Food Stamps - Take The Challenge

But there are millions in welfare fraud. I'm getting tired of going to the grocery store, and having the crummiest care there in the lot, and being the only one actually paying for food. (Sorry, let me stop my self righteous rant.)

http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/massachusetts/millions-in-welfare-fraud-exposed-in-auditors-report

 

Having a job wasn't the actual criteria but instead having an annual income above the threshold was. I do agree though that the laws controlling assistance do, in some cases, prevent a person that is in serious temporary need from receiving very short term assistance. I also experienced the identical problem when I was young and we could say that there should be a way for a person to receive very limited assistance in such cases.

This is also a reason why I financiall support Northwest Harvest that is the primary food bank for Washington. There is no qualification requirement at Northwest Harvest for a person to receive food. All they have to do is walk in the door and they can get the food they need to live on. I've also proposed elsewhere that SNAP (the food stamp program) be changed to use private food banks to provide assistance because Northwest Harvest can provide three people with 100 meals for only $67 (based upon their recent pledge drive). Feeding 3 people 100 meals for $67 is only a small fraction of the cost of what the SNAP program pays out to provide the same assistance. This could provide the same assistance for those in need, and in fact more assistance to more people in need, than what SNAP currently provides. Someone that only needs a couple of weeks worth of food could get it without going through a bunch of government red tape. This could be done at far less cost to the taxpayers.

The need must be met but we can be more cost effective in meeting that need. We can't just cut off those in need by cutting funding.

 

from your article

"Auditor Bump says her office is seeing an uptick in food assistance fraud, but cautions that fraud represents about one percent of the money that is given out in total."

 

How much exactly are we spending on this? It's supposed to be help for people that need some sort of temporary assistance.

Meanwhile, (today) some lady is bilking us out of over 1.6 million in food stamps...
http://www.thehour.com/news/state__...cle_1d4e154a-7812-501f-b885-80bfdff97d7f.html

 

You mean was. She got caught and stopped.

 

And you expect the money to come back how now that we caught her?

My point isn't that everyone abuses food stamps. It is just that because I live in a poorer community, I see that there is widespread abuse. I've also seen the church do a much better job managing charities like this because they actually want to help people, not merely create government jobs, and dependent voting blocks. The government is undeniably doing a much poorer job. Perhaps we should have some 'separation of church and state' and get government out of charity.

 

Churches can not be held liable for people starving. They can't be held liable for refusing to help someone for an idiotic reason like them not believing in their faith (not saying all churches or even many are like that but they could refuse to help for whatever reason they wanted). Putting a social service in their hands is the opposite of separation between church and state.

 

Sounds like someone that clearly never volunteered at a food pantry. Seriously, they pretty much just hand out food to everyone that can demonstrate need.

The sad truth is that governments aren't held liable. They may say that socialist policies like this will bring about a better condition. The reality is that it brings food shortages up to everyone. Take Venezuela. One of the oil richest nations in the America's. Socialist policies are bringing food shortages. This is the reality.
http://lonelyconservative.com/2012/04/socialism-brings-food-shortages-to-venezuela/

 

How about Norway?

 

Other countries are not really comparable due to numerous differences.

I never said I was against private charities, just that I was against placing them solely in charge of the welfare of those in need.

I also see no reason why private charities and churches wouldn't experience charity fraud as the welfare system does.

Again I think we would benefit by distributing benefits differently then we do now with an open credit card. Food banks are a good option because you can control what is being given out.

 

I contribute to Northwest Harvest here in Washington and the individual doesn't even have to demonstate a need. All they need to do is walk in the door. Private charities and food banks are the way to go IMHO but first they have to meet the need before government assistance can be terminated. They're no where near to being able to meet the need at this time. I do oppose charities that impose conditions such as Salvation Army that, as I understand it, requires those it helps to listen to Christian sermons. Charities should not be a front for other agendas and I won't support those charities.

 

Once agian I support Northwest Harvest that has no pre-conditions in giving food out at their food banks. All a person has to do is walk in the door and they will receive food that they can take home. There isn't any charity fraud involved because there are no qualifications related to obtaining the food and there are no cash transactions where someone could profit off of "food stamps" by selling or trading them. I seriously doubt that a person would attempt to sell the food they get at the food bank but it still wouldn't be fraud if they did this because they own the food once they walk out the door.

