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10/23/11 It took a while from when the recession hit, to the time it hit me and due to back and forth fighting between trying to get unemployment benefits and my previous company, I was left no choice but to apply for the Lone Star card. I had managed to save enough money to go nine months of not needing any assistance til now.
I understand whole-heartedly the discontent of seeing what these people, that have been working the system, buy with thier cards... also seeing them be able to withdraw money so they can buy thier booze and smokes.
When I went to apply, I saw women talking on thier cell phones the whole time waiting, plus many had freshly done hair-dos and nails and gold chains around thier necks... one lady drove a Cadillac Escalade even. It was disgusting to see.
I've worked since I was 15, for over 25 years w/out ever needing to apply for gov. assistance... I'm ashamed to be on it, even though I paid my share of taxes over the 25 yrs. of having to work.
Please don't look at me with disgust at your local market because I have processed foods/frozen dinners in my cart because they are much cheaper to buy than buying the igredients seperately and trying to prepare a meal for one. My fridge is broke and other than using an ice-chest, I don't have much room to store left-overs. I have to strech these benefits, which means, even on food stamps, I can't afford the leisure foods... it is sickening to see people abuse this.
Because I have no children, I'm only approved for 3 months of food only, no other assistance is available to me.... which is sad, it almost encourages the ones that live off this system to have more babies so they can get more benefits, which includes cash.
The saddest part of most of this, other than the abusers, is that we are also giving illegal immigrants these benefits. This has to stop.
Last edited by Housnative; 10-23-2011 at 10:10 PM..
AFAIK the rules for the food stamp program are different in individual states. If not, then you're correct that this is off topic here.
No, they're not different. In fact, your Texas Lone Star card can be used for grocery purchases in other states, and it will swipe just the same at the register. Food Stamps is a federal program, that is processed and administered by state agencies.
yay, a bash on the poor people, even tho we're only slighty better off than them, in the general scheme of wealth distribution in this country, thread! but oh no, poor people are fat and have been known to eat steak so why don't they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and in the mean time be thankful that almost all of them have a refrigerator and many actually own color tvs. gosh darnit, my taxes are for paying way more than a trillion dollars to kill a million iraqis and afghanis who are all terrorists, and not for poor people to spend a dollar on a frozen pizza, or people with physiological / emotional problems to carry on patterns of behavior that make them drink too much soda, when no one's ever explained to them the relationship between their soda intake and their manageable problems. or even for revitalizing america to once again be a technological leader in the world and a land of opportunity, as opposed to a land where the rich will keep eating the middle class until everyone who isn't truly wealthy is poor.
stupid poor people, let's all hate on them for being able to eat without most of their diet coming from salty canned vegetables from the food bank. after all, isn't taking care of the poor what churches are supposed to do?
also, to fan the flames of hatred - foodstamps can used to buy grocery store sushi. happy birthday to me! thanks, texas. but my monthly allowance for a family of two (single parent) isn't enough to cover the food bills, even when we eat a lot of brown rice, frozen veggies, fresh fruit and veggies, inexpensive meat (but not the cheapest - that stuff's gross and so bad for you), potatoes, gorp, milk... it sure helps, tho. so go ahead and demonize me because my son has a pack or two of gummy bears a month, and we had a party 2 months ago that included a sara lee frozen cake and some ben n jerry's.
but to be fair, this is texas, and prisons create jobs (let's pretend it's not with huge amounts of taxpayer money), so maybe we should not help the despicable poor, including the recently unemployed, but instead should be imprisoning more people for stealing loaves of bread (or even, *gasp*, steaks) to feed their family. three strikes you're out is what it's all about.
it's stuff like this that makes me think the middle of the middle class will be first against the wall when the revolution comes, instead of the people who deserve it.
When I was a kid, my parents got food stamps and they could only buy WIC items, mainly stuff like milk, eggs, and generic brands of certain items. Now you can buy ANY food you want at a store. Most of the time, the people wh purchase with the Lone Star food stamp card have shopping carts full of junk food. Not because it's cheaper, because it's usually cheaper to buy the ingredients and cook it yourself, but because it is more CONVENIENT to buy junk food and pop it in the microwave.
Now some fast food places like Taco Bell want to be able to accept food stamp cards and I hope they don't allow this in TX.
yay, a bash on the poor people, even tho we're only slighty better off than them, in the general scheme of wealth distribution in this country, thread! but oh no, poor people are fat and have been known to eat steak so why don't they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and in the mean time be thankful that almost all of them have a refrigerator and many actually own color tvs. gosh darnit, my taxes are for paying way more than a trillion dollars to kill a million iraqis and afghanis who are all terrorists, and not for poor people to spend a dollar on a frozen pizza, or people with physiological / emotional problems to carry on patterns of behavior that make them drink too much soda, when no one's ever explained to them the relationship between their soda intake and their manageable problems. or even for revitalizing america to once again be a technological leader in the world and a land of opportunity, as opposed to a land where the rich will keep eating the middle class until everyone who isn't truly wealthy is poor.
