THE RUSH TO HUMILIATE THE POOR

[Pong Messiah]

The rush to humiliate the poor

 

I am sure Dana Milbank is right about Republicans being evil, but I just can't wrap my head around what is so "humiliating" or "dehumanizing" about telling people who are receiving state benefits that they have to behave in a certain way or that they can't buy certain things with their benefits. Seems pretty common-sensical to me.

 

Can somebody educate, please?

 

[Ms. Spam]

I wanna know why Kansas is passing a bill that prevents you from using your benefits for swimming. I understand vacations or some of the other things but swimming? Don't you want your fat Kansian dole rollers to get exercise?

 

Also there's another wacko state that is writing a similar bill that prevents food stamps from being spent on fish. Because lobsters are being brought with the stamps. Uhm... lobster is not fish.

 

Kansas also wants to make it a lifetime three year limit. So once you max out at three years three years of welfare during your lifetime that's it. You're done with getting anymore.

 

When I worked for Cub Foods in GA as a checkout girl we had a lady who was using food stamps who insisted on carry out by the bag boy and would get in her brand new Jag and fire up the engine while the bag boy put her groceries in the trunk. There was also a Russian gymnasts family who was using food stamps while their daughter trained for the '96 Olympics. They were not living poorly. I don't even know how this family qualified for stamps.

[Guest]

Yeah, but we already had welfare reform to address those issues from the stone age. Need actual modern problems to address before I'll buy it.

 

I think some of it is intentionally done just to humiliate and make it seem like the poor are living extravagant lives. Ban things that the poor can't afford to make it seem like they can.

[Destiny Skywalker]

Food stamps are a set amount per week or month, are they not? It's not like you get to go to the grocery store and the entire store is free because you have food stamps.

 

I do agree with not letting them use food stamps for booze. That's just a bad idea all around. But swimming is a very healthy form of exercise, especially for those that need a low impact workout because of an injury or disability.

 

Actually, for the cruise ships, are they thinking river boats for gambling? Pretty sure they have those on the Missouri River. That might be someone legit, given the proximity.

[monkeygirl]

I don't subscribe to the notion that a person who needs financial assistance should be told what they can and cannot do with that money.

My first thought is the nightmare of red tape enforcing it would be after the making of the list.

 

There is nothing inherently wrong with purchasing filet or crab meat with assistance, IMO. Circumstance matter in determining the legitimacy

of the purchase and nobody has the time to do a line-item check, so we'd be talking a list of can and can't buy things, right? So what makes

high-fat ground beef more morally righteous than fliet mignon? It's cheaper, but it's also much worse for your health. Probably not everyone

buying filet with food stamps is righteous, but every systam has its abusers. I say let them buy filet-it doesn't go very far and they'll learn.

Or not. But you really want to hall monitor this?

[The Choc]

The problem is that you have people who have legit problems who genuinely need help and wish they didn't and would do anything to get off the help. Very few people have a problem helping people like this. Liberals would have us believe that a vast majority of people on assistance are like this. From personal experience that is not true though.

 

A town I am in alot, but thankfully don't live in, has a ton of people on different forms of assistance. The problem is you have generation after generation of people who just go on this assistance. The thought of getting a job and earning a living never enters their mind. When they turn 18 they just go and sign up for every kind of government assistance they can somehow qualify for.

 

I have a friend who is a mail man in this town and he tells me that there are people who never work, get checks from the government more than once a month and get stuff from Amazon multiple times a week.

 

My favorite story is I was in a deli waiting for my order one day when a kid walks in, by the looks of him anywhere between 16 and 21 or so. Has 2 girls with him, Kid is dressed relatively nice. He starts complaining about his parents, ya know "I don't need them, I don't their help. I don't need anyones help. I get by on my own." He then proceeded to pay for his food with food stamps. I wanted to grab the kid and yell "hey asshole, you say you don;t need anyones help? You need everyones help dipshit."

 

Like I said, there are people who really need help and I have no problem helping them. But its a myth that the people who take advantage of the system are a small minority, there are many, many people who take advantage.

