaid, I get about $750 a month. So the state lowered my food stamp allotment. Am I complaining? No, I'm in a situation where that is a hit, but not a devastating one. But what if it were a devastating one? Guess I should just eat rice with maggots in it cause that's protein!

Anyway, I love how so many of these are based on "A guy who knows a guy told him..." horseshit. They also seem to be under the delusion where you can buy virtually anything with an EBT card. You know what you can buy with an EBT card? Food. That's it. You can't even buy toilet paper with EBT. Hell, you can't even buy one of those pre-cooked chickens (that are cheaper than the whole raw ones half the motherfucking time) they have at the front of the store. Nope, it's got the be "unprepared" or pre-packaged cold or frozen food. Can you buy steak and king crab legs? Sure. I've done it while using an EBT card. Of course it was a former X-Mas eve tradition and I was using both EBT and money I may have otherwise used to buy something I needed or wanted, but was using with the EBT card as most of us filthy welfare queens will do just to piss you "normies" off. But because no one but you and the cashier (unless you've got a creep leaning forward awkwardly listening in)knows how much there is in the EBT account (IIRC it was maybe $13-$14usd and how much you spent using your bank card, so judgmental assholes (all Republicans ever, period, no further discussion on this fact is needed) just assume that you used $70 in food stamps to buy the steak and crab legs and it never occurs to them that maybe the $13-$14 could count towards the rolls, butter, and cranberry sauce you're buying for the X-Mas meal.

So for people like the Republicans who profess to be Christians, and Christians are supposed to love the poor, they sure go out of their fucking way to lie (that's breaking a commandment!) about poor people and welfare recipients as much as they possibly can...

[Broomstick]

Because the system is fucking broken.

No, fuckwad. It's flawed, not broken. "Broken" would be people starving. Right now, it's the reason my spouse and I have enough to eat. It's why Flagg has enough to eat. Flawed, not "broken".

Actually, the SNAP part works reasonably well, once you get past the paperwork. There should just be more of it (in my opinion, which admittedly might be slightly biased).

In a working system you wouldn't be living on welfare, it should be there is a safety net and a basis from which you can eventually get off of welfare.

I am NOT "living on" welfare. It's supplementing what we have so we can eat a healthy diet instead of one that leads to malnutrition.

There is also the Earned Income Tax Credit, which scales up as we earn more. That's a once a year pay out, not a monthly one. It's not huge, either, but it's something. As noted, there's a built in incentive there because (up to a point) the more you earn the more you get.

The fact that that is all there is for us does not, in my opinion, make the system "broken". Insufficient might be a better term. The problem isn't the quality, it's the quantity of aid.

Second – I AM in agreement with the need for LIVABLE minimum wage. Speaking as someone making above minimum wage, working full time, AND still qualifying for food stamps.

Which speaks to how much the minimum wage would need to be increased to be deemed "livable". Of course there is the whole "you'll hurt/kill small businesses!" you always hear about, but that will play itself out soon enough in Seattle and other areas who've moved or are moving to $15 per hour minimums.

In my area we don't even need $15/hour - we'd be fully independent and on our feet at $12/hour. Not that I would turn down $15/hour, but the point is that we don't even need to go that far to remedy some of the real problems.

I suspect some of the push for $15/hour is as a negotiating tactic, so if it's backed down to $14 or even $12 people still are better off than now. Of course, if you lived in, say, New York City $15/hour might not be sufficient.

[salm]

Of course it was a former X-Mas eve tradition and I was using both EBT and money I may have otherwise used to buy something I needed or wanted, but was using with the EBT card as most of us filthy welfare queens will do just to piss you "normies" off.

But Flagg, don´t you understand, if you have money you shouldn´t have food stamps at all. In fact, as soon as you have a penny left you should send your food stamps back to whomever wants them.

[TheHammer]

Because the system is fucking broken.

No, fuckwad. It's flawed, not broken. "Broken" would be people starving. Right now, it's the reason my spouse and I have enough to eat. It's why Flagg has enough to eat. Flawed, not "broken".

