More Government Waste

[sheepdog 10]

Listened to an interesting story on the news last night about our current food stamp program. Our government claims there is only about a 1% amount of fraud in this program. The United States Department of Agriculture is tasked with keeping tabs on the amount of fraud in this program. The reporters investigating this story went threw about 20 or 30 stores during the investigation and found that 2 out of 3 stores would cheat on the ebt cards. Either selling the food stamp customers booze, ciggerettes, and even condoms, or giving them cash. They found numerous ebt cards for sale for cash on the internet. So I'm not sure what kind of fuzzy math they used to come up with their claim that there is only 1% of fraud in the program. These cards are being used in strip clubs and liquer stores, even a massage parlor or 2! Now here's the part that really pisses me off. The USDA has 100 employees that are to watch over 200,000 business that are licenced to accept food stamps and ebt cards. So no wonder they don't catch any fradulant sales. Now, here's the thing. The USDA has 120 employees that regulate 8500 licenced kennels/animal facilities. Do the math. Our government cares way more about how many dog turds are in a pen than they do about the governement being ripped off. This is a sad state of affairs when you look at our national debt that our grandchildren will still be paying off when we are all dead and gone. Talk about some seriously screwed up pryorities!!!

[comp2 1]

Another topic related to this is fraud is the Lifeline program. The program was originally designed for land lines and when to cell phones in 2008. The program has nearly tripled in size from $800 million in 2009 to $2.2 billion per year in 2012. It has been stated that house hold are getting multiple phones when they should only be receiving one.

 

And another thing..... It really irritates me to see someone in a new car paying for food with their food stamps card while talking on an iPhone. If you cannot afford something then you might not need it. End of rant.

[Iniyila 2]

The idea of EBT is wrong itself so we can not expect to see it working ! the same idea goes all over the world, in some countries they give people some kind of paper (I don't remember the name !) that they can buy certain things with it like oil or drinkable water , ... but in those countries people sell those in black market and get cash instead. now EBT is same too, these ideas have failed all over the world and it doesn't matter how much technology you spend on it , people will find a way to bypass that and sell it or use it for other things to buy.EBT may work if you can use them only in certain places onder government control but this will decrease number of shops you can buy food with these cards and still can not completely eliminate the fraud. the other idea is that to leave it to people to decide whether they want to buy food with their EBT cards or get anything else because history have shown that you can not force them to use it as you say ,i searched around and i was not able to find even a single case of success about such cards or similar stuffs around the world.The idea that i think will work is the old but working one ! "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" , creating job is the most important thing in all countries, if you give someone what he/she needs without requesting anything instead you are doing the worst thing you can do for him/her. you don't need to make food stamps or these EBT cards, instead provide some jobs that these people can do and then pay them for their doings. and of course the hard earned money will not be wasted like these EBT cards , people will know its worth so much more because they have worked for it. so i hope we see a better decision in this category soon otherwise these techniques will not work as they have not worked for many years.

[sheepdog 10]

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

 

I could not agree with you more. I do truely believe in a hand up, but not a hand out. If you want to better yourself fine, you deserve help. But if you want to sit on your back side and let others take care of you, I have no use for your lazy *bottom*. Starve, see if I care. If you don't care enough to feed yourself, why should I care about you? Am I cold hearted? Yes. I am.

 

I personally wold like to see the old commodities program brought back. Give them dryed eggs, flour, powdered milk, baking soda and salt, corn meal, and shorting. Cans of cooked chicken too, for protien. If they are truely hungry, it will keep them from starvign to death. I know that no matter what is done, some people will still try to cheat, and sell their groceries, but if they are given commidities, and the kind of things that aren't easy to fix, or more desirable, there will be less chance of them selling them to anyone else. Seriously, have you ever eaten powered eggs? They are pretty gross. But they will ward off starvation.

 

And yes, the Lifeline program has been seriously abused. These phones, if given out at all, ( I'm not sure they even should give them out) should be limited to emergency calls. I think I read where they get 250 free minutes per month. That's way too much and too much waste.

[demonboy1990 0]

we call that paper money but food stamps sounds a great idea I have only ever seen food stamps in American tv shows I thought they just a part of the shows, you learn something new everyday, sorry if my comment sounds abit stupid but our social benefit systems gives money, housing, and sometimes cars depending on your entitlement food stamps sounds a good idea but to simple to work in every country. I don't think liking the idea of food stamps was the point of this post, I thought the only use for the stamps was to buy food in the name food stamps. there is fraud in every benefit system you have expect that free money gets the wrong type of people coming around looking for their takings it would be easier that any person stealing the money should get their hands cut off then they would not come back for more, by the way only joking any people who have no arms, or have lost a arm, hand I am sorry about the joke.

