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The Nation's Pulse
Stamped for Failure
Welcome to California, where it pays not to work.
It’s a sunny saturday afternoon in balmy Santa Cruz, California. Commercial stalwarts the Gap, Starbucks, and Borders Books, as well as a handful of locally owned stores and restaurants, are open for business, hoping to lure weekend shoppers with money to spend. Those prospective shoppers, however, are engaged in a somewhat less enjoyable activity: they are trying desperately to avoid the aggressive panhandlers, street musicians, and drug dealers who congregate daily in Santa Cruz’s central business district.
In recent years, things have changed. California has become a place where thousands upon thousands of people have simply made the decision to not bother to work. Instead, they spend their days lounging on the streets, playing music, smoking pot, and harassing passersbys. And they are able to sustain this lifestyle, thanks to California’s generous public assistance policies.
IN 1976, FUTURE PRESIDENT Ronald Reagan, himself a former governor of California, took to the airwaves to assail what he called “welfare queens” — those people who refused to work, instead living comfortably off government handouts. In those decades, it was unlimited cash benefits, or welfare, that created that entire class of indigent people. In 2010, things have changed — at least somewhat. Today, it is food stamp policies that are helping people to refuse to work.
Food stamps are nothing new. In fact, they have been around in some form since the Great Depression. The benefits, which were formally renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2007, are currently being supplied to a record number of Americans. As of winter 2009, nearly 40 million people were receiving food stamps — roughly one in eight Americans. Santa Cruz County reported a year-on-year increase in food stamp use of 38 percent from 2008 to 2009, and has announced it expects yet more record growth in 2010. Plainly, much of the growth in food stamp use is attributable to the recession. Many Americans who have never received public assistance before are now turning to food stamps. In part, this is because food stamp use has become increasingly destigmatized. Because the benefits are now dispensed on a plastic card designed explicitly to resemble a credit or debit card, instead of cumbersome and potentially embarrassing paper stamps, people are able to use them discreetly.
Yet this does not characterize the entirety of those who rely on food stamps. Indeed, for many Californians enrolled in the program, work is something they have consciously elected to shirk. I’ve spoken with Californians who have decided not to work because, as one middle-aged man put it, “Why should I? To get a bunch of money that I can’t buy anything with?” Another told me that he does just fine playing music on the street. (Santa Cruz buskers are said to bring in around $15 an hour.) Some even view refusing to work, and subsisting on food stamps instead, as a form of subversion. “I’m sticking it to the man!” one man in his early thirties said when discussing his food stamp benefits.
Food stamps are funded primarily through federal dollars. Individual states conduct the programs themselves, meaning that the application processes, standards, income requirements, and benefit levels are determined on a state-by-state basis. It’s the way California administers its food stamp program that has led to a climate of such flagrant misuse.
It is remarkably easy to apply for food stamps in California. Indeed, judging by the layers of bureaucracy that I had to navigate to get an interview with someone at Santa Cruz County’s Human Services office, I’d venture to say it’s easier to get food stamps than to conduct an interview about them. After more than a week of negotiations — Obama demands fewer preconditions to meet with Ahmadinejad — I was finally able to speak with Claudine Wildman, a director at the Santa Cruz County Human Services Department.
Wildman was kind enough to walk me through the application process. It begins with a one-page paper or Internet application ascertaining the applicant’s income level and household makeup. After that, someone from the Human Services department conducts a food stamp “interview” in person or by telephone. The procedure requires little subjective human judgment. The questions asked, and criteria for judging whether a person qualifies for food stamps, are determined by a computer program. A single mother struggling with two jobs and a 22-year-old “musician” are treated the same way. Assuming that the applicant comes in under the income threshold, some degree of proof is required before the food stamps are administered. So long as a single applicant can produce pay stubs that show he earned less than $1,127 in a given month, he will receive food stamps. After that, within just a couple of days, the benefits are handed out.