In theory there could be fraud by those that manage Northwest Harvest but it hasn't happened and is highly unlikely to happen related to their "cash" contributions. There is zero fraud related to those that benefit from this charity and never has been because there are no qualifications for assistance and they only receive food by going to the food bank.

 

I think one of the reasons Church assistance and charities have worked is because people who have need are the ones who use them. People don't feel "entitled" to what a charity offers. Where with government---people do feel entitled.

My husband and his first wife went through a tough period when his work took a downturn. They depended on churches for Milk and Diapers. They didn't ask for his income verification or grill him on how many times he looked for work. He just asked for help and they gave it.

 

I agree with you in that I think charities and religious organizations ought to handle social welfare rather than the government, BUT, the problem is they can't. There just isn't enough of them with big enough budgets/caches to meet the needs of America's poor. So until they fix that, government it is.

 

I donate goods to local food banks, but I have never personally donated my time working any of them. My point was that a private charity cannot be held accountable for refusing to help anyone, I didn't say that is a wide spread practice I was just pointing out some flaws that may arise if we decided to put welfare entirely in the hands of private charities.

What people consider fraud varies. I am sure a lot of people would consider anyone who utilizes charities/ welfare without truly needing to do so, is being fraudulent. Private charities do experience this as well, I know of people that utilize food banks without really needing to. I know of families that have leeched off of churches. One in particular that comes to mind was a family supported by a church that I used to attend that had 18 surviving children, the father was the crossing guard for my Catholic School, almost every morning and afternoon he was intoxicated while "crossing" us which in reality we just did by ourselves . Their house, cloths, food, etc were paid for by the church for decades and mom and elder children were consistently prolific. Although anecdotal I am sure these types of users exist anywhere charity is given.

Although not the majority scammers are a problem which have and will always exist, and I would tend to agree that we do see more of these types of people today because the stigma that used to be attached to receiving charity doesn’t really exist anymore. On one side of the coin you don’t want people to feel bad by taking help, it is what it is there for. On the other hand without that social stigma welfare abuse increases because people start feeling entitled or don’t feel bad about being on assistance programs and not altering their spending habits or attempting to live within their means, they see it as a supplement so they can keep up with the Jones’ as the saying goes.

Food banks are a better than etb cards or food stamps. I could see private charities doing the doling out of the goods, under some type a regulation or over sight and with federal or state funding behind them. The only way I see to lessen the abuse is to reattach the social stigma to it as awful as that makes me sound.

 

Me and my kids would qualify for all kinds of govt entitlements and all we would need to do is get rid of my wife/marriage. Tough choice but might have to make it by tuition time next fall.

 

My sister in law had MS.. and when ALL the money was gone, her parent's money was gone, the house was gone.. my BiL had to quietly divorce her and have her declared indigent to get help for her.

 

Actually---when government started welfare--the churches and charities became less important--and people viewed donations as less important. I guarantee you....if government cut back and decreed that the private sector would have to fill in the gaps----donations and money would flow like crazy.

 

Sorry, but your say-so isn't good enough for me to justify dropping aid to the poor. You demonstrate that private charities and churches can take up the slack, and we'll get rid of government aid. Until then, I'm just focusing on reforming the government system.

 

Sorry for my tongue-in-cheek comment because this does raise a ligitimate question. Personally I wouldn't be too concerned about the smokers and drinkers because the government is raping the people with taxes on those that more than pay for any food assistance. Tobacco and alchoholic beverages are the most heavily taxed commodities in the United States. As for those that might be doing drugs it is quite common for them to be dealing drugs to pay for their indulgence.

We could also ask how many of those collecting SNAP assistance contribute donations to their church as well if we want to address how they use their disposable income if we're going to address every penny they spend that they could use for food. I'm not into making determinations based upon "social engineering" standards so I don't personally care if a poor person chooses to smoke cigarettes, have a few drinks, smoke a little pot, or donate to their local church all of which could be said to be spending on "luxuries" where that money could be used for food. Food is not the only thing a person needs to spend money on and sometimes spending money on other things that might be considered "luxuries" is also necessary for peace of mind. I'm not going to impose my judgment on that.