[Pong Messiah]

Yeah, but we already had welfare reform to address those issues from the stone age. Need actual modern problems to address before I'll buy it.

 

I think some of it is intentionally done just to humiliate and make it seem like the poor are living extravagant lives. Ban things that the poor can't afford to make it seem like they can.

Well, I've always heard of a "solution in search of a problem." I think this might be a "solution in search of an outrage," given how a good portion of the GOP base are poor-but-not-poor-enoughs who resent the folks on the economic rung just beneath them who get the bennies... resenting not because they pay into the system (because they don't, really), but because they don't get the same kind of special treatment.

 

Seems like a calculated "get out the base" strategy!

 

 

I don't subscribe to the notion that a person who needs financial assistance should be told what they can and cannot do with that money.

Why?

 

If you tell me you can't afford to feed your family, I will give you $200 -- not so you can treat yourself to a lavish dinner, but so you can survive and hopefully do better. If I find out you spent $150 of what I gave you on one meal at a fancy restaurant, you're not going to be much better off at the start of the next paycheck and I'm not going to give you any more money.

 

The social safety net isn't (or at least shouldn't be) Christmas.

 

My first thought is the nightmare of red tape enforcing it would be after the making of the list.

Booze, cigarettes, high-end and junk food. Doesn't seem too hard or complicated to me.

 

 

There is nothing inherently wrong with purchasing filet or crab meat with assistance, IMO. Circumstance matter in determining the legitimacy

I agree. In a market where those items aren't going to cost you the equivalent of 150% or more compared to other healthy options, it'd be just fine. There is something inherently wrong with saying you can't afford to live but treating yourself to gifts (or simply being wasteful) using other people's money, though.

 

every systam has its abusers. I say let them buy filet-it doesn't go very far and they'll learn.

Or not. But you really want to hall monitor this?

Just because there are and have always been abuses is not a good or logical reason to accept them. Also, you are wrong. They won't learn, they'll just ask for moar.

 

Yes, hall monitor this ****. And throw monkeygirl in jail.

[Ms. Spam]

Maybe they should work it like the WIC programs for pregnant and breastfeeding women. They attend a class and the vouchers they get are for very food specific items. EBT and Food Stamp people are required to attend class of some kind about learning about the food pyramid.

 

Also, Tami posted this first to Facebook and lot of her followers made some good points about not judging people as they maybe buying something for a kids party and don't do the steak thing every single time. it is not like there is a lot of money in this. When I went to college there was a woman friend who got stamps but it was only 40 bucks a month.

[Pong Messiah]

Like I said, there are people who really need help and I have no problem helping them. But its a myth that the people who take advantage of the system are a small minority, there are many, many people who take advantage.

At what point is somebody "taking advantage," in your opinion?

 

I've seen some pretty outrageous stuff (rich/connected college kids figuring out how to get food benefits)... I've seen people who are otherwise productive milk the system after getting laid off ("I paid into system for years, nobody's gonna shame me for playing video games all day and waiting until month 4 to even think about getting a new job. Rar!!")... and I've seen people with the skill/education to get themselves in a better financial situation who seem to use "the system" just 'cause it's there.

 

I guess these are all "taking advantage," but do you think all are equally bad? Does it matter?

 

Personally, I've never seen a black woman with seven kids from four different men buying $350 worth of rib eye and lobster with food stamps, but that sure seems to be what gets people the angriest!

[The Choc]

There was a front page story in the paper here around last summer. There had been a program to give pregnant women free cab fare to and from the hospital for all their doctor appointments. The program lost funding. There was a 26 year old girl, who was pregnant with her sixth kid from 5 dads who couldnt afford to get to her appointments. Stop getting pregnant you dumb bitch.

[The Choc]

Yes, I think those are all taking advantage. I had an Asian roommate in college whose parents owned Chinese restaurants. The kid was flat out rich. He had ad 350 dollar tooth brush. He somehow qualified for the EOP (equal oppurunity program) and he took it and used it. That was awful to me.