Income is the only criterion. Resources such as houses or cars are not considered when determining eligibility. There are no work requirements. There are no drug tests. There are no time limits. Astonishingly, there are not even citizenship requirements — most immigrants that can prove legal U.S. residence qualify.
California’s standards adhere to the federal minimum, which requires income and proof of residence as the sole criteria for receiving benefits. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Indeed, other states apply far more rigorous standards. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois demand information on utility bills and mortgage payments when deciding eligibility. Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina take into account applicants’ assets, such as vehicles, and Florida considers evidence such as credit union statements. Ohio requires a face-to-face interview. Of the 10 most populous states, only California and New York ask the federal minimum.
Furthermore, in California, not only are barriers to entering the program scant, but people are outright encouraged to apply for food stamps. Bureaucrats in Sacramento, viewing the benefits as a form of economic stimulus, have said they hope people enroll in the program.
And it’s true that food stamps are a boon to the state’s grocery stores. The stamps can be used to purchase almost all cold grocery items, because the determination of what is buyable on food stamps is entirely temperature-based. It goes without saying that money not spent on food is money that can be spent on something else. It is not uncommon in Santa Cruz to witness a young person reeking of marijuana buying a pint of ice cream on his food stamp card. In effect, the food stamp program is subsidizing his drug habits.
SANTA CRUZ IS SOMEWHAT of a hub for the voluntarily jobless. The city of 50,000, nestled on the northern edge of Monterey Bay some 70 miles south of San Francisco, has long had a reputation for political radicalism. These days, as the 1960s recede, Santa Cruz has also gained a reputation as a great place to shirk work and just hang out. And while the phenomenon of people simply choosing not to work is particularly visible in Santa Cruz, it is also happening across the nation’s most populous state. The policies and standards detailed above describe the procedures throughout California.
Not only does California place minimal strictures on those applying for food stamps, but it also renders the food-stamp-collecting life more lucrative than elsewhere by granting higher average benefits. According to U.S. government statistics, in fiscal year 2008, the average food stamp benefit per household nationwide was $227 per month. In California peers such as Texas, that figure was $271, and in Florida, it was $250. In California, by contrast, the average was $300 per household, and, according to the Los Angeles Times, that figure is set to rise to $341 per household in 2010. And the administration of food stamps creates perverse incentives: the less one works, the more food stamps one receives. Those with zero reportable income — including the voluntarily jobless — receive the maximum allowable amount. (For a single person, that is $200 per month.)
According to the latest data, the unemployment rate in California is 12 percent, 13.5 in Santa Cruz County. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that the unemployment crisis may be somewhat overblown. I spoke with a young woman named Katrina who began work at an organic grocery store in Santa Cruz in November. She recently finished college back in her New England home state, and moved to California to be close to her brother, who lives in San Jose. (The weather didn’t hurt either.) Within five days of moving to Santa Cruz, Katrina had found a job. Her roommates in Santa Cruz, however, have elected to take a different course: “They smoke pot all day, and get their food from food stamps,” Katrina laments. “The media talks about the unemployment crisis here, but there is no incentive to work!” With increasing data suggesting that unemployment benefits often serve to prolong periods of joblessness, it remains an open question whether California’s unemployment “crisis” is as bad as the media would have us believe.
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Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 6:28AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Stamped for Failure [spectator.org] links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Darin| 5.14.10 @ 7:23AM
"I'm sticking it to the man"?
No. You're sticking it to me and everyone else who pays taxes to support parasites like yourself. You, sir, are a leech of the vilest sort. Sucking the blood of the host with nary a thought nor care that the host not only supports you, but supports themselves and their own family.
Clinton nee Publius| 5.14.10 @ 12:07PM
He's right. In his world you are "the man" as you are the one earning the money that feeds him. This just highlights the failure of the social welfare program policy movement of liberalism that has become unavoidable to behold. After 45 years we have the same issues and the same people and the same thinking that dominates this problem.
"We can end unwanted poverty by reinforcing the behaviors that create poverty by rewarding it."
