Usa Thread

[Hugh_Hoy]

I've personally witnessed such purchases. (But I thought booze couldn't be purchased with food stamps.) Now, the parasites are issued what looks like a bank card, so they won't be "embarassed" by pulling out their coupons. It's the same old shit; Katrina handouts being used for cruises and trips to Hawaii; CA cash allotments for the "poor" in the form of bank cards being used in casinos in CA and Vegas. IMO, there's a very small percentage of these oxygen thieves who really need Government assistance (physically and mentally disabled who have no family to care for them or can not care for them). The rest can starve to death as far as I'm concerned. The is a big difference between those who are unemployable and those who choose to use what should be a "safety net" as a hammock.

 

HH

[Flashermac]

You're right. It was welfare cheques/checks being cashed to buy booze. Food stamps only pay for caviar and such.

 

My mother was a volunteer in the 1980s, helping hand out food to "poor folks" for the state. She said they would tell her, "We like that cheese, but we just throw away that yeller corn bread. We only eats the white kind." WTF? I love yellow corn bread!

 

 

 

[Old Hippie]

It works like this, only certain items are covered under food stamps/WIC supplements etc...but they also get some small cash allowance, and sometimes free or heavily subsidized housing. The scam works in several ways...1) they work under the table for cash, 2) they sell drugs/stolen property 3) they sell a $20 food stamp for $12 and buy the booze and cigarettes or other items not covered.

[Bangkoktraveler]

In Arizona, the govenor wants to do away with the State's Medicare program.

 

Sounds like 2011 might be an interesting year.

[Steve]

I used to buy food stamps for 50 cents on the dollar downtown LA and use it to buy a lot of meat to put in my freezer. Beef is expensive as you know.

The new card limits that. I was buying the old paper stamps. Also, the welfare reform of the '90s from Clinton further limited how long you could be on welfare and made it tougher to get it.

I totally agree that social welfare has a lot of holes and scammers even with all the changes. However, being a small L libertarian I am for limiting welfare in all its forms. Corporate welfare continues to dwarf the amount we spend on social welfare but because those same corporations, corporate farms, etc. have clout in Washington they still get their perks. I recall reading once years ago how Dole Foods got paid for importing fruit as if they needed help doing that. They and other food companies practically owned large parts of central america. The ExIm Bank and others gave low or no interest loans to companies that didn't need it.

Corporate farms using farm subsidies that were set up for the family farmer and at the same time through their lobbyists trying to kill the small farmer off so they can get their land.

The companies that could use it don't get it a lot of the time because the large companies get the money. There are many families who need social welfare. I grew up with many of them. Families where the father left, jailed or became an addict. The kids didn't ask to be there. Churches like the ones I went to as a kid acted as a kind of social net for a lot of families. (for some of you anti religion types...lol).

 

On a side note, my fervent belief that the best way to cut social welfare is improve schools from K-12. Especially K-6. Doesn't matter how much you spend on HS, if the kids don't have the foundation early it means very little. Give a kid a good education early on that girl or boy won't risk messing up their chance to go to college by having a kid out of wedlock. The most careful girls I knew about who insisted on condoms or didn't have sex at all were the girls that were college bound. I guarantee you that you won't find many straight A teenage girls in the inner city getting pregnant. Early education in the inner city is appallingly bad. HS is not much better. I had to go to a school in the burbs to take calculus for example (didn't help I suck at math...lol).

[Flashermac]

Instead of improving education, which might mean firing incompetent teachers, school districts do bizarre things. e.g. My nephew scored the highest IQ in the county for 4 or 5 years when he started school. He got put in the "skylab class" - brightest kids in the district. They got put in an old unheated building, while the special ed kids got the best of everything - including access to computers. The smart kids got f*ck all. Also, a neighbour's daughter went to the same high school for 3 years. She was a cheerleader and active in school government. But the school board moved the district lines one block to the north, and the girl had to spend her senior year at a school miles away - where she knew absolutely no one. No exceptions ... she had to go (and it broke her heart).

 

Do school boards ever think about education instead of politics?