 

People need to look in the mirror and not take every last little thing they can get. When I was in high school I used my dad's address when applying to colleges. My dad was and is on disability. So because I lived with him I was offered tons of financial assistance, but I turned it down because thats not what it's meant for.

 

And race has nothing to do with it, white people take advantage of things just as much as black people.

[DANA-kin Skywalker]

It's not that hard to police. Food stamps are not pieces of paper anymore, it's done electronically, and any purchases that do not qualify are denied at point-of-sale. The store clerk asks for cash (good luck) or it gets put back on the shelf. Sucks for the grocery store clerks for sure, but it doesn't require a government beaurocracy.

 

The writer has no clue what she's talking about. To think the restrictions are in place simply to humiliate people is stupid. Its money, plain and simple. Benefits are a huge government expense, and any way to make a tax payer's dollar go farther is welcome by me, a taxpayer. Got my vote next election.

 

Companies don't typically find the business from the welfare market attractive, because the profit is hardly worth effort to attain it. In my state, not all health care providers accept the state plan because the reimbursement rate is shit compared to most commercial plans. Grocery stores have to make there locations compliant to handle EBT transactions, train there employees, and pay them to constantly put unqualified purchases back in the refrigerators. It costs money to accept EBT with a lackluster upside.

 

My point is, it's a pain in everybody's ass. From the taxpayer, to the legislature, and to the businesses. Do I feel bad EBT recipients can't get free lobster? Not particularly. You eat what you can afford, or you eat what's on the list and get it for free, because it's on someone else's dime. What about the working poor, who are below the poverty line, but make too much to qualify for a handout? Bet they wish they could eat more lobster.

 

you want free health coverage? You go see a physician they approve, get prescriptions they approve, filled at an approved pharmacy. Not everybody takes your lousy plan, and it saves the state a buck.

 

Do I cringe when I see a patient on the state plan pay $3.65 per prescription for their month supply of hydrocodone, clonazepam, and cyclobenzaprine, then get in there Mercedes Benz? You bet I do. Some people need this stuff, but the few that turn around and sell this crap because they can get it dirt cheap really piss me off. Plus they drive a nicer car than I do.

[Pong Messiah]

And race has nothing to do with it, white people take advantage of things just as much as black people.

But regardless of who is or isn't taking advantage, there is an undeniable racial component in the way brown people are held up as examples of welfare queens* to rile the "poor-but-not-poor-enough" (and overwhelmingly white) segment of the GOP voting bloc.

 

 

 

 

 

*illegal (Mexican) immigrants getting food stamps and free healthcare omg! The aforementioned black woman with lots of kids who gets lots of government dollars! Eek! Suspiciously less often a white person! WTF!

[monkeygirl]

There was a front page story in the paper here around last summer. There had been a program to give pregnant women free cab fare to and from the hospital for all their doctor appointments. The program lost funding. There was a 26 year old girl, who was pregnant with her sixth kid from 5 dads who couldnt afford to get to her appointments. Stop getting pregnant you dumb bitch.

Is THIS the vast majority, though? How many lie somewhere in between? Seriously-I have no idea these days.

 

Do we need another round of welfare cuts? Last time I knew, you couldn't get booze, cigarettes and lots of manufactured snacks. But honestly, to me, this

is so low on my list of things to get upset about. We're talking about morally enforcing food stamps, when it comes down to it and that seems silly,

punitive and fraught with problems to me. It's also bad timing, politically, to fan the flames of the widening gap for such a puny possible payoff.

After all, what['s the goal, here? Do we really need to save the tax money? How much would that amount to? Or does it just irk you to see people make

what you consider poor choices in the grocery store? And does seeing those people pay for those choices with food stamps legitimize your discomfort?

SHould it?

[Pong Messiah]

Also, Tami posted this first to Facebook and lot of her followers made some good points about not judging people as they maybe buying something for a kids party and don't do the steak thing every single time. it is not like there is a lot of money in this. When I went to college there was a woman friend who got stamps but it was only 40 bucks a month.

