Abuse of social services

[steppinthrax]

you cannot use LOGIC in a discussion with Sappy she is all Emo

I like Emos !!!!


Any other background?

 

[steppinthrax]

Despite the selfish attitudes of many like you we are all Americans. All too often today that is forgetten. We have a duty to one another to help each other and that assurance is in the long run beneficial to us as well.

To claim to be a Christian and then be resentful of those less fortunate and our governments attempts to help them is pitiful

I'm not Christian. I didn't vote for Trump. I'm a democrat.

I don't think the gov should support poor people. I think those systems are abused and become perm systems v.s. support.

 

[Bird Dog]

Good one. That's much better then trying to give your opinion or refute anything I said.

If i had to rely on benefits I wouldn't be ashamed as I have paid into the system my entire working life. But it shows how little you think of poor people that you think it is an insult

I have worked with the poor for over 30 years. I was President of a local St Vincent de Paul Society (google them if are not familiar with them) for 7 years. I think I have a good handle on poor people.
We gave out food boxes, wrote checks to the electric companies, assisted with evictions, prescriptions, even funerals and much, much more.
I’m a firm believer in the food boxes because before my arrival the group was giving out food vouchers for a local grocery store. The program was highly abused. Not only high end but terribly low end products were purchased and many vouchers were sold for cash. We switched to boxes and was able to double the food assistance to the community. Our boxes were designed by one of our volunteers who happened to be a nutritionist. The boxes had to be picked up at the Church on certain hours and no one complained.

So, I think I understand the poor a little better than most. I am not belittling the poor, but belittling you because as Shakespeare once said “Doth protest too much”

 

[Sapidus]

I ask you to show me where it is the government's role to act in a Christian manner.

It is everyone’s to act in the best interest of our fellow Americans. The government is the tool we have put in place to do things like that.

 

[mAlice]

I have worked with the poor for over 30 years. I was President of a local St Vincent de Paul Society (google them if are not familiar with them) for 7 years. I think I have a good handle on poor people.
We gave out food boxes, wrote checks to the electric companies, assisted with evictions, prescriptions, even funerals and much, much more.
I’m a firm believer in the food boxes because before my arrival the group was giving out food vouchers for a local grocery store. The program was highly abused. Not only high end but terribly low end products were purchased and many vouchers were sold for cash. We switched to boxes and was able to double the food assistance to the community. Our boxes were designed by one of our volunteers who happened to be a nutritionist. The boxes had to be picked up at the Church on certain hours and no one complained.

So, I think I understand the poor a little better than most. I am not belittling the poor, but belittling you because as Shakespeare once said “Doth protest too much”

 

[steppinthrax]

I have worked with the poor for over 30 years. I was President of a local St Vincent de Paul Society (google them if are not familiar with them) for 7 years. I think I have a good handle on poor people.
We gave out food boxes, wrote checks to the electric companies, assisted with evictions, prescriptions, even funerals and much, much more.
I’m a firm believer in the food boxes because before my arrival the group was giving out food vouchers for a local grocery store. The program was highly abused. Not only high end but terribly low end products were purchased and many vouchers were sold for cash. We switched to boxes and was able to double the food assistance to the community. Our boxes were designed by one of our volunteers who happened to be a nutritionist. The boxes had to be picked up at the Church on certain hours and no one complained.

So, I think I understand the poor a little better than most. I am not belittling the poor, but belittling you because as Shakespeare once said “Doth protest too much”

And I guarantee you that less people were picking up the boxes, knowing they can't sell them for cash (easily).

 

[GURPS]

The government is the tool we Replaced Churches With .

:fixed:



The Gov. is NOT a Charity.

 

[Sapidus]

I have worked with the poor for over 30 years. I was President of a local St Vincent de Paul Society (google them if are not familiar with them) for 7 years. I think I have a good handle on poor people.
We gave out food boxes, wrote checks to the electric companies, assisted with evictions, prescriptions, even funerals and much, much more.
I’m a firm believer in the food boxes because before my arrival the group was giving out food vouchers for a local grocery store. The program was highly abused. Not only high end but terribly low end products were purchased and many vouchers were sold for cash. We switched to boxes and was able to double the food assistance to the community. Our boxes were designed by one of our volunteers who happened to be a nutritionist. The boxes had to be picked up at the Church on certain hours and no one complained.

