On Food Stamps and Disability Benefits

[Akoto]

There's another thread containing a great deal of debate about Gohmert's support of changes to the food stamp program. To my great surprise, there's also a noteworthy measure of backing from some posters who appear to be ignorant as to what life's like when on these programs. Please allow me to educate you from the perspective of someone who receives both disability and food stamps (which today come in the form of an EBT card, which works like a debit).

Most of us don't buy king crab legs. Anyone who believes that is an idiot. For us, money's stretched so tight that you count every cent on that EBT card and hope it can get you at least part of the way through the month. That way, you only have to spend a minimal amount from your other government assistance, the same limited assistance which must fund all of your other needs.

People complain that they see folks with benefits purchasing processed foods, but not healthy foods/fruits/vegetables. Guess what? Healthy food is EXPENSIVE, and unhealthy food is CHEAP. The driving factor here is that unhealthy food will stretch your EBT card out, whereas healthy food will exhaust it well before you'll receive your next benefits. It sucks, but if you want to fix it, demand that the poor receive more assistance than they do. I get $50 a month. It goes fast.

You may not be aware that many grocery store scanners now automatically filter out items which are not covered by the program, so you either can't get them or have to pay separately. Did you see some fellow make a purchase? Some sort of junk you disapprove of, paid for in cash when he'd used an EBT card moments before? Maybe he also receives disability benefits, in which case, that's his money to spend as he sees fit. How he does so is, to be frank, none of your damned business. He wouldn't have those benefits if he didn't deserve them (trust me - fighting to get disability was like pulling teeth) and just because he has them doesn't make him subhuman.

We who receive food stamps and disability benefits are, indeed, still human. We still like to indulge in things which are pleasurable and even unhealthy, and we've done nothing to sacrifice our right to those things. I think I would go mad if I wasn't able to purchase some candy, a book, or a video game every month. Why? It's because the price I pay for those benefits is living with pain and misery the likes of which you can't imagine for the rest of my days. Others have it even worse. That money goes back into the economy and benefits the businesses with which we're dealing, so there's a positive for you. If you disapprove of our making personal, frivolous purchases, I once again say that it's none of your damned business.

Nobody on benefits is there because they're in a good situation. Most of you criticizing these people probably have not one clue what they individually have gone through, in the past and on a daily basis, nor are you in a position to judge them. They are people, not thieves, and the programs from which they benefit are doing exactly what they were intended to do - ensure that they have a measure of decency and dignity.

[PDJane]

1. Thank you.

[cali]

2. +1

[CountAllVotes]

3. It is nobody's damned business

I agree and yes, you are very right.

No one and I mean NO ONE wants to be in this sick boat living a crappy life with an illness or another type of disability.

Pain is no fun.

I sometimes buy very cheap used books (I buy used books for $.75 and have them mailed to me; cheaper than trying to drive to a used bookstore in town) to keep myself busy.
Last week I spent a whole $7.35 on two books that I wanted to read. I finished one of them and am on the second one now.

If people have a problem w/this well, in the words of my late Dad, they can "Kiss my ass".

Dad, you were so right of course.

Thanks for your post. People need to learn that people do not choose to end up on disability and food stamps. I cannot think of a single reason why anyone would want this reality!

& recommend.

[madamesilverspurs]

4. Right you are!

I'm in the same boat. And I've been on the receiving end of some very interesting and judgemental commentary. Most recently, another shopper noted my purchase of a frozen pizza. She approached me in the parking lot, where she proceeded to castigate me for abusing "her" tax dollars by spending my food stamps on that pizza ($3.87). I thanked her for her 'concern', then asked what she would do for the neighbor who helps with housekeeping and carrying in groceries and carrying out trash year-round; it was his birthday, and it was all I could do to thank him. She just rolled her eyes and muttered "whatever".

He loved the pizza, by the way, and insisted on sharing it with me.

[auntsue]

8. Some people can be

such judgmental assholes ! I often have to choose between food and gas. I don't qualify for EBT. But I do remind people that my "benefits" come from money I paid in when I was working.