The answer is in. After 45 years every single one of the "cornerstone" liberal social welfare programs is a failure and it is time to end them.
Now we just have to find people who will do what needs to be done. We won't find them in the Democratic Party and after 45 years of perpetuating this fraud, only a fool would believe the Republican Party will end this travesty.
Enter the Tea Party; the only genuine political movement that we can legitimately embrace with our hopes of really ending this travesty.
pzaud| 5.14.10 @ 9:05AM
If food stamps help people not to work, why are so many of them working? Here in Texas, half the households receiving food stamps are working full-time, and around 75% are working full- or part-time. You can ask the state for these numbers yourself.
jjl207| 5.14.10 @ 6:23PM
That's in Texas, which, as the article mentions, has a more stringent qualification process than California does. It all goes back to the same old problem of people using the "social safety net" as a hammock.
saleboter| 5.14.10 @ 10:01AM
Another reason to go John Galt
Pete| 5.14.10 @ 10:01AM
I suppose for a government program, 25% fraud is good? Even if that is true, that sucks...and it is Texas, where people still have a few values left. I doubt that stat holds in liberal utopias like CA or NY. Gee, I wonder how these folks vote?
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 5.14.10 @ 10:37AM
This is a good article written with a soft heart. It ignores the fact that the recipients of the public largess also often turn to crime, robbing and killing members of the taxpaying public who provide their sustenance.
In some families the welfare mindset becomes inter-generational as well as the mindset locked on criminality. The government hand out crowd has created a subset of society who not only accepts the handouts, they learn to work and develop and engage in criminal activities selling drugs, stealing credit cards and cars and even when caught, rarely receive severe penalties.
A perfect example of this type of family made headlines recently in Washington, D.C. when a popular school principal was murdered. Ironically, he bought the house after the last residents, a mother and nine year old child, were murdered in the same house.
Four search warrants were executed Monday morning, leading to the arrests of four people in connection with the death of a popular northwest Washington middle school principal.
Artura Otey Williams, 46, was taken into custody in the 5300 block of Fifth Street N.W. and charged with crimes linked to the death of Brian Betts but not with his actual murder. She was led from the home in handcuffs.
Williams was charged with two counts of knowingly receiving a stolen credit card with the intent to use it, attempted theft less than $1,000 in value, and attempted fraudulent credit card use. Police said Betts’s credit cards were used to make purchases and that surveillance photos captured Williams using one of those credit cards on April 16, the day after Betts's body was found, at the Giant Food on East West Highway in Silver Spring.
A second raid occurred at an apartment in Oxon Hill, Md., where police picked up three people. Alante Saunders, 18, of no fixed address, and Williams' son, 18-year-old Sharif Lancaster, of Northwest, were charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery and the use of a handgun in a felony crime of violence. Deontra Gray, 18, of Oxon Hill, was charged with murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. According to court documents, he told police he was at the home at the time of Betts's death.our search warrants were executed Monday morning, leading to the arrests of four people in connection with the death of a popular northwest Washington middle school principal.
Artura Otey Williams, 46, was taken into custody in the 5300 block of Fifth Street N.W. and charged with crimes linked to the death of Brian Betts but not with his actual murder. She was led from the home in handcuffs.
Williams was charged with two counts of knowingly receiving a stolen credit card with the intent to use it, attempted theft less than $1,000 in value, and attempted fraudulent credit card use. Police said Betts’s credit cards were used to make purchases and that surveillance photos captured Williams using one of those credit cards on April 16, the day after Betts's body was found, at the Giant Food on East West Highway in Silver Spring.
A second raid occurred at an apartment in Oxon Hill, Md., where police picked up three people. Alante Saunders, 18, of no fixed address, and Williams' son, 18-year-old Sharif Lancaster, of Northwest, were charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery and the use of a handgun in a felony crime of violence. Deontra Gray, 18, of Oxon Hill, was charged with murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. According to court documents, he told police he was at the home at the time of Betts's death.our search warrants were executed Monday morning, leading to the arrests of four people in connection with the death of a popular northwest Washington middle school principal.