So, I think I understand the poor a little better than most. I am not belittling the poor, but belittling you because as Shakespeare once said “Doth protest too much”

How did you know the assistance was being abused? Did you see it first hand?

How did you measure that food assistance was doubled?


What type of food was in the box? Produce? Meat?

 

[steppinthrax]

How did you know the assistance was being abused? Did you see it first hand?

How did you measure that food assistance was doubled?


What type of food was in the box? Produce? Meat?

She just said she worked with the poor for over 30 years.


So she probably knows people would come there on the reg to try to get a voucher, then she would hear word on the street that they sold it or she would find out from another person etc....

I don't think it's that hard when you are dealing with a small cohort of people that are coming there on the reg.

If one person tries to get a food voucher 3 times a week, you know something is up.

I don't think "clay" or "dirt" was in the box. Most likely much better than they would have bought in the store. It probably also forced them to learn how to cook and process this food at home. Stretched it out further etc....

 

[This_person]

you do realize you are talking to a Fascist for whom the Gov. is the Solution to EVERYTHING ....

the 1st, last and final answer for solving the all the ills of the Country and the World - some gov functionary in Washington dictating to the rubes in the flyover states how they should act

I do. That's why I'm trying to point out that it is an undeniably wrong position to take, even though it seems his only position.

 

[This_person]

I have worked with the poor for over 30 years. I was President of a local St Vincent de Paul Society (google them if are not familiar with them) for 7 years. I think I have a good handle on poor people.
We gave out food boxes, wrote checks to the electric companies, assisted with evictions, prescriptions, even funerals and much, much more.
I’m a firm believer in the food boxes because before my arrival the group was giving out food vouchers for a local grocery store. The program was highly abused. Not only high end but terribly low end products were purchased and many vouchers were sold for cash. We switched to boxes and was able to double the food assistance to the community. Our boxes were designed by one of our volunteers who happened to be a nutritionist. The boxes had to be picked up at the Church on certain hours and no one complained.

So, I think I understand the poor a little better than most. I am not belittling the poor, but belittling you because as Shakespeare once said “Doth protest too much”

Thank you for your service

 

[This_person]

It is everyone’s to act in the best interest of our fellow Americans.

This is an opinion, based upon your moral code. This is not a law.

The government is the tool we have put in place to do things like that.

Quite specifically and well documented that this is not true. At least not at the federal level. The Constitution specifically says that it is not the vehicle to do things like this.

A congressman by the name of Davy Crockett might be able to help you out:

"Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living.

"I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money.

"Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the grounds that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. This government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the War of 1812 precisely the same amount.

"There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor; and if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of, but we never hear of any of these large debts to them.

"Sir, this is no debt. The government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity.

"Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

Was he just mean? No, a local farmer in his district taught him this:

"The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be trusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government.

"While you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20 million as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and in any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.

"No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in the country as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from necessity of giving what was not yours to give.

"The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution. So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you."

 

[kom526]

The school lunch thing with Obama was a flop I think because no body got input from the kids. There are actually some kids out there that will eat healthy food, but it also has to be convenient. At SMR, my son has to go across campus to jump in the lunch and if things go smooth he'll have time to knock back most of his lunch and have time to get a head start on homework. A lot of time he is walking to his next class snarfing down the last of lunch, hence the need for convenient, healthy foods.

As far as the seafood restriction goes on SNAP (if there is one) I do not see how they can restrict you if you were, I don't know, maybe a Catholic during Lent. Grilled cheese and tomato soup, black bean tacos, and other non seafood choices get really boring after the 2nd week.

 

[Bird Dog]

How did you know the assistance was being abused? Did you see it first hand?

How did you measure that food assistance was doubled?


What type of food was in the box? Produce? Meat?

I don’t even no why I’m answering this, but here goes.
1. I was informed by the local grocery store that many of our clients were selling vouchers in front of their store. Usually 50 cents on the dollar. We also received itemized copies of receipts.
2. We kept very precise logs on our assistance.
3. Yes, canned meat, vegetables and fruit, plus other items. You have to understand these people were hungry. They were not asking for gourmet.
4. Mostly it was the last week of the month when their assistance check was spent, and their SNAP card ran out.