[John2]

27. I really don't

understand the argument against food stamps? You have to be earning a certain amount of income to even qualify for food stamps. This is just another attack against the poor and the working poor for assistance. I think the whole argument is ridiculous, coming from the wealthiest country in the world.

It is good Public policy, when you consider it on Health terms. Nobody should go hungry in this country. We send Aid to countries with populations suffering from malnutrion. This argument about food and helping the poor, is coming from people calling themselves Christians. I don't think their motives is about money or this country cannot afford the cost. It has more to do with who is receiving assistance. Most of it is coming from the Right of the political spectrum.

That is where you have most of your white supremacists groups and extreme religious ideology. Minorities also have the highest unemployment rates in this country, and the lowest incomes. The more people that you get in decent paying jobs, the less people will qualify for these programs. Until then, these programs are only a safety net. What they are trying to do is cut the safetynet out, instead of putting people to work, with good paying jobs. What both groups on the Right do, is label these people as lazy and immoral. It feeds into their racism.

[AnnieK401]

43. Same here

I am on disability, but don't qualify for food stamps - yet. Although with my savings diminishing I probably will in the future.

[d_r]

9. she's a stupid thing

for what its worth - and it isn't worth dwelling on what the stupid woman said - it doesn't matter *why* you bought it. If she is worried about the prices, I'm pretty sure that the price per calorie ratio of a 3.78 pizza is pretty darn high. I know there have been lots of times that I had a pizza for a "day" - half for lunch and half for supper - and 3.78 to eat for a day is a bargain.

[JimDandy]

32. Buy another pizza for YOU, and enjoy it!

A pizza makes 2.5 meals and that lady was too stupid to do the math.

[Skeeter Barnes]

50. You buy whatever the hell you want and tell anyone who wants to talk trash to

mind their own business. You don't owe anyone an explanation and that includes concern troll DUers that give people a hard time over what they buy with their EBT card.

[raccoon]

54. You deserve a medal for not having cussed her out. Which she richly deserved.nt

[midnight]

89. What a generous way to thank this young man for helping you out. It is people who don't

know how to share that are ruining it for everyone else.

[busterbrown]

105. Wow! You have great patience with ignorance..

I would have probably told her to stick the Pizza...ah, forget it...Such idiots.

[Akoto]

11. Welcome to DU. Allow me to refute your "bull-fucking-shit."

Your argument ignores the body of my post: people who receive food stamps and disability benefits are generally not there because they want to be. By and large, we're there because we need to be. If we buy something you disapprove of, the best thing you can do for yourself is grab your lower lip and pull it over your head. It'll save the rest of us from having to hear your condescending lectures.

Train ourselves? You train yourself. I get $50 on food stamps and $710 in disability benefits every month. $370 of the latter goes directly to a fair share payment for living with my parents. The remainder must then be stretched across any bills I have, and oh, what bills they can be. You're probably thinking frivolous things like cable or whatever, and ignoring things such as a lack of dental or Medicaid denying coverage for procedures/tests/treatments, thus requiring you to pay out of pocket. There's so much that you get no help for without even getting into the food.

If you can walk into "the office" today and get the highest amount of food stamps, then I congratulate you for being well-connected with the corrupt. The rest of us receive benefits determined by our resources and other factors. I only received them because they pretty much come along with being disabled.

The remainder of your lecture radiates such blinding stupidity, coming up with a coherent response is difficult. I don't know where you shop, but the prices for the things you list in my area (east coast Florida) are nowhere near what you're quoting. We don't all have access to the wonderful places that you do, but I congratulate you for having that additional benefit in your life. In my case, I have to stretch it, as do the majority. After that, just because we're still human, we might even buy something we didn't really need.

[maddezmom]

21. How many times are you going to come back today?

[arcane1]

23. I'm starting to think they have a bit of a crush on Akoto

[Akoto]

25. I regret that I didn't get to see that post before it was pulled. Brilliant stuff, I assume? n/t

[maddezmom]

28. Just more bloviating

[SwissTony]

88. There is a difference between poor and broke.

You can earn a decent income and dispose of it on booze, good food, books, music etc, safe in the knowledge that that decent income will be there next payday. If you're poor, you don't have that guarantee. Idiot.

