RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up.

RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Community Discussions] >> Dungeon of Political and Religious Discussion

Message

Lucylastic -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:03:39 PM)
:) you just made me smile big time:) thankyou

jlf1961 -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:12:53 PM)
May I point out a few simple facts concerning this problem? Please note: Before the white man came to America, there was no income tax, there was no welfare, men were responsible for hunting and protecting the tribe, women did everything else. NOW WHAT GOD IN HIS RIGHT MIND GAVE THE WHITE MAN THE IDEA HE COULD IMPROVE ON A PERFECTLY GOOD SYSTEM?

Lucylastic -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:21:40 PM)
I just got this from a friend who rides his harley regularly for toys for tots, when he tried to help out his grandkids for Christmas. 3 of my grand kids live is ___ , they have been hit with hard times so i thought calling Toys for Tots was a good idea for the kids. SO I put in the effort to try to make it happen. When i got home from work today i had an email from them and this is what it said: Good, Evening, There is some paperwork i need to finish your application. I can receive it through email---- or fax-------(preferrable email). If you fax it shoot me an email to let me know that you faxed it. 1. Picture ID for the head of household. 2. Social Security cards for everyone residing in the household. If Social Security cards are not available the following ID’s can be used: U.S. driver's license, State-issued non-driver ID card, U.S. passport, Employee ID card, School ID card, Health insurance card (not Medicare), Matrícula Consular ID card, U.S. military ID card. 3. Proof of age for every child 13 years old or under. Only children 13 years and younger can receive Christmas gifts. Birth certificates may be used for proof of age. 4. Proof of all income in the home for the past 30 days (pay stubs, unemployment statement, SSI Disability, Social Security statement, VA or other pensions. 5. Anyone 18 years or older and receiving no income must show proof of zero wage (Zero wage statement from the unemployment office 6. Proof of all household expenses paid in the past 30 days (not bills that you owe, but bills that were paid). 7. If your household qualifies for Food Stamps (SNAP), bring proof of your most current award statement. With proof of Food Stamps award, numbers 4, 5 and 6 (above) are not necessary. its almost as bad as applying for security clearance.

tazzygirl -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:23:36 PM)
Because many of those tribes also respected the opinions of women. No way they could possibly have that going on.

jlf1961 -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:25:47 PM)
I say that all full blood and people that are 1/4 or more native American should band together and throw people of non native blood out of the country.

Aswad -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:26:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic That depends entirely on the methodology, Aswad. Individual investigation? Oh hell yeah. We'd be spending 5 bucks to save a nickel. Systematic auditing of back payments and data mining? Very cost effective. Cost effective on one budget. Not so much when you sum the budgets. At least around these parts. To comment usefully, I will need to know one thing about the QR-7 problem (we have the same thing, except you can apply to have the form waived, which solved a lot of issues): has any representative analysis of the people doing this been done to determine whether they were lining their pockets or just trying to meet a perceived need? See, if people don't get what they think they need, they turn up in other budgets. It may be fraud. It may be crime. Either way, you get stuck with the bill, because there's someone out there that doesn't have their perceived needs met and they're going to do what they can to have those needs met. I mean, let's be realistic, "nobody" will ever just lie down and die, except the people that really, really need our help in the first place. The higher the requirements become to participate in the workforce, a meaningful social life and a meaningful private life, the higher the percentage of the population that just can't cut it playing by the same rules as everyone else. A number of these are going to end up as the proverbial cost of doing business. Or, rather, the cost of success, at a societal level. As with any business, the trick is to optimize the bottom line globally, rather than looking at a single budget at a time (it's a useful thing to split things up into budgets for administrative ease, but when you're trying to improve something, rather than just run it, you need to look at the big picture). I'm no more eager to be taxed for such things than you are, but going by what the standard of living is in the USA, I'm skeptical of the idea that this is necessarily just a widespread practice of people lining their pockets without a perceived need that they would fill in some other way if this option wasn't available (and with the other ways being equally detrimental to the taxpaying citizens). quote: Until the audit, that money wasn't even being tracked, and even though the glitch is widely known and understood, the system has still not been changed to correct it. What's the estimated pricetag, with overhead, to change it? quote: And since anyone who brings this up is just some evil Republican monster who wants the poor to starve, Let's be clear: I'm not saying you want the poor to starve. I'm saying I think your strategy is fiscally unsound. I think we can find plenty of common ground in this debate. For starters, I'm sure we both want cost efficiency in terms of what we get for a tax dollar, and likely both want to spend as few tax dollars as possible. We might differ on what we'd consider the minimum acceptable outcome, and thus the acceptable level of spending, but the same strategy will likely optimize correctly for us both, just drawing the line in different places. quote: God knows when another audit might be conducted, much less the lowest bidder contracted with to rewrite the program system. Based on my experience with public ICT projects, I don't think you want the lowest bidder to do that job. And, yes, I do think datamining can yield a metric fuckton of useful data to optimize things with. I'm just not sure the fraud revealed by the audit is an expense we can cut. (But I know we can shuffle it around.) IWYW, — Aswad.