Artura Otey Williams, 46, was taken into custody in the 5300 block of Fifth Street N.W. and charged with crimes linked to the death of Brian Betts but not with his actual murder. She was led from the home in handcuffs.
Williams was charged with two counts of knowingly receiving a stolen credit card with the intent to use it, attempted theft less than $1,000 in value, and attempted fraudulent credit card use. Police said Betts’s credit cards were used to make purchases and that surveillance photos captured Williams using one of those credit cards on April 16, the day after Betts's body was found, at the Giant Food on East West Highway in Silver Spring.
A second raid occurred at an apartment in Oxon Hill, Md., where police picked up three people. Alante Saunders, 18, of no fixed address, and Williams' son, 18-year-old Sharif Lancaster, of Northwest, were charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery and the use of a handgun in a felony crime of violence. Deontra Gray, 18, of Oxon Hill, was charged with murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. According to court documents, he told police he was at the home at the time of Betts's death. our search warrants were executed Monday morning, leading to the arrests of four people in connection with the death of a popular northwest Washington middle school principal.
Artura Otey Williams, 46, was taken into custody in the 5300 block of Fifth Street N.W. and charged with crimes linked to the death of Brian Betts but not with his actual murder. She was led from the home in handcuffs.
Williams was charged with two counts of knowingly receiving a stolen credit card with the intent to use it, attempted theft less than $1,000 in value, and attempted fraudulent credit card use. Police said Betts’s credit cards were used to make purchases and that surveillance photos captured Williams using one of those credit cards on April 16, the day after Betts's body was found, at the Giant Food on East West Highway in Silver Spring.
A second raid occurred at an apartment in Oxon Hill, Md., where police picked up three people. Alante Saunders, 18, of no fixed address, and Williams' son, 18-year-old Sharif Lancaster, of Northwest, were charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery and the use of a handgun in a felony crime of violence. Deontra Gray, 18, of Oxon Hill, was charged with murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. According to court documents, he told police he was at the home at the time of Betts's death.
Common Sense Police| 5.14.10 @ 10:40AM
Slanted article Nahhhhh. " More wasted time and wasted tax dollars every day that the lies continue. It would literally be cheaper to burn money because then at least the fees for incarceration and wasted time in courts could be saved . Tens of billions wasted every year, driving this country into the ground because the government doesn't have the courage to say "we were wrong". Marijuana is still a schedule 1 drug without ANY medicinal uses, according to the government. Nope they're never wrong! Still spouting the same propaganda from over 7 decades ago, proven wrong by science but nope, no word about ending this failed war on U.S. citizens, just keep on truckin' because even though the war on drugs failed decades ago, maybe it'll magically turn out different this year right? Obama = Change and he just changed the drug policy right? Wrong. The more things change the more they stay the same. An increased budget for fighting the war on drugs (citizens), some change. The most corrupt country in the world because it stems from the top down, LEGALLY! We the sheeple don't care because we can just go shopping and get some starbucks and the war on drugs doesn't affect us. Even though our country has been run into the ground and money that should have gone to rebuild bridges, roads, water lines, electrical grids, buildings, (all the things built circa 1925 and still used today) has instead gone into the pockets of cartels. CORRECT! What do we win in return? MORE PROPAGANDA! "
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.14.10 @ 11:31AM
CS Police,
UMMMMM, and you are a pot head I take it?
DatsunMark| 5.14.10 @ 11:30AM
I'll bet if the State of Calif required a drug test in order to get food stamps and a *positive * disqualified you from the program, they'd save billions.