Actually, the SNAP part works reasonably well, once you get past the paperwork. There should just be more of it (in my opinion, which admittedly might be slightly biased).

In a working system you wouldn't be living on welfare, it should be there is a safety net and a basis from which you can eventually get off of welfare.

I am NOT "living on" welfare. It's supplementing what we have so we can eat a healthy diet instead of one that leads to malnutrition.

There is also the Earned Income Tax Credit, which scales up as we earn more. That's a once a year pay out, not a monthly one. It's not huge, either, but it's something. As noted, there's a built in incentive there because (up to a point) the more you earn the more you get.

The fact that that is all there is for us does not, in my opinion, make the system "broken". Insufficient might be a better term. The problem isn't the quality, it's the quantity of aid.

Do you see some end in the near future to your need to have your income supplemented? If not, then you are in fact living on welfare. That's not to say its your only source of income or survival, but you don't see a near future where you will be off of it. To me, that means the system is BROKEN, not merely flawed. In a working system, there would be some light at the end of the tunnel where assistance is no longer needed.

[Flagg]

Of course it was a former X-Mas eve tradition and I was using both EBT and money I may have otherwise used to buy something I needed or wanted, but was using with the EBT card as most of us filthy welfare queens will do just to piss you "normies" off.

But Flagg, don´t you understand, if you have money you shouldn´t have food stamps at all. In fact, as soon as you have a penny left you should send your food stamps back to whomever wants them.

Of course! How could I have been so blind? My pittance could be used to fill a pot-hole or supplement a farmer to burn his crop instead of sending it to starving children across the world!

[Simon_Jester]

Again, classic tu quoque. Please cite where I said "Tax evasion is ok" or that "welfare scams are a bigger problem" or shut the fuck up. Since this particular thread is about welfare that's what we are talking about. Anything else is a redherring. Feel free to start a thread regarding tax evasion and solutions you'd like to propose.

No, it is not a red herring.

The point here is that if the federal government is going to NOT spend one million dollars extra and recover several million in taxes owed to it by the rich, it is STUPID to then spend one million dollars on 'welfare fraud' and recover a few hundred thousand by booting a handful of idiots off the food stamp rolls.

The only coherent explanation for why anyone would push for this status quo is massive raging classism. As in, when a rich person steals 100 dollars from the governemnt it's a peccadillo, but when a poor person "steals" one dollar it's a crime. And by "steal" I mean "spent the money they legitimately received in a way I don't approve of."

And raising this issue is not a red herring, because it's a tremendous inconsistency in the political platforms of America's dominant anti-welfare faction.

You came in here and basically seemed totally perplexed by Salm saying that tax evasion is too big a problem for us to take welfare fraud seriously by comparison. Literally, you said "Where the hell is that coming from?" When Salm explained you said "You need to cite some actual sources to make that sort of claim."

And my point is that if you weren't utterly ignorant of the numbers, you wouldn't need to ask for sources. The federal government's tax receipts are measured in the trillions, the SNAP program's budget is less than a hundred billion annually and fraud is in the single digit percent. From this basic knowledge alone it is easy to predict that tax evasion is a far, far larger problem than welfare fraud. And you really, really have to be obtuse not to understand why "tax evasion is a bigger problem" justifies saying "the middle and upper classes should stop using welfare fraud as a scapegoat."

Because the system is fucking broken. In a working system you wouldn't be living on welfare, it should be there is a safety net and a basis from which you can eventually get off of welfare.

You already can't live on welfare by itself, not for any length of time. At best you can become dependent on someone who lets you crash on their couch while using your welfare money to pay for the groceries.

The thing is, there is NO reason why we should spitefully say "no, don't you DARE have anything other than minimum survival needs!" to people. Not just because "welfare is a base from which you can eventually get off welfare." It doesn't make sense. Your conclusion isn't following from your premise.

I mean, think about it. Owning a suit is a luxury... but it improves your chances of getting a job. Owning a car or an Internet connection is arguably a luxury... but it exponentially improves your ability to get a job. Eating non-crummy food and keeping fit is arguably a luxury... but it improves your chances of getting a job. Having a bed you can get a good night's sleep in, instead of a cot or a broken-down sofa, is arguably a luxury... but actually getting some fucking sleep at night really makes it easier to get and hold down a job.

