Greatest Country In The World Votes To Cut Food Stamps To Poor

I don't believe that you got this opinion from working for the government, I believe you got it from the pundits who have repeated this silliness ad nauseum since Rush Limbaugh got popular.

Except the government isn't going to load up in bulk on $12 drug testing kits. They are going to farm it out to LabCorp at $35 a pop, and you are talking about testing MILLIONS of people. How often do you advocate they be tested, every month, every 6 months? Florida did this for Welfare recipients and it ended up costing them well over double what they saved by taking benefits from the 2.6% of people who tested positive. Given that SNAP recipients get less (and thus that we would reclaim less for a positive drug test) benefits, I believe that we would spend FAR more on drug testing than we could ever hope to make up in benefits savings.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts...testing-welfare-recipients-data-shows/1225721

It isn't hard, but it is expensive.

Of the 2.6% if people who tested positive in Florida (see link above), the VAST majority tested positive for mar1juana. You're welcome to believe that anyone who smokes mar1juana qualifies as a "druggie," but your belief just doesn't make it true.

I wish you had the power, such a move would make for a Democratic majority for the foreseeable future.

 

They are always the victims. No matter how rich, white, male. After all they lost the Civil War. Besides since their ideology teaches them that taxation is theft they are crime victims, too.

 

Not going to bother looking back and investigating the context of you and Treeman's conversation, but if you are speaking about Texas' recent attempt at passing a Welfare drug testing bill, it is important to note that it is not anywhere close to the scale of Florida's. Testing would have prioritized for high risk NEW and renewing applicants, as determined through the screening process (which there already is one set in place). The testing was going to cost the state something like $20/person, and there would you would get 3 strikes until being removed permanently from receiving benefits. When you sign up for TANF you already sign an agreement to 1) look for a job, and 2) remain drug free. The cost Texas would assume from this law would have been far less than Florida's because they took into consideration the issues with Florida and modeled it entirely differently.

They also put language in the bill that would have allowed for a 3rd party recipient to continue to receive the funds so that any children affected would not be harmed (note TANF is not SNAP, food stamps is not welfare).

If you are in need of assistance from the government, FROM US THE TAXPAYERS, than you shouldn't be using those funds for ANYTHING but survival. If you purchase drugs, you clearly have some disposable income and do not deserve a hand out from the government.

I see nothing wrong with it, and I applaud the efforts by our state for attempting to pass it. I was surprised that TANF drug testing did not pass, but unemployment drug testing did.

 

For me, it is about the cost/benefit analysis. Existing drug testing for benefits programs have fared badly from this perspective and have cost the taxpayer FAR more than they have saved in benefits. I applaud the attempts to avoid Florida's problems, but still feel like this is just one more 4th Amendment trespass in the name of the War on Drugs, the most expensive debacle in this nation's history.

 

*exemption applies to oil companies, Wall Street, prison industry, farmers, and ethanol producers.

Of course, a generation of people "surviving" is just what the country needs. No thought on the cost of starving your own people? meh. You can spend money on drugs, so you don't need food to ween you off the habit. You're living that palatial lifestyle of $5 weed, and ramen noodles.

Here's a cost/benefit: food stamps have one of the best money multipliers of any public policy initiative. Children who go through the program are more likely to be employed, and less likely to return to ANY welfare program. It just makes sense. You are what you eat.

People tend to forget that the economy is composed of human beings, and if those humans are sickly, malnourished, unhealthy, and uneducated, taxpayers can save a whole bunch now, but lose a whole lot more now and later. Consider investing in human beings, despite their defaults, rather than in some mechanistic notion of financial disasters that qualifies as an "economy" these days.

 

Giving tax breaks is different than giving people money, which is exactly what TANF is. It is the only program that gives you "cash-money" essentially.

If they needed help "surviving" maybe they should spend the money on food, and not drugs? Not everyone does it, most probably don't, but those who do are wasting taxpayer dollars, but more importantly they are hurting themselves and their family by depriving them of those much needed funds. Just because you live a crappy life by materialistic standards, doesn't mean you should get to wallow away in your own drug-induced self-pity. Get a job, get off drugs, and contribute to society.

Here's a cost/benefit: food stamps have one of the best money multipliers of any public policy initiative. Children who go through the program are more likely to be employed, and less likely to return to ANY welfare program. It just makes sense. You are what you eat. [/QUOTE]

TANF is not SNAP. Kids can still be fed even without welfare. Welfare helps pay the bills, buy things for the house, it supplements your income, or lack thereof for some.

In the long run, it builds a society of dependence, and these programs are near impossible to reform or dismantle. We can not afford them. We have great charities that are there to help people out, the government should not be one of them. Why don't we put more focus on getting people OFF these programs, so they can provide for themselves. That's what most people really want. No one wants to be on these programs, but they do NOTHING to help them get off. It just breeds future generations of dependents.

It's not compassion, it's enabling. There is a difference.

 

Oh, no, I got it from government. I spent 7 years working in the federal govt and the waste I saw simply boggled the mind. Ever seen anyone pay over $100 for a hole puncher? I have. Ever seen anyone buy dozens of multimillion dollar machines more than required just so they could get a per-unit discount? I have. I and the rest of my unit watched as the US Army spent tens of millions of dollars renovating a FOB in Iraq that we had planned on shutting down the following year. The State of Texas is much more frugal, but even they wast a bit here and there.

It's disgraceful, and I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. I know what I saw.

Uh... I worked at CPS, remember? Instant OFA kits cost about $12 a pop, and the State of Texas most certainly *does* already bulk up on them.