And just to pile manure on manure, you quote from a woo book.

Nice talking to ya. Not.

[auntsue]

6. exactly, my friend !

My disability payment is just a tad above the limit to get EBT. I have a friend who does................ and seriously it is not a wild and crazy lifestyle !!!!! I keep trying to find a job I can do part time - but no one wants to deal with my limitations.

[AnnieK401]

45. Sounds exactly like my situation.

I've pretty much given up on finding a part-time job. I have gone on a few interviews, but it seems pointless. It's also difficult to know how to answer their questions. Humiliating. Thinking of some kind of craft business.

[forestpath]

7. K&R. The smug superiority of those lecturing people on food stamps on what

they should be eating is absolutely Repuke-worthy.

[auntsue]

10. A friend of mine joined a "movement" to live on $4 per meal

in solidarity with people on SNAP or EBT ---- I laughed out loud. There is no way I spend $12 a day for food. (Times 30 is $360) No effing way !

[Lady Freedom Returns]

40. You think?

Take a closer look. How much do you spend on monthly groceries ( and if you eat out add that to, that to is your food cost. You could have used it to buy food at at store but didn't)?

Take and divide by 30, then take that answer and divide by 3.

[plantwomyn]

81. I wonder were you friend got the idea that those on SNAP or EBT get $4 a meal.

It's actually on average $4.50 a DAY or $1.50 a meal. I'll bet that you spend way over $135 a month on food. Try feeding a growing teenager on that.

[KT2000]

12. King Crab Legs

reminds me of the welfare debate many years ago - the welfare Cadillac!

A friend's uncle - super wealthy and very conservative was so resentful of the poor people getting free cheese he made sure he got his free cheese too. He would park his Cadillac in front of the distribution site. He of course had to lie to get his cheese. A hateful human being who lives the darkest of lives.

I don't know what people have posted here that supports changes but that is shocking. As it is, the program is so intrusive and insulting that it is not only difficult but very embarrassing for people to go through the hoops to qualify.
Our country is embracing the selfish, mean and greedy. If people on DU do that too, we are sunk.

[nashville_brook]

14. +1

[MelungeonWoman]

13. Don't let that shit get to you.

I commend you for trying to straighten the uninformed out but quite frankly they're doing what they want to do. You can't stop the haters, they're always going to be out there, you have to let that shit roll off your back like water off a duck. Fuck them, I'll buy what I want. I could afford rice and beans before i got on food stamps, thankyouverymuch.

They're just trying to worry you down. Don't let them.

[TheKentuckian]

15. Folks are sick, bitter, and selfish. So worried that somebody is getting over.

Why they can't just thank God they aren't in such straits and do what they can that those that are have enough?

The need is obvious and the efficiency and return to the broader economy are well known, why stress about outliers completely out of context with reality?

Sick in the soul, is what I think.

[AnnieK401]

46. My thoughts exactly.

[n2doc]

86. They are taught to think that way

Constantly brought up on hate radio and cable 'news'. Always with the meme that some low life is getting something for free that you, the hard working viewer/listener, are paying for (and can't afford yourself because of taxes). Usually with an undercurrent of racism/sexism and immigrant bashing thrown in.

It is the poison in America's soul.

[DonCoquixote]

16. The reason why there is no soldiarity

Rather than fight the bastards who fight paying us a dollar, we slit the throats of our neighbor that makes a dime, because we think they are the reason we get paid a nickel. And the rich laugh as we but them the time needed to cut our pay to a penny.

[silvershadow]

17. They cut mine to $16 a month. Hardly worth the paperwork hassles, which I suppose is the point.

Shameful. On top of it all, I still have to battle MS, which is ravaging my body and my brain, and slowly wrecking my life. Yep, I sure want to waste time doing the acrobatics of the system just to get my $16 in food- not.