Forcing people to live in crappy conditions and be constantly distracted and weakened and undermined by the lack of things that even the lowest of the middle class take for granted is NOT the way to ensure that they get off welfare.

I could get behind such a system, but you'd have to give it to everyone and NOT phase it out so there isn't a disincentive for people to improve their own financial situations. If someone can work 40 hours and get X dollars (Welfare+Pay) or they can work 30 hours and get X dollars (Welfare+pay) then you're really not giving them much reason to put in that extra effort. Instead, i'd raise tax rates on the top tax brackets, give EVERYONE a basic food allowance and let the rest sort itself out.

It's child's play to calibrate the welfare payouts so that your welfare payments decrease by, say, 50 cents per dollar of after-tax income you bring in. That's enough to create a healthy incentive structure... as long as you can make employers actually offer reasonable jobs with reasonable number of hours instead of keeping a host of temps working unpredictable 20-hour weeks on minimum wage.

Do you see some end in the near future to your need to have your income supplemented? If not, then you are in fact living on welfare. That's not to say its your only source of income or survival, but you don't see a near future where you will be off of it.

That is a foolish standard.

Getting off welfare would require her income to increase dramatically- which is an event she cannot possibly control!

I don't know if you've followed Broomstick's autobiographical anecdotes over the past several years on this forum, but she's made it quite clear over the years that she is surprisingly inventive and resourceful when it comes to saving money by doing economical things, and in seeking a wide variety of diverse employment opportunities. It's not every fiftyish married woman who suddenly takes up construction work to pay the bills, after all.

So in all seriousness... do you really think she should be "expecting" that soon she'll start making twelve or fifteen dollars an hour "in the near future?" If she knew how to do that without a good-sized dose of luck, she would already be doing so! And so would most of the other Americans in the same situation as her!

To me, that means the system is BROKEN, not merely flawed. In a working system, there would be some light at the end of the tunnel where assistance is no longer needed.

That light is, typically, "I get a job that pays fifteen dollars an hour for something close to forty hours a week."

No possible change to the welfare system will "fix" the fact that this is out of easy reach for a lot of Americans. We might "fix" it by changing something else. But until then, we design our welfare system for the economy we have, not the economy we wish we had.

[Broomstick]

Do you see some end in the near future to your need to have your income supplemented?

Yeah, actually I do.

Since I found a sane employer I've gone from part to full time and received two pay raises in the past year. My current store management supports me getting onto the management track and on May 12 I go in front of regional management to get formal approval. In other words, I fully anticipate getting a job with a livable wage in the next few years at most, and possibly within the year, with the prospect of doing even better than that.

Thanks for asking.

[Simon_Jester]

[blinks]

Hurray!

That said, I think my basic point is valid- a year or two ago he could have asked the same question and the correct answer would have been "what the hell are you talking about?"

[Broomstick]

Yeah, a year I walked off a job after being physcially attacked by a co-worker.

The year before that I quite a job because I hadn't been paid for 12 weeks. Well, OK, I had been, but the check bounced. See lawsuit reference in my sig.

Yeah, a year or two ago it would have been "WTF?"

I'm succeeding because I keep trying, but not everyone is as stubborn as me. It's been 8 years since I earned a truly livable wage. That's with me being smart, educated (4 year degree), experienced, and healthier than a lot of people half my age. Lots of people in my position have the deck even more stacked against them.

[Guardsman Bass]

Kansas just passed and signed the welfare bill mentioned in the OP. The thing is a treasure trove of nastiness beyond the restrictions mentioned in the article - among other things, it restricts cash withdrawals to $25/day (given that there's a $1 fee on withdrawals plus whatever the bank charges, it's a huge rip-off targeted directly at poor people), and according to the Kansas City Star also gets any adults who have the misfortune to live in a household where one of the adults therein commits welfare fraud slapped with a life-time ban.