I'm gonna judge because that's bull****. You have 364 days to plan for your kids birthday; even if you are making minimum wage, if your kid's birthday is honestly a big deal, you should be able to put away $0.50 a day for your child. If you cared at all for your child, you wouldn't have to rely on handouts.

 

 

Plus, teaching kids that it really sucks not having enough money to do what you want to do is a much more loving and helpful lesson than "Because of her proclivities for crank and boxed wine, mommy can only afford the half-melted display cake she found in the Baskin-Robbins dumpster this year -- but don't worry, the government will pay for your birthday, snookums!"

 

[monkeygirl]

I'd buy fliet on food stamps because I'd use it for a week's worth of stir-fry and if you want to give me ****

for something that petty while I'm so bad off I have to be on food stamps? I'ma go off on you like Naomi Campbell

on a bad hair day.

[Pong Messiah]

if you want to give me ****

for something that petty while I'm so bad off I have to be on food stamps?

It's not giving you **** for something petty if you are abusing the system. Doesn't matter how you rationalize it, buying junk food or high end stuff that doesn't give you much bang (calories, meals, etc.) for the buck at the very least undermines the spirit of the system.

 

Making excuses for people's bad behavior and being overly concerned about their "feelings" makes having a nice social safety net impossible.

 

Make your damn stir-fry with hamburger until you can afford to get off of food stamps. If you absolutely, positively need your precious "fliet," save up and buy it out of pocket like everybody else.

[The Choc]

The thing about the moms getting free taxi rides is just a minor annoyance. Its not the babies fault that it's mother is a dumb slut. The baby should get the medical care it needs.

[Pong Messiah]

mother is a dumb slut

What is the father?

 

Better question: where is the father, and if known, is he paying in any way for the medical care the baby needs?

[DANA-kin Skywalker]

The thing about the moms getting free taxi rides is just a minor annoyance. Its not the babies fault that it's mother is a dumb slut. The baby should get the medical care it needs.

Medical care is important for sure, but the golden question is: why are some families expected to work hard and pay big bucks for coverage, while others are having it given to them for free?

[The Kurgan]

Ahhhh ... 1st world poverty. A complex problem. One without an easy, workable solution, I'm afraid.

 

One of the really cool things about what I do for a living - municipal transit operator - is that I get to see it all. The difference between the middle class and the poor, the real difference became apparent to me quite quickly.

 

It's not as simple as the poor being forced to rely on mass transit because they can't afford to drive. In some cases that's true. But bus routes that go through 80K/year neighborhoods get packed in the rush hours just as much as the routes that go through 30K/year neighborhoods do. Why? It's more economical to buy a bus pass, and get a partial tax credit for, than it is to pay for premium parking down town.

 

The middle class thinks that way. The poor? Unless they're seniors, you won't EVER see a person making less than 30K/year use a transit pass. They'll either buy books of tickets or pay in change - 3.25$ per ride and - this is important - ask for a transfer. They ALL do this. It's a communal bonding thing with them. No poor person ever caught a bus going right where they need to go.

 

Thing is, buying a pass costs 90$ AND a percentage of that is returned in tax credits. So it might only cost a middle class cubicle jockey 75 or so a month for unlimited transit use. By contrast, books of tickets are 26$ a pop, adding up to $104 per month, and that assumes they'll be used only to get to and from work. A fistful of change - the preference of the truly destitute, adds up to $6.50 per day. Times twenty work days per month. You do the math.

 

And I'll assure you this much - it won't be used just for work. Drop that ticket and get that transfer whenever you go to the super market, the gas station, the bottle depot, the walk in clinic. You name it. Now many of these people don't work full time, and so use less in commuting that way. But when you consider that (in my home town at least) TRANSIT PASSES ARE SUBSIDIZED FOR LOW INCOME PEOPLE ON A MEANS TESTED BASIS the inefficiency of their commuting habits becomes quite starkly obvious.

 

I've mentioned this to these types of passengers a number of times, and the deeper issues quickly come to the surface once any attempt to really explain things is made. Barriers to comprehension are rampant. And not just the obvious language barriers of the new immigrant. Little old ladies who lived through Chairman Mao's cultural revolution ALWAYS present a heavily discounted senior's pass to me. But people who can't put two and two together and the whole reason they're riding the bus is because they're restless and want some - any - kind of external stimulation. Forget it. If they could actually THINK long term, well, they'b be middle class.