There are criteria for receiving assistance and as has been noted here sometimes it's not very good. The example of someone needing assistance for only a couple of weeks but they can't get it because the criteria is based upon a long term need (annual income) leaves many hungry if only for a short time. That goodness for private food banks in these instances because they don't have any "eligibility" requirements (at least for the one I support). States that impose social engineering criteria, such as a drug test for marijuana where a person that takes a few hits on a bong that someone shared with them two or three weeks previously would disqualify them, are absurd IMO. The government should not be involved in social engineering.

In any case we're talking about a small percentage of those in need as overwhelmingly the vast majority are either retirees that can't get by on Social Security unassisted or they're working families that need assistance because of low wages or they are unemployed and looking for work but unemployment insurance is inadequite to meet their needs. Those are the vast majority of those that receive SNAP assistance.

There are certainly ways we can reduce the cost of the SNAP program. It's been mentioned that we could change over to a food bank system where the funding goes to qualified private food banks. They provide far more assistance for a fraction of the cost when compared to SNAP. Of course the grocery store owners, which are the primary beneficiaries of the SNAP program, would lose customers.

We could also address those retirees that need SNAP assistance by raising Social Security benefits especially for those that receive $13K/yr or less. Social Security, based upon it's average benefit of only $13K/yr, is a poverty level government program IMHO. Personally I've advocated privatizing Social Security which would dramatically increase retirement income and personal wealth for low and middle income workers but also know that this would cost about a trillion dollars a year in additional taxation for roughly 30 years during the transition. In the end it would be worth it but the extra trillion dollars a year for the transition is generally opposed especially by conservatives. Many conservative call for privatization of Social Security but they don't want to address the huge cost of making that transition.

We could also raise unemployment benefits especially for the long term unemployed we have today. A family can use reserves, even if they are small, to get by over the short term but many today have used their entire retirement savings to get by for the first six months or so and those reserves are now gone.

We can also address the wage disparities for women that only average about 76% in wages when compared to men doing the same work. So many of the SNAP recepients are single, generally divorced, women raising children but trying to get by on the lowest wages in America and them simply earning more money would eliminate the need for food assistance.

It's a tough issue to be sure but the last thing I want to see is America simply ignoring the need. We can't just cut the assistance to these people and families. That's not a solution. We need to address eliminating the need so that the program becomes less necessary. We can also address changing how the benefits are provided to reduce costs while also increasing the number of people being assisted. We can't just cut funding to the program.

 

There is some truth to this as I can provide an example unrelated to the SNAP program. In the 1960's I was actively involved in helping out with free clinics where people could receive quality health care. Often the facilities were donated without rent, the equipment was donated from hospitals and clinics when they upgraded to new equipment, and the doctors and nurses donated their time. With Medicare/Medicaid being passed into law and the federal/state government becoming involved in providing health care the necessity for the free clinics diminished in the 1970's and most closed their doors.

As a libertarian I support private charities providing services over government welfare programs but the problem is that first the private charities need to provide the services before the government programs can be reduced. We can't just cut the government program and hope that private charities will fill in the gap. There are people that would be adversely effected and that is not acceptable based upon a belief that in the future their needs would be met. First address the need and then address how to provide it. When the food banks can carry the load then we could eliminate SNAP but not before.

The belief that if we cut government benefits and the private charities will fill in the gap is false because even if it could be done it would take decades for private charities to be able to fill that role. In the meantime tens of millions of Americans would suffer and that isn't acceptable.

 

Welfare fraud is a non issue. From the article you used to prove your 'point'

 

agreed, we already pay religious charities for their good works with faith based initiatives, they obviously can't do it on their own, though I am not sure we are getting as much good works as we the tax payers are paying for

the government should have a site with a list of how much $$$ of good works were bought from which charities so people know where to go to get access to these tax payer funded good works


.

 

OK, for a little background, Miss Bump is the Democratic State auditor. 1% is the fraud that she was responsible for catching. So you believe that they caught 100% of all fraud last year. Seriously, if everyone that cheated was caught, nobody would be doing it. She says that it is up 25% from the year before. My guess is that that quote is probably accurate.

 

"Can" isn't the point. SHOULD or SHOULDN'T is the point.