'm really getting tired of of these attacks on the poor by the wealthy, who try to turn the middle class against them as a distraction so that the middleclasses won't notice what is being done to them by the rich.
Don't get me wrong, no one likes a cheater, but there is no such thing as a perfect system and some will always take advantage of programs meant to help the truly needy.. Even if the fraud is ten to twenty %, are you going to punish the eighty to ninety % of the honestly needy recipients by shutting the program down? It stinks and is unfair true, but to thoroughly investigate everyone would cost you much more than you would save trying to eliminate fraud, so it is cheaper just to let some of it go and just catch the cheats you can.
Most people on foodstamps are elderly, disabled or families with children. Not to mention that many more do have jobs or even two. They just work for companies that pay their employees so little that we have to subsidize their workforce, so deduct that from your Wal-Mart savings. The average monthly benefit is around $130.00 per person, The idea that a bunch of lazy people are living better than you, eating steak and lobster every night is completely ludicrous. The same people who want to eliminate foodstamps also say the support the military. There is another group of SNAP recipients you hear very little about, and they are the families of deployed soldiers who gave up their good paying jobs to risk their lives and the futures of their families to serve our country for pennies a day.
Most of the people I hear complaining about SNAP are conservative Christians talking about having to pay too much in taxes. To be fair, they probably are, but blame a ridiculously bloated military budget, corporate welfare, and overseas tax shelters, not the poor. I try to remind them of two things, 1. That as Christians everything they have belongs to God anyway, who commanded use to help the poor and take care of the old and the sick. And 2. A decent society does require some sacrifice, and if not for that decent and mostly safe society you wouldn't have a cushy job that allows you to earn a living in the first place. Just sayin'.
© C. Erich Dunne. august twenty-thirteen.
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