 

The implications this has on policy regarding welfare, food stamps and so forth bears consideration. Personally, I think Monkeygirl is closest to having the right of it. How much effort do we really want to put into being moral guardians over these kinds of people when "cause and effect" thinking doesn't really work with them anyway? If made to buy Spam instead of steak, does anyone out there really think your average food stamp recipient will suddenly have an epiphinous realization "Man ... I could sure go for that steak. Maybe I'll stop being such a chump and go back to school and make something useful of my life?"

 

Got prime land in Florida for you if you think that's gonna happen.

 

Instead, what you'll most likely get are a whole lot of threats and explatives being thrown at the unfortunate grocery store clerk whose job it is to inform people of this. Because the kind of person that just wants a steak or a smoke or a beer or a bus transfer sure the hell isn't going to consider high level government policy when faced with barriers to their next sensational rush. The better of them will just buy and eat that much more Spam, while the worst will end up lashing out. Either way, more cost to the system in the long run. And this is all just the tip of the iceberg. There's quite a premium one pays on being poor these days. Poverty ain't cheap.

 

While I don't agree that gourmet restaraunts and so on should be on the bill for these people, I don't think micromanaging their habits and behaviours is feasible. A certain percentage of people who'll end up dining on low grade steak on the tax payer's dime is just part of the price you pay to live in a 1st world society. On the grand scheme of things, it's infantesmal waste compared to things like pentagon pork, and so on.

[Pong Messiah]

Kurgan, you're totally right about the lack of planning/sensation-seeking thing, and I've even read sociological/sciency articles to back that up.

That said, I don't think we're talking about a huge group of people. My experience with mass transit is far less than yours, but I am painfully familiar with the "day riders" you speak of who seem drawn to it -- people with little to do, low-information sensation-seekers who don't understand cause and effect, etc. -- and think they are about as representative of your average welfarist as the racist caricatures right-wingers like to employ -- i.e. not really, though you can certainly find people who fit that mold if you care to look.

Now, I get that there are people out there who simply can't help themselves, I also don't kid myself about the economy -- people are trained from birth to be consumers, while entry/low-level positions just won't allow for the demands of that lifestyle -- but the thing is... I'm just not going to happily subsidize anything beyond basic food, services, and vocational training/rehabilitation for adults who are not physically or mentally disabled.

 

Sorry. Just... no.

 

I don't think it would take too much effort to expand the list of unbuyables. And I've personally seen too many truly ****ed up people suddenly and miraculously find jobs and change lifestyles once the reality of pulled/reduced assistance (either state or from family/friends) hit them over the head to believe there's this huge swath of citizens who are utterly immune to cause/effect reasoning. Perhaps resistant to it, sure, and I doubt moving off the couch to eek out a living in a menial, low-ceiling career is the kind of epiphany you or I would have hoped for, but it happens. People work with what you give (or don't give) them...

 

And as for the ones of sound body and mind who won't or can't get their act together after years of assistance? Let them eat Spam.

 

Wards of the state. If they want (or need) the government to take care of them, fine, but they don't get to spend their money on what they want like adults, because they aren't adults. Mommy and Daddy State will decide what is best for them, and I can guarantee you it won't be "fliet."

 

[The Kurgan]

And as for the ones of sound body and mind who won't or can't get their act together after years of assistance? Let them eat Spam.

VOLUMES could be written on this, for sure. Before this strays into "Lando" territory, I'll merely suggest that I'm fairly sure this is how the French Revolution happened.