Between bailing out lazy Greeks with our grandchildren's future earnings and welfare states like Calif we're headed for a true crisis. When that day comes, the promise for survival and tough choises will not be made by free people...it shall be the dictator.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 5.14.10 @ 6:23PM
Datsun: That's a great, and simple idea you have there!! If you fail your drug test, you don't get your welfare check/food stamps, which is probably the same reason why they didn't have a job in the first place (for the ones that actually were looking for a job that is), they failed the Company's drug test too. If you want to help somebody get clean and sober, stop being an enabler to them, cut them off cold!! I know, because it worked for me (it sucks, but it works)!! This goes for the State of California in general too, you want to save them from themselves, cut them off!! They'll either wake up, or they won't, but change will happen, and that's a guarantee!! When life gets down to its absolute basics, water to drink, food to eat, whatever shelter you can find to survive, decisions become very clear and very easy. Once again, I've been there, and done that, and does suck, but it works!! Even Liberals would start making rationale decisions then!!
DAC| 5.14.10 @ 12:03PM
To the Doper above--while I tend to agree with you that the "war on drugs" has been an abysmal failure, and that at least some now-illicit drugs should be legalized and taxed, in combination with a criminal law reform that would provide for life in prison or accelerated, zero-appeal death penalties for those selling drugs to minors, you are (not surprisingly) missing the point. Even if the feds stopped spending money on the "war on drugs" tomorrow morning, those who don't bother to work still wouldn't/shouldn't be entitled to the money that I earn. The amorality and disease of "you work, I'll eat" is certainly most advanced in California, and I'll allow for some temporary, emergency circumstances where those truly in need should get help. But what this article shows is that the entitlement mentality is so far advanced, that it is encouraged at all levels of local, state and federal government. And that's the problem--not how much dope people smoke, nor that the feds are trying to control it. It's no coincidence that the closest to bankruptcy states of CA and NY are those who avoid placing any eligibility restrictions on these types of welfare benefits. As long as most voters in those states tacitly accept that situation, it will continue. Subsidize something and you'll get more of it.
Old Soldier| 5.14.10 @ 12:07PM
I lived in an LA beach community for a couple of years. I could hardly take the dog to a park without stepping on a bum. My mastiff developed an intense dislike for them - which kept them at a distance.
We avoided Santa Monica (skid row by-the-sea) at all costs. The communities patrolled by the LAPD were much less tolerant of the homeless on every square foot of public space.
Ned| 5.14.10 @ 1:11PM
We have taken your "avoid Santa Monica" approach quite a bit further... we avoid CALIFORNIA entirely. We're also planning to retire in a couple of years and move out of the People's Republic Of Washington (State)... California will NOT be on the list of places to go...
Old Soldier| 5.14.10 @ 3:26PM
Got my degree and fled CA altogether also.
AZ tach| 5.16.10 @ 6:24AM
Once-Conservative San Diego has become another homeless haven. Getting in and out of the downtown convention ctr on C Street requires chin down high-stepping over the sprawled bums on the sidewalks. It is a sight to behold - and a terrible statement on the decline of our world thanks to "progressives."
Ned| 5.14.10 @ 1:00PM
"Sales taxes in California are 8.25 percent, the nation's highest..."
If true, how come I pay 9.5% on everything, and 10% on prepared meals and drinks in Washington...
Jim| 5.14.10 @ 1:07PM
The 8.25% is the base sales tax set by the state. In LA County, we pay an additional point or so over this. Depending on the county, it may be slightly higher or slightly lower. In any case, it's too much... and too much in Washington as well. Reason #54 why, after 33 years living in California, my wife and I are leaving "The Golden State".
Nick| 5.14.10 @ 4:53PM
Jim,
Congratulations!
You should leave without paying your income or property taxes, and really stick it to the Peoples Republic of Cali!
Or, is it Aztlan, like the National Council of The Racists (la Raza) claims?
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 1:35PM
how is the OBAMA stimulus package helping out welfare and Food Stamp offices in the U links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Da Dog| 5.14.10 @ 2:16PM
Growing up in the 1950s, I distinctly remember that everyone worked. No Work - No Eat. Want to motivate these parasites? - Let them starve.