 

 

 

 

[Old Hippie]

I used to buy food stamps for 50 cents on the dollar downtown LA and use it to buy a lot of meat to put in my freezer. Beef is expensive as you know.

The new card limits that. I was buying the old paper stamps. Also, the welfare reform of the '90s from Clinton further limited how long you could be on welfare and made it tougher to get it.

I totally agree that social welfare has a lot of holes and scammers even with all the changes. However, being a small L libertarian I am for limiting welfare in all its forms. Corporate welfare continues to dwarf the amount we spend on social welfare but because those same corporations, corporate farms, etc. have clout in Washington they still get their perks. I recall reading once years ago how Dole Foods got paid for importing fruit as if they needed help doing that. They and other food companies practically owned large parts of central america. The ExIm Bank and others gave low or no interest loans to companies that didn't need it.

Corporate farms using farm subsidies that were set up for the family farmer and at the same time through their lobbyists trying to kill the small farmer off so they can get their land.

The companies that could use it don't get it a lot of the time because the large companies get the money. There are many families who need social welfare. I grew up with many of them. Families where the father left, jailed or became an addict. The kids didn't ask to be there. Churches like the ones I went to as a kid acted as a kind of social net for a lot of families. (for some of you anti religion types...lol).

 

On a side note, my fervent belief that the best way to cut social welfare is improve schools from K-12. Especially K-6. Doesn't matter how much you spend on HS, if the kids don't have the foundation early it means very little. Give a kid a good education early on that girl or boy won't risk messing up their chance to go to college by having a kid out of wedlock. The most careful girls I knew about who insisted on condoms or didn't have sex at all were the girls that were college bound. I guarantee you that you won't find many straight A teenage girls in the inner city getting pregnant. Early education in the inner city is appallingly bad. HS is not much better. I had to go to a school in the burbs to take calculus for example (didn't help I suck at math...lol).

 

 

The card changes nothing...I buy you $20 in food, you give me $10 for booze...or you just give me your card and PIN and say it was stolen...the thumb print and other ways to curtail welfare fraud have all been countered...the guys are just smarter than those hired to stop them...projects and ghettos run on this shit, and "the Man" can do little to stop it.

[Old Hippie]

Instead of improving education, which might mean firing incompetent teachers, school districts do bizarre things. e.g. My nephew scored the highest IQ in the county for 4 or 5 years when he started school. He got put in the "skylab class" - brightest kids in the district. They got put in an old unheated building, while the special ed kids got the best of everything - including access to computers. The smart kids got f*ck all. Also, a neighbour's daughter went to the same high school for 3 years. She was a cheerleader and active in school government. But the school board moved the district lines one block to the north, and the girl had to spend her senior year at a school miles away - where she knew absolutely no one. No exceptions ... she had to go (and it broke her heart).

 

Do school boards ever think about education instead of politics?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fuck with the teacher's union? are you crazy? That is like fucking with the police or fire unions...or the government workers...it just can be done...

[Steve]

What I don't know is if the fraud is the norm or the exception. Just my guess and I'd have to say the exception based on what I saw. Most families on aid growing up didn't abuse it. The facts may bear out different. I don't know. We qualified for aid, that much I know. We struggled without it but perceverd. I can't say the next family in our situation should have done the same. Life would have been a whole lot easier had we had less pride.

[Steve]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110103/us_yblog_thelookout/14-states-may-target-birthright-citizenship

 

14 states looking to repeal birth citizenship. I sympathize with the issue. Totally. However, emotions aside, its a slippery slope. These things always devolve to the lowest common denominator. The way to address the immigration issue ISN'T this way. I am as angry as anyone else but its just seems un-american and legally, unconstitutional. Someone will expand it to any offspring of an illegal. So, if ones grandparents were illegal then their grandchildren can be denied as well. Trust me, someone will suggest it (maybe on here...lol).

There are plenty of european immigrants who weren't kosher.

There are a number of soldiers who are either here illegally or parents of illegals who have/are serving in Afghanistan and/or Iraq. Same with the Gulf War and did serve in Vietnam as well.

Someone will want to make naturalized citizenship revokable next.

This messing about with the 14th Amendment is not good business. I'd rather leave it out of the immigration debate.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Guest