 

On a bit more serious a note, I'd suggest simply not setting income support levels all that high - nobody's suggesting 50K/year or anything like that. Or at least I'm not. But with what they do get ... a good case can be made for smokes, booze and so on, but for food I'm more partial to simply leaving it alone. Some "gourmet" type stuff, maybe. In terms of incentivizing people to get off welfare/food stamps if they can, I'd suggest the best way would be means testing on a gradual, sliding scale. I don't know how these programs work these days, but it used to be that you either qualified or you didn't, and either got it or didn't depending on your income. So that incentivized people keeping their income levels below a certain point, unless it was well beyond what welfare/food stamps actually paid. But the path out of poverty usually doesn't work this way. Earning potential almost always increases gradually as opposed to exponentially.

[Ms. Spam]

I guess I could bring out that old tired argument that food stamps/EBT actually drive the economy. Every time someone buys products with that stamp it employees at least five workers because of what is needed to just get the product into a store to be sold. But these programs are being cut. There's smaller money allotted for this now and so maybe telling the tax payers what they can buy and cannot and being all poor humiliation like is the beginnings of getting people used to the idea that the government doesn't provide a teat.

 

My ex's parents applied for the Texas Lone Star Card which is the EBT program here and were informed that they make too much. If they wanted it they could have 9 dollars a week to use. They took it. But their issue is that they're very dumb. I've never seen people miss-manage money worse than these two. They cry that they never get to visit their grandsons but it's not that the mother is withholding the children. It's because they can't afford the gas to go for a 90 mile round trip. So the grandsons have to come to them which only happens when the son can find the time. They do buy expensive cuts of meat, ignore sales, eat out a lot, and don't know how to read food labels. Their house is paid off and even though his retirement is being garnished (they borrowed the max on student loans when he went back to school at 50 to get a college degree after retiring from a government job and have gone past the deferment stage. They owe 300K in student loans) their biggest bills are electricity and medical bills because she goes to the emergency room for a sore throat. They also use the food pantry that gives away boxes of food to the food poor. They rely on this.

 

So people who are on this type of benefit are numerous in type. I also know people who don't want it. And others who do the school food programs. I think most of my students parents who have EBT at home use it responsibly and only buy when they have a special event for nicer cuts of meat. But they are in tiny 70 year old homes with lots of mouths to feed and trying their best to make ends meet.

 

Education is probably the best thing we can do for these people. Teach birth control methods - counter to local San Antonio Catholic teaching - as well as financial planning, what is good food and assist with getting people some kind of job training that will elevate them to a better quality of life such as a vocational school that can teach auto mechanics, heating and A/C or something else.

 

IQ wise not everyone is a smart as proved by my exs parents and this lack of sophistication or even intelligence just perpetuates the issue. The government is their safety net because to be honest even I don't wanna look after my exs parents. They just irritate me sometimes with their child-like logic that I can't even believe they raised my ex and his brother without any issues.

 

At some point some people have lost pride because they expect these benefits without shame though. They're not the welfare queens Reagan talked about, but its part of their cultural identity. Shaming and humiliating as the article mentions is just middle class white dudes in State Congresses who've felt the pinch as their middle class salary is pinched is in reality just that angry dude lashing out. I don't think that people who are required to do this or that that use the benefit will even be bothered about this as they pick up pork chittlin's, Kool-aid and junk food.

[monkeygirl]

 

if you want to give me ****

for something that petty while I'm so bad off I have to be on food stamps?

It's not giving you **** for something petty if you are abusing the system. Doesn't matter how you rationalize it, buying junk food or high end stuff that doesn't give you much bang (calories, meals, etc.) for the buck at the very least undermines the spirit of the system.

 

Making excuses for people's bad behavior and being overly concerned about their "feelings" makes having a nice social safety net impossible.

 

Make your damn stir-fry with hamburger until you can afford to get off of food stamps. If you absolutely, positively need your precious "fliet," save up and buy it out of pocket like everybody else.

 

But I don't see that as abusing the sytem-that's what I'm getting at!

 

Filet mignon is not JUNK food-it's much healthier than ground meat.

 

You can't possibly know each person's reason for buying what they buy at the grocery store. Do you suggest we relegate food purchases ONLY to

the cheapest cut of meat? What then of the ensuing health problems? Or why supply meat at all? We could make sure the only thing they buy

with food stamps are bread and water? Buty water's free...