stupid poor people, let's all hate on them for being able to eat without most of their diet coming from salty canned vegetables from the food bank. after all, isn't taking care of the poor what churches are supposed to do?
also, to fan the flames of hatred - foodstamps can used to buy grocery store sushi. happy birthday to me! thanks, texas. but my monthly allowance for a family of two (single parent) isn't enough to cover the food bills, even when we eat a lot of brown rice, frozen veggies, fresh fruit and veggies, inexpensive meat (but not the cheapest - that stuff's gross and so bad for you), potatoes, gorp, milk... it sure helps, tho. so go ahead and demonize me because my son has a pack or two of gummy bears a month, and we had a party 2 months ago that included a sara lee frozen cake and some ben n jerry's.
but to be fair, this is texas, and prisons create jobs (let's pretend it's not with huge amounts of taxpayer money), so maybe we should not help the despicable poor, including the recently unemployed, but instead should be imprisoning more people for stealing loaves of bread (or even, *gasp*, steaks) to feed their family. three strikes you're out is what it's all about.
it's stuff like this that makes me think the middle of the middle class will be first against the wall when the revolution comes, instead of the people who deserve it.
Apparently the poor people can't afford proper punctuation and can only purchase run-on sentences with their food stamps.
I kid, because of what was written. For example, Americans have not killed "a million iraqis and afghanis". By the way, where did you get your facts about felons stealing loaves of bread to feed their families and going to prison for life because of it? I would bet the number is trivial, meaning a few percentage points under 1%, so your point is moot. Nonetheless, it sounds like you have a bigger axe to grind and I'm interested in hearing more.
I whole-heartedly agree, the illegal immigrants should not be allowed to get free food stamps or free health care for that matter.
illegal immigrants can't get food stamps. if a family getting food stamps includes an illegal immigrant, the illegal doesn't count at all in figuring how much they get. it's like they weren't there.
they can get WIC, tho. WIC isn't that much, and is just for the baby or young child. it pays for formula or a breast pump until the child is one year old, and then it pays for some, but not much, milk, peanut butter, cheap cereal, juice... not much more. nobody's living off of WIC, but it helps a lot of small children. you'd rather they starve?
my son's mom is a canadian who overstayed her 6 month visa-free visitation period because she was pregnant. she got free prenatal care and a free baby-birthing. but it's not true at all that undocumented immigrants get free health care. they get free emergency care at government run hospitals, and they have to be given emergency care at private hospitals, but they get charged for it. of course, it's very difficult to hunt them down and damage their credit (which they don't have) if they don't pay, so i guess you can call that free. but if they have a rotten tooth that needs to be pulled, or a non-life threatening infection, or anything that you would see your family GP about instead of rushing to an emergency room - they don't get that for free.
i truly wonder how many people would complain about this sort of thing, or how much misinformation would be spread about this sort of thing, if most undocumented immigrants were canadians or western-europeans instead of mexicans and people from part south of mexico.
Apparently the poor people can't afford proper punctuation and can only purchase run-on sentences with their food stamps.
I kid, because of what was written. For example, Americans have not killed "a million iraqis and afghanis". By the way, where did you get your facts about felons stealing loaves of bread to feed their families and going to prison for life because of it? I would bet the number is trivial, meaning a few percentage points under 1%, so your point is moot. Nonetheless, it sounds like you have a bigger axe to grind and I'm interested in hearing more.
perhaps you're confusing excessively long compound sentences and liberal use of prepositional phrases with run-on sentences? there might have been a fragment or two in there, but i'll defend their use as appropriate to the narrative. and maybe i missed or added an unnecessary comma, but i offer no apologies for that.
you forgot to criticize my capitalization : )
yes, the number of people serving excessive prison terms for stealing small amounts of food is trivial. take away food stamps and watch how much it increases.
For example, Americans have not killed "a million iraqis and afghanis". .
Yes, we did, if you count those who died in the 90s (when Clinton was president) as a result of our enforcement of sanctions, which caused death by malnutrition, lack of health care, no safe drinking water, disrupted transport and infrastructure,etc., by The Secretary of State's own admission that a half a million children is acceptable collateral damage:
"When asked on US television if she [Madeline Albright, US Secretary of State] thought that the death of half a million Iraqi children [from sanctions in Iraq] was a price worth paying, Albright replied: "This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.""
From Wikipedia's published references, "Iraq Sanctions", deaths of children alone before 9/11:
* Unicef: 500,000 children (including sanctions, collateral effects of war). "[As of 1999] [c]hildren under 5 years of age are dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago."
* Former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday: "Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under" as of 1998.
* "probably ... 170,000 children", Project on Defense Alternatives, "The Wages of War", 20. October 2003
* 350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates", October 2001
Back to the main topic, what would be the effect of "sanctions" against families now receiving food stamps in the USA? Is the death of American children one of those very hard choices, whose price is worth it?
Last edited by jtur88; 10-24-2011 at 01:06 PM..
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Jobless