Caitlin Addison-Howard| 5.17.10 @ 7:01PM
Interesting, in the 1950's AFDC was the program instituted to help families who did not achieve success in the post WWII era. Public Housing was built to house families of veterans and others who were marginalized or underpaid. Foodstamps are a way to keep subsidizing American farmers so that they can produce cheaper food products for the rest of us...who all participated in the gorging that resulted in our current economic situation.
cavan| 5.28.10 @ 8:54AM
Food stamps are a subsidy to the food manufacturers, not the farmers. Food stamps are not a nutrition program.
fallgold| 5.14.10 @ 3:37PM
Wisdom from the Bible, 2 Thessalonians:
"For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat".
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 3:40PM
The American Spectator : Stamped for Failure Mobile links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Flee| 5.14.10 @ 3:53PM
As a resident of CA this is particularly galling. Not surprising at all but infuriating. Until this system of paying people not to work is ended there will be limited economic growth. They have no incentive to return or enter the workforce. Its a sad state of affairs.
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 4:20PM
Multiple different portals in one table.. | Sports Leisure Knowledge links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 4:41PM
The American Spectator : Stamped for Failure links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 4:41PM
The American Spectator : Stamped for Failure links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 4:49PM
CrimsonConfidential.com – UA All-American Cook to visit Bama … | how to cook links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 4:51PM
Fishing without a fishing license in Mississippi, what is the fine for out of state r links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 5:15PM
The American Spectator : Stamped for Failure capital university links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Tyrone| 5.14.10 @ 5:19PM
California attracts a lot of these people in the first place because of the weather. florida has a bunch of them too. Howevr, California gives them $200 for munchies too, so I'm sure they get the word and head out west. I spent a couple of hours with some of these kids a few years back. It was a whole new sub culture for me. They ran in packs and camped out all the time, following the band Phish, wherever it went but always returning back to California. They were fairly harmless then. I'm sure there were worse ones too. These folks completely ruin the atmosphere of what was once a nice place to be.
Marc Jeric| 5.14.10 @ 6:25PM
45 years ago our socialists declared "War on Poverty". Trillions of dollars later let us all ask our government:
How do we declare a victory?
What is our exit strategy in this 45-year old war?
Pingback| 5.14.10 @ 11:08PM
Gold soars as investors seek safety | American Gold Coins links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
upchuck.liberals| 5.14.10 @ 11:46PM
The author mentioned 8.25% state sales tax. Here in my corner of the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia it's 9.5%. I can hardly wait for the VAT and income tax and sales tax and ....... Of course we'd have much more money without the millions of 'tax' paying illegals with 5 kids and a bunch of relatives.
philfl63| 5.15.10 @ 2:00AM
I can not count the number of times I have seen people (minorities who will not be named) purchasing shopping-cart loads of groceries with food stamps. I have never in my life bought a full cart-load of groceries. About 10 years ago, I overheard three white trash a**holes talking about scamming the system. One was a female thirty-something tramp who had just had a liver transplant (on our dime). Her and her slut girl-friend and their white trash doper male friend were going to Jacksonville, Florida for the first woman to get a post-transplant checkup. The hospital had set up a hotel room for her and the state of Florida had given her money for her trip. Their grand plan was to use that money to buy steaks and beer. The transplant tramp had blown out her liver with drugs and alcohol. They were going to sell the medications she would receive (pain-killers etc) for cash. Their next topic of conversation was the transplant tramp explaining to the other two (who were much younger) how to "work the phones" (a term I have never forgotten). The process was that you called every social service agency listed in the yellow pages, white pages, and blue pages (gov't pages) and tell them your tale of woe. Eventually you would find agencies that would give you assistance: money, food, etc. I never forgot that conversation. I was steamed. This kind of hustle has been going on for generations now. And we have to pay for it. The stupid a**holes who claim high-handed moral righteousness and think they are oh so compassionate can go f*** themselves. And f*** all of the low-life welfare minorities and white trash too.
