EBT Cards...

sums it up.

 

Keep your working class taxpayers happy, if the working class taxpayers are tired of supporting people who can work but are too lazy to do so then stop the handouts to keep your working class taxpayers in a good mood.

 

You are so right!

 

Google says they caught 12 people. I'm thinking $30MM is a stretch...

 

I am a smoker. If I got laid off from my job, the first thing I would change is to quit tobacco entirely. So why not someone who cannot provide for themselves?

While I'm at it, let's require 20 hours a week volunteer/community service. As mentioned before, you could replace low skilled pork barrel jobs like tollbooth collector with people on assistance. If you really need help finding something to do, I have a lot of menial stuff around my house I don't love doing. Come over and mow my lawn, shovel my driveway, clean my garage..

 

OK I fibbed, I was wrong on the figure. Here's what I found:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765637435/Utah-officials-say-welfare-drug-tests-save-money.html

Seems if you spend $30k to save $350k, that's still coming out ahead though. Ideally it would not cost $30k of course..

 

It's not so much the money as the attitude and mind set, and the principal that comes with it. Working people are just sick in general of seeing free loaders taking advantage of a generous system when they don't really need it. Like a co worker of mine. 24, single mother of a 3 year old. Proclaimed how she needed the ebt to pay for groceries so she could pay for her other bills. K cool.
But the. Ever week she is drinking bottles of wine, going out to bars, and wants to get a new tattoo. I just want to chew her out for that. If you can afford to get a new tattoo then you don't deserve ebt anymore.

Might post that! That is great!

 

And I'll eat my hat if you can show me one government program that really only has a true spend of $30K - that $350 number is an extrapolation by the way, they didn't tie that figure to the 12 failures directly.

Anyhow I really should be working so here are the points I'm failing to get through:
1. Welfare programs work, this is the first world and it's not just good because everyone has a job and pays their taxes.
2. Focusing on 'waste' this small does the country's narrative a huge disservice - we have bigger problems to solve and this doesn't even deserve the calories everyone's burnt rabbling on for the last 3 pages
3. Drug testing is a fools errand if you do the math.

In analytics we ignore edge cases because you can't do anything with them, this argument is over an edge case and resolving it doesn't do anything but satisfy a handful of pride. Ego in government is one of the biggest damned problems in the first place.

 

Very very very good points. When put that way I agree.

However this is the thing that could be taken care I at the state level. It would have a more positive effect on the local system I would think.



I will say this though, Walmart did not do the correct thing in this instance. At my store if this happened, the second someone noticed a zero ebt cash balance still paying out for transactions we would immediately shut down the ebt system as decline cards for a few hours while it got worked out.

 

This is well said. Chopping down the big three will do much more than nit picking at people who abuse SNAP and EBT benefits.

If we stopped locking up people for every little thing and/or cut military spending, even a fraction of the savings would be more then what people spend abusing food assistance. And assuming the ACA does its job with preventative care, we should be seeing a drop in health care costs.

If we keep on nitpicking away at the little stuff we wont get very much done.

 

If ebt worked like wic so that you can only buy healthy, nutritious food. Im sure the health care cost would drop too. I used to work at a grocery store in high school and saw a ton of abuse from people with ebt. They would buy buggies full of junkfood, pay cash for their beer, and surf the net on their iphone while I checked them out. Saw a couple people use there card to buy others stuff in return for cash. I even rang up an order of crab legs and t bones for a cookout that was over $200.

 

Perhaps, but I'm sure that even those 12 cases saved a good amount more than the 30k listed to do this. To your 3 points:

1. I'll agree there are a lot of good reasons to have welfare. I knew people in college that went to school free so they could get a better job and get off of it.

2. I already stated I agree we have other issues, but I think it's in part the feeling of entitlement that people who abuse it have that hurts us as a whole.

3. I'd like to see it tried through the country for a test period and analyzed from there. I think it may change depending state to state as well.

 

I wish I could say what I feel on this thread. Just don't want to be perma banned.

 

I worked for Ralph's grocery company for a whole as a manager, oh let me tell you the ebt system is fubar!!!!

I witnessed people bich n complain about not being able to but this or that with the card, talk shit my kids won't eat that blah blah. Them directly after they use their ebt to cover the groceries, pull out $220-$300 but their beer, cigs, liquor, and still have cash to go get their fix from their local dealer! It got to point where I was so disgusted I asked to be transferred to "nicer" store before I say something I couldn't take back!

Many honest people need it for many reasons that are none of our business, but a large majority are illegally unsigned it! Shit people refuse to get married because they don't want to lose it!

Oh man now I'm pissed off!

 

Years and years of this will lead to an even greater imbalance in our social stratification. The children of these people see mom and dad not doing shit and getting rewarded for it. Now, we have even more citizens being TAUGHT to manipulate our system and they are not being taught that education, hardwork, and discipline can reap even greater rewards. It is this group of people I fear when they turn into adults....what the hell are we gonna do with them?

 

TW wins lol, i made a ebt card thread on another forum and it was locked after 68 posts

 

I worked with kids the past two summers as my summer job
One of them was dropped off by her mother, in a caddilac CTS. She also had an iPad
She's 7

When I told her her mom had a nice car, she looked me straight in the eye and said "we're really poor"

 

well said!

 

Time out! I'm seriously questioning the source of your graph. What does health care and pensions refer to? Social Security (which includes disability.....widely abused) and Medicare (including the fraud that is Medicaid)? Just curious, because it's well known the drivers of debt are largely entitlement spending. Not discretionary spending (ebt, welfare, section 8 housing, Obama phones, military, etc).

So I will agree with you on your point that there are bigger fish to fry. HOWEVER, people like me who have an up close and personal view of our government and the people who receive benefits (my profession will remain unnamed) are tired of seeing mooches game the system for all of the above social programs while we bust our asses for what we have.

Just because there are bigger problems doesn't mean both don't need to be fixed. What would I rather slash first? Grandpa who busted his ass actually WORKING for years to get his Medicare and social security? Or the mope family who has 2 or 3 GENERATIONS gaming the system and stealing my tax dollars. I'll start at the bottom and work my way up.

Btw, the welfare system does NOT work. The poverty rate has remained unchanged since President Johnson and his Great Society programs (the start of most welfare programs). It's black and white when it comes to those stats.

 

No offense to your comment......but you can go to school AND work. I'm tired of people using school as an excuse for mooching off government. Lots of people have done it and continue to do it.

Also, your financial life should be fully examined to find things to cut before you're able to receive benefits. If you're paying for cable tv, a cell phone, etc, your ass shouldn't get a dime of tax money. Life is about choices. If you make stupid ones, YOU should pay for them. Not me!

THIS WHOLE COUNTRY NEEDS SOME DAVE RAMSEY. RIDICULOUS!!!!!