Aswad -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:28:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Lucylastic :) you just made me smile big time:) thankyou You're cordially welcome, Lucy. Been there, done that. IWYW, — Aswad.

erieangel -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:38:28 PM)
I happen to be one of those people who "claimed mental illness" and had her student loans forgiven. And guess what, I didn't fraudulently claim mental illness. That is more difficult to do than most people realize. Before becoming ill, I was on the Dean's List, maintained a GPA of 3.8 and worked 3 part time jobs all while raising 2 toddlers and dealing with am abusive husband who was slowly losing his eyesight and feeling insecure that I'd leave him once I had my degree and was "smarter" than he was. After more than a month on a psychiatric ward that jettisoned one semester, I never really made it back enough to be a successful student. The semester I went back to school, I failed 3 out of 4 classes and got a D in the last one. I was also unable to maintain my employment at any of my jobs. Such failure to drop out of school, though at first it was only supposed to be for long enough to "get my head together". I ended up being unstable for the majority of 17 years. I went on welfare, applied for social security and discovered that I didn't qualify for disability because taking time off work to have kids, then working part time (even if it was at 3 jobs) for 3 years didn't give me the necessary quarters for disability. I had to then apply for SSI and was denied, ironically enough based upon my education. I never could figure that reasoning out. Two appeals and 2 1/2 years later I finally won through arguing with a judge that the reason for my denial didn't make sense--I'd had to drop my educational and future career goals (I was studying English and was going to be a high school English teacher) due to my mental illness. I was no longer even capable to maintaining a job as a waitress. Though the judge indicated at the hearing that he was going to approve my claim, it took another 4 months for his decision to be processed and for me to begin receiving SSI checks. All that time, nearly 3 years, I lived on welfare of $157.00 2X a months. And I had to pay every penny of that back to the state when I got SSI, even though a portion of that $157.00 was in support of my children and they would continue to receive a small welfare allowance because PA law states that if a parent is on SSI any dependents may be eligible for welfare. Since by this time, I was a single family household, my kids fell into that eligibility. Oddly, PA law does not allow dependents of disability recipients to receive any cash allowance. How many people who are "faking" claims just to have their student loans forgiven would go through the hassle of fighting for social security for years? Most give up if the claimed disability is not debilitating. Which I think is why the SSA automatically denies a majority of claims made. No. A better, easier way to avoid repayment of student loans is to claim financial hardship and apply for repeated deferments. Financial hardship has to be proven and is based only on household size and household income. My daughter says she applied for a deferment and continues to reapply for one whenever the current deferment is about to expire because she is "poor". She isn't exactly poor, but she is of low income, no longer works in the field in which she'd been trained (which would actually have her income much lower) has one daughter and a step daughter for whom her husband is paying (and is current on) child support. Until 3 months ago, her husband was unemployed after the factory where was he employed moved operations to TX. Oh and it used to be that people who got their student loans forgiven due to mental illness or any other disability were able to concentrate on their recovery and eventually return to school, receiving additional student loans if needed. The year my loans were forgiven the law was changed to state that if I ever returned to school and received any kind of state or federal aid, loans or grants, the $27,000 that had been forgiven would be reinstated. Kind of disencentivizes me from trying to pursue my degree, even though a degree will allow me to earn more money in the field in which I am now working.

TheHeretic -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:41:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad Let's be clear: I'm not saying you want the poor to starve. No, Aswad, you most certainly weren't, and I'm sorry if that comment came off as being personally directed. It was in reference to an earlier reply I had offered about the broader status quo of such discussions. I'm typing slow tonight, and will address your much broader ideas in a bit, but I wanted to straighten that out promptly.