Pingback| 5.15.10 @ 8:50AM
Marshall Plan for auto industry | Kartonworkz – Prefab Sliding … | Sliding Doors Coac links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.15.10 @ 11:14AM
Food Stamps: A Help Or A Hindrance? - Ethan Epstein - epstein's razor - True/Slant links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Gary| 5.15.10 @ 1:14PM
So the food-stamps program supports only lazy, good-for-nothing criminal Americans? What about those legitimately trying to make ends meet while looking for another job? The article seems to advocate ending the foodstamp or welfare programs altogether without making mention of what to do about those it was originally intended to help.
JustAZ| 5.16.10 @ 6:34AM
@Gary....Did you read the same article as the rest of us? "...supports ONLY lazy...Americans"? It neither states nor implies such a thing and in fact says just the opposite. "Seems to advocate ending the foodstamp...program..."? Again, doesn't "seem" to do anything of the sort. I suggest you read it again, but this time, take off the clouded liberal/progressive spectacles you're wearing. Or not.......
FTM| 5.17.10 @ 3:00AM
Yeah, yeah, yeah, heard it before pal. That's the dodge used to justify all of this government freebie crap to start with. We have to tolerate the leeches because there are people that need the help. If that's the case then why is basing your public aid eligability on passing a drug test such a horrible, throw-back neo-con idea? How about rounding up a bunch of the able-bodied, chronic unemployed and take them out for a nice pleasant walk down the side of the road and pick up some trash? Maybe base the amount of assistance that they get on the number of bags that they brring in. Such as that.
Yosemeti Sam| 5.16.10 @ 10:03AM
" Stamped for Failure ...."
Mexifornia - sun basted politics!
Evinced - mucho excess equals shrunken heads!
LOL.
Joe B| 5.16.10 @ 10:41AM
Who care about Hippies and people who are homeless by choice living off food stamps in CA? They are a relatively minor drain on the taxpayer. Becoming a freeloading dirt bag is not exactly a career of choice for most.
The real problem with food stamps in our state is that they have become an essential prop for baby spawning households set up by illegal Mexicans. Nearly 100% of the vaginal output of Latinas receives free breakfast and lunch at public school, where they now make up a majority of incoming Kindergarten students. You get more of what you pay for, and California paid to have itself colonized by poor, young, unskilled, unintelligent Hispanics.
try this one| 5.16.10 @ 1:10PM
This is a satire, but it makes the point quite effectively
This show was produced for TruTV and tracks the everyday struggles of Jaimie Hatfield and Becky Mullins, two single moms in Milwaukee. The show takes its name from the big hit song by Bone Thugs’n’Harmony and is a no holds barred look at navigating the welfare state in post-boom America. Highlights:
*Episode One-After her ankle becomes infected from her new rose tattoo, Becky rushes to the emergency room. When she finally is called to be seen, she discovers she brought her son Tayshaun’s Medicaid card instead of her own. Attempts to convince the nurse that she herself is Tayshaun and to see if she couldn’t just get some Vicodin and go home are sternly rebuffed. As she leaves the hospital, Becky is offered three tablets by a strange man in white sweats and a Red Sox cap. What he wants in exchange gives Becky pause.
*Episode Two-It’s inspection time! The girls wake up and remember that their caseworker Lykesha Jackson is coming at 2 PM for their quarterly section 8 inspection. With only two hours before the appointment Jaimie and Becky rush to put things in order. When the pile of garbage is too big to get to the dumpster, they ask their neighbors to hide it until Ms. Jackson has come and gone. The neighbors, whose inspection isn’t due for weeks, agree but the price is two packs of Newports. When Jaimie looks in her purse, she finds her smokes missing and the two roomies come to blows.
