THEY HAVE TO WORK? THAT'S RACIST!!
Maybe off topic, but things seems to be getting out of hand with these “entitlement” public assistance programs.
With food assistance and food stamps, more and more schools are feeding kids all their meals. There are summer feeding programs at some schools. Some schools send kids home on Friday afternoon with backpacks full of food for the weekend.
What gets me is that their families are already getting food stamps to feed these kids, yet they are also getting fed through the schools, even during school vacations and summer vacations.
I don’t want anyone to go hungry, but there need to be limits set on all these programs.
If there should be an unemployment and food dole at all, it makes sense for them to be tied not just at the start, which is the common current case (and then the food dole keeps up through inertia). The devil is in the details.
Their ‘trade’ is entitlement. They want nothing else.
Push 5 for English is next.
The liberals will say that Gov. Martinez wants to take food out of the mouths of hungry children. They will say she wants kids to be hungry.
That’s how liberals think. Unfortunately the media will pick up on that meme.
I think the fact that liberals control the media and how stories are presented, distorts how our country deals with issues. Paul Ryan’s plan for Medicare is a good example. I’m not sure I want to see a Medicare voucher program, but, the liberals screamed that Ryan wants to throw grandma off a cliff. The media picks up on that meme, so then it ends up that we can’t have any reasoned discussion of what to do to shore up Medicare’s finances.
Sadly the same thing can happen here. The liberals will say Martinez wants kids to go hungry, and then the program may be dropped as a result.
Food assistance should be beans..rice..fresh veggies..and milk for children under 7...it could bebpowdered milk! Thats what I grew up on!
““Right now American conservatives are arguing over the idea that the US should provide at least a minimum safety net for citizens...”
Well, when you start with a premise such at that, you might, JUST might, be pinpointing why the (C) brand hasn’t been winning.
Just what ELSE *should* the electorate be providing for other Citizens, eh and where/how how does that gel with the Constitution (specifically 5th, 13th)?
Of the adults collecting food stamps upwards of half are already working but don't make enough not to qualify for food stamps. Will they have to put in the 20 hours per week as well? The story doesn't say. And of those who do participate, are they supposed to bring their kids with them to the community service and training.
I would assume that those who already have full-time jobs are exempt.
Any kind of welfare should, firstly, not be coming from the Feds at all, it’s a State/City function if not private charity.
Work should be required. If they can’t find a job, then they can either go to city-approved community service sites, or other city-level work like picking up trash along highways or such, since jailbirds no longer do that. Just ‘searching’ for a job isn’t enough. They can also put in some hours for the city.
Food should be limited to basic foodstuffs, staples. And disbursed directly, not given out as stamps or ebt debit cards. The city can run its own warehouse, or maybe partner with a couple grocery chains to disburse the food. GROCERY STORES.
Time limits. There’s no way someone needs to take 3-4 years to find a job. (And get welfare for all of that!) If they really are that lazy/unemployable, there’s a mental problem there, no work ethic, knowledge of how to act in public. If so, they can start going to private charities after that time.
The last time California did and audit of the LA county welfare rolls they confirmed that close to 50% of the recipients falsified their incomes to illegally obtain welfare payments, were receiving multiple benefits under different identity information, were illegal aliens or were otherwise fraudulently receiving welfare benefits.
Many unemployed people stay on welfare because it's to their advantage because they make more on welfare for not working than they could working a low wage job. A large percentage of these able bodied welfare recipients are also making money on the side via working for under the table for cash jobs or by criminal activity such as drug dealing and prostitution. Lots of people, perhaps even a majority, make a very good(and tax free) living on welfare supplanted by drug dealing and hustling other illegal and illicit activities
Requiring that welfare recipients apply in person and provide finger print verification and be re evaluated for benefits on an annual basis would stop a lot of the fraud and prevent people from receiving multiple benefits under several false identities.
Requiring those able bodied professional welfare recipients who are now riding and milking the system because they make more money on un taxed welfare benefits by not working than they would by working and paying taxes like the rest of us than they make working would provide incentives for them to actually get a job.
An added plus it that the physical act of having to show up to a job site would occupy the time they now spend working on the side in the same huge underground cash based economy that serves the illegal alien population or spend getting cash illegally by drug dealing and other criminal activities. This would put a crimp on their under the table incomes and make actually working for a living a more competitive option for them.
They should get rid of EBT. Use a pickup site (really, no more difficult than going to a store), and provide food basics—ceral, grains, processed cheese bricks, canned meat, powdered milk, beans. Things that get the job done, that keep well, but that aren’t tasty or tradeable.
I think the original idea behind the EBT was to eliminate the shame of food stamps, but it has been abused beyond my tolerance.