Well-paid Hollywood firefighters sought emergency food stamps after Wilma

South Florida Sun-Sentinel ^ | 1/24/06 | Shannon O'Boye

[wagglebee]

Hollywood · A group of civic activists is taking the city to task over the case of three firefighters who applied for emergency food stamps after Hurricane Wilma, even though they each earn more than $70,000 per year.

The federal emergency food stamp program, run by the state Department of Children & Families, was intended for people who lost wages or suffered such catastrophic damage they could not feed their families that month. Approximately 500,000 Floridians applied.

Firefighter Anthony Cioppa, 41, Capt. Raymond Powers, 51, and Driver-Engineer William Gutierrez, 42, made substantial overtime as a result of the hurricane, city records show. It's unclear whether all the men received aid because such records are not open to the public.

[wagglebee]

My guess is that their union doesn't mind as long as they vote for the 'Rats.

[sarasmom]

Anyone here care to wager against me that millions of "under 30K a year", nongovernmental/non-union, working class people who were "eligible", and even the intended recipients, did not even consider applying for this aid?
....

[DilJective]

It's pretty hard to abuse a system when it doesn't exist- all these silly programs need to be stopped. The whole idea that only the government can be benelovent and assist people.

It makes me sick that I paid taxes while being assigned and living overseas for 13 years so these "forced charities" could pad higher paid government workers' wages and the rest of the lazy non-workers! Arrrgh!