[sheepdog 10]

No, your comment doesn't sound stupid at all. Every country has it's own ways of dealing with assisting its poor people, if your countries system is so much different than ours how could you be expected to know the difference? I just wish there was a way to make it less ripe for abuse. And the big thing, make it more desirable to actually work for a living and be a contributing member of society and not a welfare bum. The way things are set up in this country now, it's far more profitable to be on welfare than it is to have a job and work for a living. This is what needs to be changed. That's one reason I mentioned commidities. Yes, they could sell some of them, but the way people are lazy goof offs today, they could sell any read to eat foods they got with food stamps, but if they had flour and shortening to have to actually cook something, they would have a harder time selling it. And we would be serving the purpost welfare was created to solve, poor people would not go hungry. They would just have to cook something up instead of popping a frozen dinner into their micro wave which is run by electricity that is also furnished them.

[OpaQue 15]

In India,Millions of Dollars allotted for welfare of poverty struck population lands up in pockets of few corrupt officials...

[sheepdog 10]

That's really sad, but seems the way it works in most countries. Those that really need it are the ones getting the shaft, while the corrupt officials get the gold mine. You would think there would be some kind of way to put a stop to that kind of BS.

[demonboy1990 0]

any Welfare system is always going to be open to abuse but helping the poor or less well off and disabled in society is what the system is for not to help the lazy and people who think its there to top up their savings. any society should have a system to help those people who really need the help not those who wants to take advantage of the system. sheepdog I agree Every country has it's own ways of dealing with assisting its poor people, if your countries system is so much different than ours how could you be expected to know the difference. anyway Food stamps sounds a great idea. seems weird to have a Agriculture department having control over them our Agriculture department mainly deals with grants for farmers, food safety, and rural affairs, and our Social Development department deals with Welfare and Housing Benefit but now I understand why your Agriculture Department does food stamps because they deal with food by the way what do the people who do not have jobs or are paid low wages do to pay their bills (electric, water, and gas) and housing in the USA Or to be specific Your state?

[sheepdog 10]

Well, the lifeline program is on the news again last night, they had an undercover person getting a free cell phone and asking what they could do with it, if they could sell it for money to buy drugs or desighner handbags, and the people giving out the phones, those in charge of the program where telling them you could do whatever you want to do with them. One guy even said," I'm not going to judge you" when he was told the person getting the phone was going to sell it to buy herroin. What a waste of billions of tax payers dollars. Then I had to listen to that Juan Williams democrate trying to justify this disgusting waste claiming it was not tax payers money used for the program. Apparently acording to him that money comes from user fees paid by the people that pay for their own telephones. Now if that isn't a tax on tax payers I sure as hell don't know what is!

 

To demon boy, I believe the agriculture department was put in charge of the food stamp program in this country many years ago when food stamps were actually not stamps, but were called "commidities" that were food products raised in farms across the United States that the USDA had a hand in the production of, whether through farm substities, or other farm related programs designed to help farmers, and then passing them out to low income people. It was actual food, you recieved a certain amount acording to your income and number of people in the household. They gave away real food, like cheese, powdered milk, dried eggs, canned meat, numerous vegtables, flour, sugar, all that sort of stuff.

[demonboy1990 0]

thank you sheepdog for your comment. i see like a food bank

it sounds like a great idea then i see why the agriculture department

runs the program as the original purpose of the program was to give people food grown or produced in the US.

according to their income and number of people in the household very much the same as food banks.

another thing we use to get each year at xmas was a Hamper from The st vincent de paul

welfare is a good thing when it is not abused.

Edited June 19, 2013 by demonboy1990 (see edit history)

[sheepdog 10]

It is great to have a safty net for those things that happen to us that are beyong our control. One never knows when one might have an accident and not be able to work, or loose their job threw no fault of their own. It's just when we have an entire class of people who now depend on these handouts, and have no ambition at all to better themselves or put any effort into taking care of themselves. As long as they get a free ride, they are not going to even try to work to support themselves. That's what makes me so angry. To make matters even more aggrivatiing, it seems that now after years of welfare these people have the mind set that they are for some reason entitled to live off the backs of the people that work for a living. They think they are so smart that they can sit on their backsides and do nothing and are actually prideful that they don't work, instead of being ashamed of they lazyness. They think it's cool to beat the system or what ever they think they are doing. They have no shame in being a deat beat at all. Our screwed up society thinks its now ok to be lazy and good for nothing. I find it downright disgusting.

[demonboy1990 0]

sheepdog I get your point, every time you have any welfare benefits your always going to get the wrong sort of people (lazy no nothing layabouts) who think they deserve the money (or whatever is being giving out) and think by laying on their asses all day that the government needs to give them benefits but their are other sorts of people like the disabled, working people who need a little bit of help (according to their entitlement of course) stay at home mothers,

I still think ours Is the best benefit system in the world you get free health care at the point of need (since the 1940's) free education (this is not really a benefit as it applies to every child no matter what nationality) and other benefits when we where kids we even got baby formula but any benefit system will always be open to abuse by Scroungers who think they deserve it and will use cheating and lies to get their hands on any thing that are going. (jesus I feel like I am writing a tv show so I may stop before the whole topic is filled with it.