No, YOU might not consider it to be a drug, but the government and the resat of the country does.

I don;t give a sh^t whether they're buying weed, meth, or even alcohol. If they are on SNAP then they don't have the goddamned money to be buying ANY of that crap. Make them choose between food and alcohol/smokes/drugs.

Maybe if they sober up they can get a fu^king job? I do NOT want the government enabling someone to use drugs or other controlled substances. If they make enough to buy that stuff then they make enough to buy food instead. Priorities.

Deckard -

No apologies here. They are not deserved. I am not going to sit here and be a freaking punching bag for douchebags who want to accuse me of wanting to starve "millions of children". No sir, I am NOT going to sit here and take that crap.

As I have always said I will maintain a civil discourse with anyone who approaches a debate rationally, and in an honest fashion. I will throw sh^t back at anyone who doesn't. It's a big boys world.

And I already apologized for the comment in the other thread if that was was not your meaning, so let it go. Man, if you are saving posts from a decade ago or whatever because they hurt your feelings, you need to step back from this crap and re-evaluate why you're here. Take this place less seriously, it'll probably add years to your life.

 

OFD...

 

Yes, clearly.

This is disgusting. You guys don't deserve to be called "liberals". You are freaking Nazis.

Calling entire groups of people Nazis and traitors and whatever other nonsense is clearly civil discourse.

 

Young Latinos, who's parents are undocumented, are watching what the GOP is doing. They are going to remember that it was Republicans fighting Obamacare. That it was Republicans successfully blocking the expansion of medicaid. That it was Republicans who opposed a slight increase in the minimum wage. And that is was Republicans who tried to undercut food stamps. They are going to remember, and they are going to vote.

The GOP is on life support and the next generation of Americans is going to pull the plug.

 

Did you pull that from the thread in which the "liberal" was advocating that judges start "advising" people in their courts to have abortions?

Modern "liberalism" is anything but liberal, which is why I put it in quotes. It has far more in common with fascism than it does liberalism in the classical sense.

And yeah Major, the concept of courts "advising" women to kill their babies for utilitarian purposes *does* have a Nazi ring to it. Because, you know, that's pretty close to what they did. They just dispensed with the judge and let a bureaucrat do it instead. Short slide there, buddy.

 

Says the man who fantasizes about making libertarian thought illegal and slaying all of his enemies with a gavel and an oven, right?

Nazis.

 

BTW, Raven, very timely post. Thanks.

 

Hmm, since I started my thread on CPS intervening with drug using mothers prior to birth i've talked to some friends who worked with CPS. You said you were an investigator for about 6 months -- correct?

You can't work for CPS without a degree (preferably) in social work -- my good friends both have their masters and have moved up to state office work. Did you get your degree in social work before or after your service in the military?

Also, CPS specialists go through about 3 months of training with no caseload and then are assigned a very limited workload through their first year. So I am curious about your experience in such a short time span with a small workload.

You seem to claim that you are an expert on CPS matters, but lack experience in the field at a minimum -- I hope you can clear up some of my confusion.

 

Every person or family I have known that receives food stamps has and have abused it.

I have also known illegal immigrants that do not receive food stamps to work hard and still afford to put food on the table despite the fact that they do pay taxes and receive no such help.

The government should be more selective in who and how much a family should get when it comes to food stamps.

 

I think there's a lot of people who don't know jack talking about food stamps. I mean, "Hey I saw someone abuse it so that means everyone is abusing it. Let's test everyone for drugs, even if it costs us more and is an exercise is gov't waste of money"

 

Yup. One person was having a discussion about abortion policy and what would happen in a hypothetical sense - he wasn't advocating anything. Based on that, you decided that "you guys" (note the plural) should be called Nazis.

Quit pretending you're anything other than someone who relies on asinine insults to make your arguments. You aren't anywhere close to being interested in or capable of civil discussions. In your world, everyone who disagrees with you - or even dares to discuss a hypothetical in the above case - gets called a traitor or nazi or whatever other insult is convenient. And that then more often than not gets generalized to large groups of people (millions, in fact, for your traitor line) based on, well, nothing.

 

I got my degree in Psych in the 1990s. I never said I was an expert on CPS matters, but I do know more about it than most who haven't worked in the field. Yes, BSD is about 3 months, and you only work 2 cases during that time. When you get out you get floored with cases.

As I said in the other CPS thread, worst job I ever had. I ran fast away from that one.

 

He seemed to think it was a swell alternative to removal. He was preaching utilitarianism. And anyone who proposes such ideas is a freaking Nazi in my book.

Blah blah blah. I'm supposed to let it slide when people say things like "I wish we could just outlaw all libertarian thought"? That deserves insult, and nothing better.

I am perfectly capable of it, the problem is that you guys like to throw around ridiculous caricatures of what conservatives are, and carelessly throw insults such as wanting to starve millions of children. How many times have I been called a racist? How many times have I been called a bigot, or hater of women or some such crapola? You guys pull that crap, and I will sink to your level. I will swing back. I am certainly not above it.

Don't pretend to be above it yourself, Major. You may not be as crass or as blunt as I am, but you can get just as nasty in a debate. You and Deckard try this "above the fray" schtick any time someone calls your side to the mat for their hysterical and ridiculous antics. Well, I am not falling for it.

 

Your strange defensiveness and idea that liberals are nazis, or traitors and generalizing whole groups of people with insults while complaining about people insulting you all the time is giving off an odd paranoid hyper victimization vibe.

I never put it all together before, and it could just be the internet communication that makes it seem like that.