When Food Stamps were introduced in the late 70's, as part of Jimmy Carter and the Dems unrelenting efforts to reward their electorate, were actually paper stamps. Within a year the drug culture in Chicago, Detroit, New York and Los Angeles were using Food Stamps as the currency of choice to buy their dope.
Rather than address the core issue; whether or not a particular person was deserving of this benefit, or whether program "need" was actually being properly audited, the government decided that Food Stamp cards would be preferable. First, it would completely eliminate the shame that a Food Stamp recipient might feel in the grocery line. Secondly, it would be so much more efficient. After all, how could a food stamp recipient cheat with a food stamp credit card? In recent years, while tax-paying American families have had to forego a night out at a fast food place, the Food Stamp crowd are now approved to enhance their obesity and diabetes just by swiping that Food Stamp card for those Supersize Big Mac combos.
We now know: Never underestimate the ingenuity of a "victim class" that has developed a sense of entitlement unrivaled in our history. Many states have now opted to do away with welfare checks and simply re-boot the welfare recipients credit card. Alas, now we are learning that these welfare folks are now using their welfare credit cards in casino slot machines across the land.
My mom was on welfare for about a year when I was a kid. She and we hated it. In addition to a very small welfare check we were invited to the county welfare office once a month. We would pull up to a dock in the back of the building and go in and get a box of excess agricultural commodities. Within the box was a bag of flour, a bag of sugar, a block of cheese, dried beans and a sack of potatoes. We were also visited at home by a welfare worker who walked through our house, ask us questions about parental care...and embarassed the hell out of us with that state welfare car out front for all our neighbors to see. We hated it and got off of it as quickly as we could.
That's what we need today. We need direct government supervision of benefit programs, active audits, and we need to have welfare recipients to hate it, and want to get off of the program as soon as possible! Instead, we have three generations of Great Society "victims" who demand more and more from the taxpayer.
At the very least, let's make a deal with this "victim class". Let's cut out the shady 7-11 store owner "middlemen" and offer these welfare suckers 30 percent on the dollar in cash in lieu of Food Stamps that they apparently neither want or need. We could balance our budget in a year
3 comments:
unfortunately, i don't see people wanting to get off the dole willingly. the difference between the time folks like your family were on welfare to now is that back then people had pride in themselves and WANTED to be productive citizens who did not place a strain on society. you will not find that nowadays.
Thanks for your comments. As I have written often, The Great Society legislation did more harm to America than any other federal program. It has bred three generations of a "victim" class that simply expect to live off of entitlements for their entire lives...and the government has taken the shame out of it...even rewarded it because they soon recognized those "victims" became a steady voting block for big liberal government.
I passionately advocate a paradigm shift in welfare aid. First, go from a "something for nothing" to a "something for something" system. Require some form of community service in return for aid. Second, get rid of food stamps and EBT cards that are used in commercial retailers. Form co-op style food centers that are run and staffed by those whom need the aid,all the way from the production to the distribution. This would require large amounts of labor of different types, so many jobs would be created. Also, use our shutdown military bases to temporarily house those on the programs, and to establish the agriculture centers neccessary to support the co-ops. Then we would have a win-win welfare program, as well as getting rid of those that scam the system.
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