They were very happy to receive our boxes.

 

[BOP]

If your employer is giving you money they should be able to control how you use it.


If the lottery is giving you money they should be able to control how you use it.



How are those different?


The govt already controls many items you can and can't buy with benefits.


Not to mention over 8% of retail grocery spending in the us is food stamps. Walmart is not going to let this happen

Well, you not having a real job, I can understand how you don't know how any of this works.

 

[BOP]

I get it....your just pi$$ed of you’ll be getting a Box now.......poor baby.

He can always play in the box after he's done.

 

[glhs837]

Yes. These stipulations and conditions are already in place. Now you are talking about removing part of the food stamp benefit and deciding what food people should be eating.


Which is exactly what people were mad at Michelle Obama about.

And exactly what people were mad at Bloomberg for enforcing a soda tax.

Yet now that it comes to poor people they shouldn't get a choice in the matter

I don’t even no why I’m answering this, but here goes.
1. I was informed by the local grocery store that many of our clients were selling vouchers in front of their store. Usually 50 cents on the dollar. We also received itemized copies of receipts.
2. We kept very precise logs on our assistance.
3. Yes, canned meat, vegetables and fruit, plus other items. You have to understand these people were hungry. They were not asking for gourmet.
4. Mostly it was the last week of the month when their assistance check was spent, and their SNAP card ran out.

They were very happy to receive our boxes.

This jives with my own admittedly limited experience with the sale of food assitance benefits. When I left the Navy in 96, I spent 30 days working for a contractor that had the cnontract to install audio, contper, and phone wiring into Bldgs 2185 and 2187. One fine day taking a smoke break with the rest of the five man crew, one mentios the other words to the effect of "Hey man, it's the 30th, fifty four hundred!!!!" "Awesome!!" said the other guy. I asked, puzzzled, what fifty four hundred was as I couldnt see any reason that particular number should elciti excitement. They, knowing that I was fresh out of the Navy and not workin stiffs like themselves, laughed at me. "No, man, it's not fifty four hundred, it fifty FOR one hundred". I must have still looked puzzled, as they kept laughing. "Benefits roll in, and you can buy 100 dollars of groceries for 50 bucks, man". I was the only one who wanst aware of this practice.

 

[somdwatch]

Charity and assistance should be given from the goodness of our hearts because it is the right thing to do.

When you start to say what type of charity you re willing to give you it no longer is an act of kindness but an attempt to control the way others live their lives.

Sending people boxes of processed food that don't include meat or vegetables is not efficient. Especially if you are hypocritical enough to say its ok for the government to get involved in what people eat yet you want to shrink government in every other way.

The stereotype of the welfare queen driving a escalade and eating crab legs was made up by the GOP to push their narrative.

These people ( fellow americans) need our help and we should entrust them enough to think they can decide for themselves what is best for their families nutrition. If you are worried about someone gaming the system insist the IRS close the loopholes that allow Trump and co to write off millions every year.

There are already resections on not buying non food items or prepared food with food stamps.

The Stereotype?? Have you ever been to some charitable organization's events? Have you ever delivered gift taken up from your workplace? I have, these are not stereotypes! These people exist in every place I've delivered to from my workplace collections.

 

[Sapidus]

I do. That's why I'm trying to point out that it is an undeniably wrong position to take, even though it seems his only position.

We created the government for the benefit of the people. It’s not something to fear. We control it. Why are you so scared of organization?

 

[somdwatch]

Maybe because 2 lbs of catfish or tilapia is often cheaper than chicken. Are you saying people who are needy can't eat seafood ever?

There are going to be "business complexities" with food boxes. Govt giving the contacts to the food producers to the cheapest and least healthy sources. I wouldn't trust a bunch of govt workers to make up a healthy meal kit for the millions of kids in this country who need it especially since the article says it won't include meat or fresh produce.

I would trust their parents who see them every day and have a vested interest in their health to do it.

Yep, you're stupid. The generational recipients of "benefits" aren't your everyday parent. I would be ashamed to let my kids know I'm receiving a benefit for being lazy.