Aswad -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:53:13 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic No, Aswad, you most certainly weren't, and I'm sorry if that comment came off as being personally directed. It was in reference to an earlier reply I had offered about the broader status quo of such discussions. I'm typing slow tonight, and will address your much broader ideas in a bit, but I wanted to straighten that out promptly. No worries. You didn't come off that way at all. I just wanted to head off any possibility of a misunderstanding. Thank you for the clarification in any case. IWYW, — Aswad.

JeffBC -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 6:55:06 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen A majority of the 47% are retirees, active duty military in combat and children. Which of those should be denied food and shelter? I'm kind of curious which ones are the scoungers. Is it our parents who worked all their lives and paid into social security with the understanding that it'd be paid back? Or perhaps is it those lazy active duty combat folks? Oh wait! It's gotta be those lazy assed children. We need to get back to child labor to instill a proper work ethic in those kids nowadays!

jlf1961 -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 7:01:01 PM)
quote: In the United States, according to the USDA, 27 percent of all the food produced each year is lost at the retail, consumer, and food service levels. That turns out to be about nearly 1.5 tons of food per year for every man, woman, and child in the United States who faces hunger. To put it another way, in the U.S. we throw away about 263 million pounds of food a day... every single day! And much of what is wasted actually is just surplus food. It is perfectly edible. And that doesn't even count the food left in the fields or discarded before delivery. source It is well know that the US produces more food than it can consume or export. As I understand it, the government is limited to how much surplus food it can buy and store in any given year. I may be wrong, if so then I apologize. In the Native American culture, the entire tribe worked together to feed the village. Widows and orphans were cared for, families where the men could not hunt due to injury or illness were provided for. Not by throwing money at the problem but by providing what was needed. Please do not divert to the idea of the Noble Indian who lived in harmony with the land, native Americans often killed more than they needed at any one time. Eastern tribes practiced slash and burn agriculture, and when the land was played out, they moved the village. However, they were adapt at food preservation and storage, so though they had more than was needed they didnt waste the food. The modern American, whether they are on assistance or not, wastes more food than they consume. Rich or poor alike, obesity is a pandemic in modern American society. I have seen people on food stamps buy junk food rather than what would be a healthy diet. The point I am trying to make is that the system needs to be changed. Instead of food stamp, perhaps people on assistance should go to a government facility where only healthy food, as required for a healthy diet is provided. Lets get all states back on the work requirement to be on assistance. Issue cash vouchers that are set for rent and utility payments, so it cant be used for anything else. If a person has not marketable skills to enter the workforce, then require them to go to trade or tech schools. Finally, instead of spending Billions on redundant programs and agencies, put that money to building and maintaining housing that people can live in until they are in a position to move out and get something better. Instead of throwing money at the problem with no incentive to get off the programs, set up the programs where the end goal is to be off government assistance and improving one's situation. There are people living in conditions in the United States that are little better than what can be found in third world countries. The United States ranks pretty low for an industrialized nation on taking care of the poor, handicapped and elderly. It is time to create social programs that have some sort of goal, instead of creating a subclass of citizens that are conditioned to live at the bottom of society. I think conservatives and liberals could agree on such a program.

erieangel -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 7:32:24 PM)
Doesn't CA require repayment of over payments? If people started seeing their cash or food stamps go down even by $10 a month to repay a previous over payment, maybe they would stop turning in their paperwork late? I've dealt with over payments through both the welfare office and the SSA. Both times, I've had to repay the money, even when it wasn't my fault that the over payment occurred. Believe me, a single mother who gets less than $700 in SSI, cash welfare of $124 2 X a month and food stamps of $167 (my general income when my kids were growing up) notices $10 bucks missing from any of those payments.

PeonForHer -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 7:33:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad See, if people don't get what they think they need, they turn up in other budgets. It may be fraud. It may be crime. Either way, you get stuck with the bill, because there's someone out there that doesn't have their perceived needs met and they're going to do what they can to have those needs met. I mean, let's be realistic, "nobody" will ever just lie down and die, except the people that really, really need our help in the first place. Yes. It really is peculiar, isn't it? One can't help suspecting that, lurking behind the old-time severity of the 'bludgeon those scroungers' crowd is some, equally old-time, assumption that people will just put up with living as harshly as a given government says that they should do. It's as though there's an unspoken belief that such people will hold their caps in their hands, shuffle from one foot to the other and mumble meekly, 'Yes sir, I'm guilty, I deserve the punishment you're giving me. It's fair that I be miserable.' Perhaps it's a paternalistic sort of assumption, or something more authoritarian . . . I don't know. It has a flavour of a Victorian-era priest demanding that one of his flock do a penance and assuming that said member will do that penance rather than saying 'Oh fuck off and shove it, fatso.' Weird.