*Episode Three-It’s now the fifteenth of the month and the food stamps have been nearly spent, mostly on Starbucks Double Shots and Cheetos from the KwikStop. The manager refuses to give Jaimie cash for the balance of her card, Becky finds out that Tayshaun’s daddy has quit his temp job and skipped town; her child support card has $12.00 left on it. The girls try to figure out what to do and look to Channel 45 for help. Rolling their last joint, they contemplate calling that lawyer guy to see if they can sue for mesothelioma or maybe they can get a grant by signing up for the criminal justice program at DeVry. Jaimie says that they would get more money if they went to culinary school. The argument is tabled when Maury comes back on. It turns out that Jerry IS Koby’s father. Jaimie calls Jerry a piece of trash but Becky points out that not only is he on TV, he’s kinda cute.
*Finale-It’s now the twenty-sixth. Food stamps gone, weed gone and the girls didn’t get to the food pantry before they closed at five. They have one hour to make it back across town to the weekly meal at the Salvation Army. Jaimie tries to call her mom for a ride, but she used up the minutes on her Cricket phone last week trying to get the jerk at Aldi’s to give her the pick 4 numbers. Desperate, she leaves Jamal with Becky and goes into Hanson’s Deli and tries to steal the change jar they have for charity. What happens next will make reality show history. If the ratings are right you can expect a sequel, and with it a revival of America’s latest big trend.
Oldefarte| 5.16.10 @ 2:51PM
Food stamps [and ALL WELFARE PAYMENTS] offer a disincentive to work for one's living. If welfare was systematically/gradually reduced [and eventually eliminated], the employment numbers would increase [since current welfare recipients would need to work in order to live]. The current immigration problem would also be solved, as [if its laws were enforced], illegals would return to Mexico and former welfare recipients would be forced to take over the current jobs/work now being performed by illegals!!!!!!!!!!!
FTM| 5.17.10 @ 3:08AM
All of the above and don't forget that the idiot robot Austrian import wants the federal government, code for you and me, to bail his bankrupt state out. I read that forty percent of the twelve million people that live in Los Angeles are illegals. I also see where all the do-gooders in California want to boycott Arizona over their illegal immigration law. I say that let's all the reasonable, working class people boycott California... and Illinois and Massechusetts and Michigan and so on.
Tony in Central PA| 5.17.10 @ 12:16PM
If Detroit is the liberal City on a Hill, then I guess California is the state. California, where everything seems to happen first in terms of societal trends. It will be scary to watch this state collapse into a seething cauldron of violence as its budgetary problems worsen and many of her Entitled turn to crime to get what they want without working.
One small point I would make about the swipe cards for food stamps is that they were created with the idea of reducing abuse. In my state, food stamp recipients could obtain cash change from food stamps before the swipe cards, which could then be used to buy cigarettes and candy.
When we live in a country where most don't pay income tax, what's to stop this from eventually happening nationally ? People don't care how the government spends tax money as long as they get their freebies.
biznezman| 5.18.10 @ 7:07PM
"every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new beuarocracy"
Pete | 5.19.10 @ 1:24AM
I perceive the pension benefits and healthcare coverage which so-called "public servants" receive at retirement on the taxpayer's dime as a form of being on the public dole. Why in God's name should I be responsible for anyone's retirement expenses but my own?
Michael| 5.21.10 @ 4:22PM
Some facts (something this article was grossly uncomfortable with.
53% of CA households receiving SNAP do have earned income and are working.
66% of all people receiving SNAP in CA are children
Also, the entire notion that CA has lax standards and an overly easy application process is ridiculous. CA is ranked last in food stamp usage in the country (meaning we have less eligible individuals enrolled in the program than any other state).
Just some information to consider before vilifying people (most of whom are children) who are only trying to put enough food on their plates in one of the worst economies in decades.
PS - SNAP is one of the most efficient tools available for preventing hunger and obesity - children enrolled in SNAP have been proven to be less likely to suffer either.
cavan| 5.28.10 @ 9:02AM
The Food stamp program is not a nutrition program! You can use all your food stamps to buy candy and soda. The reason so many poor people are fat-obese is they use their food stamps to buy junk.
438fjd| 7.1.10 @ 2:44AM
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