crazyml -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 7:51:36 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jlf1961 May I point out a few simple facts concerning this problem? Please note: Before the white man came to America, there was no income tax, there was no welfare, men were responsible for hunting and protecting the tribe, women did everything else. NOW WHAT GOD IN HIS RIGHT MIND GAVE THE WHITE MAN THE IDEA HE COULD IMPROVE ON A PERFECTLY GOOD SYSTEM? Ah yes, I see you're pining for the good old days. When average life expectancy was a little over 40. When disease and starvation were the norm. You know, you could always opt out of this ungodly world we've created for ourselves. Live in a hut in the forest, never see a doctor, and make sure and pop some animal shit into your fresh water. Bless your little nostalgic heart!

TheHeretic -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 8:04:33 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad has any representative analysis of the people doing this been done to determine whether they were lining their pockets or just trying to meet a perceived need? There has been no such study that I'm aware of. The funny thing about perceived needs, though, no matter where you may fall on the economic spectrum, is that you always seem to need just a little more (except, perhaps, among the generationally wealthy, "old money," sorts, and their trust-funded offspring - I have extremely limited experience among that class, with none of it being positive). The expenses have a way of keeping up with the income. My father and his wife will comment on how whe they first bought their house, it was $100 they really couldn't afford at the hardware store every couple of weeks, and then it was a couple thousand to do this or that, and now it's $10,000 for a new roof, or remodeling project. 15 years ago, when I was living on nothing, $20 bucks looked like food for a week, but a little more would have been better. 10 years ago, the scheduled 10 hours of overtime a week kept my head above water, but if I could have gotten 5 more it would have been better. Now, I want the wife to find a better job, not just because she's bored, and working below her skill level on a crappy schedule, but because the extra money would sure come in handy for some stuff we "need." to do on our house. And here's another thing. When I was dead broke, what money did pass through my hands would have gone farther if I had quit smoking. When I was working the overtime, I could have saved what I was looking to save faster if I hadn't decided that busting my ass all week entitled me to a six-pack or a bottle of low end bourbon, or a bag for Friday and Saturday nights, and maybe a few games of pool or a movie at the ghetto cheap theater. Right now, we could be skipping the dinners out, and quickie overnight getaways together to buy the materials I need for a complete deck remodel. When I drink, I could be buying the $14 a bottle bourbon, instead of the good stuff that goes for $35. Once we get past the basics of food, shelter, and the basic neccessities, perception of need becomes about perception of quality of life. I don't think that's going to be a useful standard. quote: I think we can find plenty of common ground in this debate. For starters, I'm sure we both want cost efficiency in terms of what we get for a tax dollar, and likely both want to spend as few tax dollars as possible. We might differ on what we'd consider the minimum acceptable outcome, and thus the acceptable level of spending, but the same strategy will likely optimize correctly for us both, just drawing the line in different places. Absolutely. I'm not even so concerned about how much we spend, if we are getting a good quality program, without a load of unanticipated negative social impacts. One change I would love to see would allow additional earned income into the family, without an automatic reduction in the monthly grant. Could there be a better way to disincentivize work for the heads of household, or discourage the teenagers from building early work experience and work ethics? quote: Based on my experience with public ICT projects, I don't think you want the lowest bidder to do that job. And, yes, I do think datamining can yield a metric fuckton of useful data to optimize things with. I'm just not sure the fraud revealed by the audit is an expense we can cut. (But I know we can shuffle it around.) IWYW, — Aswad. Well, the law requires the job go to the lowest bidder on government contracts, so we're stuck with that. They didn't use the audit to make cuts, though. They are slowly collecting the money back, with slightly reduced benefits to those who received overpayments and are still collecting benefits, and by grabbing the tax returns of those who have moved on. For the ones you describe as worth paying to stay out of the way (and I like that desription [:D]), I think a separate category would be appropriate. A heroin addict can receive Social Security Disability Insurance, because it is better for the community as a whole to give them $212 (ish) bucks a month, than to have them mugging old ladies and shooting convenience store clerks. If we can properly discern the wheat from the chaff, then those who remain wholly dependent because they can stay there, instead of those who remain dependent because they cannot do better, should be under a measure of authority that reflects their level of dependence. It would also relieve the truly needy of having to jump through the flaming hoops that have come up to catch and discourage fraud.

TheHeretic -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 8:07:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: erieangel Doesn't CA require repayment of over payments? When they are turned up in an audit, yes.

jlf1961 -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 8:44:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: crazyml quote: ORIGINAL: jlf1961 May I point out a few simple facts concerning this problem? Please note: Before the white man came to America, there was no income tax, there was no welfare, men were responsible for hunting and protecting the tribe, women did everything else. NOW WHAT GOD IN HIS RIGHT MIND GAVE THE WHITE MAN THE IDEA HE COULD IMPROVE ON A PERFECTLY GOOD SYSTEM? Ah yes, I see you're pining for the good old days. When average life expectancy was a little over 40. When disease and starvation were the norm. You know, you could always opt out of this ungodly world we've created for ourselves. Live in a hut in the forest, never see a doctor, and make sure and pop some animal shit into your fresh water. Bless your little nostalgic heart! Evidently you do not have the mental capacity to grasp the point I was trying to make. Let me try to explain it in terms that you may understand. There are various cultures that took care of the old, infirm, orphans and others in need within the group WITHOUT causing undue stress on the resources of the group. In modern society we TRY to take care of our elderly, handicapped, orphans and poor, but have managed to complicate the system to the point where it is easy to manipulate and causes a strain on the resources of the government. For the record, my great grandfather was full blooded Cherokee, lived on the reservation in western North Carolina all his life, and was a traditionalist. It wasn't till he was 90 did he ever go to a doctor or even ate "store bought" food. He raised the beef he ate, even a hog every year to be butchered. Planted a garden every spring, and basically lived the same way his father and grandfather had lived. He was 109 when he died. In a car accident on his way to see the Bureau of Indian Affairs rep on the reservation about why he had to cash the checks the government sent him every month. In point of fact, illnesses have increased with the level of technology we achieve. Cancer has become more common in the last 50 years, anti biotic resistant diseases have begun to crop up, including plague. People who eat organically produced food exclusively are less likely to get sick than a person that eats processed food, or meat that is raised in an industrial setting. You say that the average life span of native americans was forty years. May I point out that Sitting Bull, a Lakota traditionalist was 59 and very healthy when he was murdered. Geronimo, another traditionalist, died in 1909, at age of 80 of complications from pneumonia. In truth, the average Native American prior to the arrival of Europeans lived ten years longer than the average European. Since the arrival of Europeans, diseases that never appeared in Native Americans have become almost epidemic. Diabetes, Cardiovascular disease and tuberculosis are highest in Native American populations when compared to other groups of Americans. The population of the western hemisphere at the time of Columbus' arrival was over 70 million, higher than the population of Europe. There are less than 25 million Native Americans left in the western hemisphere. So, you tell me, did the arrival of the Europeans improve the life and culture of the Native Americans, or did it harm them?

meatcleaver -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 10:35:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: erieangel I happen to be one of those people who "claimed mental illness" and had her student loans forgiven. And guess what, I didn't fraudulently claim mental illness. That is more difficult to do than most people realize. Before becoming ill, I was on the Dean's List, maintained a GPA of 3.8 and worked 3 part time jobs all while raising 2 toddlers and dealing with am abusive husband who was slowly losing his eyesight and feeling insecure that I'd leave him once I had my degree and was "smarter" than he was. It is a common known fact that research after research has verified for anyone not too lazy to reseach that mental illness is prevalent amongst the poor. Not only is mental illness rife amongst the poor but phsysical illness too and life expectancy is far lower. People who caim otherwise are wilfully ignorant because there is endless data on the subject. You shouldn't have to defend yourself against the ignorant.

meatcleaver -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/3/2012 10:41:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jlf1961 May I point out a few simple facts concerning this problem? Please note: Before the white man came to America, there was no income tax, there was no welfare, men were responsible for hunting and protecting the tribe, women did everything else. NOW WHAT GOD IN HIS RIGHT MIND GAVE THE WHITE MAN THE IDEA HE COULD IMPROVE ON A PERFECTLY GOOD SYSTEM? Tribal societies are collectives, a modern similar system would be green-socialist, where everyone would get a share of the wealth through a national wage, which would make the idea of welfare redundant. I think that sort of system would be an anthema to modern capitalists and would mean ripping up the American constition and the idea of private property and wealth.

Page: << < prev 6 7 [8] 9 10 next > >>

Collarchat.com © 2025

Terms of Service

0.046875