[Akoto]

19. I know the feeling, to a degree.

When I first became disabled, I received something like $400 in benefits and $100 in food stamps.

The woman at the SS office encouraged me to start making fair share payments. She said that, if I did so, it would guarantee that I'd receive the cap on monthly disability benefits. She was correct.

Of course, it tips like a scale. The moment my disability benefits went up, my food stamps were cut. I gained a net of nothing, and ironically, I had more money before I started paying fair share. I only continue to do it because it helps my parents.

You're also right on the battle. The pain, the misery, the loss of dignity and purpose. Sure, it's all worth it go through the dehumanization and bureaucratic struggles. The constant fear which comes with knowing that your life is literally in the government's hands.

[silvershadow]

22. Yep. I find more dignity at the food bank. I am grateful for whatever they can provide, and I know

those helping are doing so out of love and compassion. There is a systemic problem with the benefits that just won't seem to end.

[JustAnotherGen]

76. Thank you

I volunteer and bring food and money to two here locally. I was there yesterday. We do our best to treat people down on their luck in life with dignity and respect. Some volunteer somewhere appreciates your recognition of where our hearts are at. It's about a hungry person - regardless of how they got there.

[hopemountain]

104. the paperwork and interview

are humiliating, true.

but don't give them up. when i gave up my $16 food card, i also lost a low income credit for my power bill, landline, a portion of the medical copays for medical marijuana, and a firewood stipend for 1 1/2 cords of wood - totaling an additional $960 "help" during the year.

i thought perhaps a hungry family in my county could better benefit from that $16 - i can really stretch my $80/mo food budget by cooking from scratch. it would have worked better for me to buy $16 worth of food and donate it to the food bank - because that food card actually represented $1000 a year total of assistance value. i ended up moving to a cheaper place, drive less, rationing everything i use even further, etc.

[LeftishBrit]

18. Thanks. This is something which is getting very ugly in the UK too.

Certain sections of the media take great pleasure in bashing people who are on benefits for any reason; and those who are sick or disabled in particular. There are elements in our government too, who are not just entitled uncaring people who can't imagine what it's like not to have a silver spoon in their mouth (that would be most of them), but who have a fanatical HATRED of poor or disabled people (yes, Iain Duncan-Smith, I mean YOU!)

Being on benefits is not fun; does not make you rich; does not necessarily mean that you are not in work (the majority of benefit claimants of working age are in fact in some sort of work, generally of a low-paid, part-time and/or casual nature); and certainly does not make you a scrounger.

A lot of this is, I think, divide-and-rule tactics, setting people up to resent the poorest among us, rather than the bankers and other obscenely rich people, or those in power who are messing up the country. If you can, for example, get struggling immigrants in low-paid jobs to resent 'lazy benefit scroungers', and unemployed people to resent 'those immigrants taking our jobs', perhaps they won't notice who's really screwing them.

[HiPointDem]

24. also cover to cut benefits, which the uk is doing?

[LeftishBrit]

29. Yes. And cut just about everything.

Cutting benefits would be bad enough at a time of growth and full employment; but much worse at a time when the cuts in public spending mean loss of jobs.

E.g. the government talk about putting more disabled people into work, yet they have cut Remploy, the organization that provided sheltered workshops for many people with disabilities, and now most of the ex-employees are unemployed.

Although the country like everywhere else is facing economic problems, this government would probably find reasons for cuts anyway. Sheer neo-Thatcherism.

[Skeeter Barnes]

26. Great post, Akoto. Thanks for speaking up.

[cstanleytech]

30. Thats why I have never understood why the states dont alter the program.

By that I mean since they are now using the EBT cards why cant they set it up in such a way that it allows for more money for fresh and or healthier choices of food and less money for the ones that are unhealthy to eat?

[DLevine]

33. Why treat poor people like children, or second class citizens?

Why not let people buy whatever food they choose? Poor people (and I'm one of them) would appreciate being treated like adults, capable of making food choices that work best for them. Increase the food allowance, & those of us who want to eat healthier (like me) will be able to do so. But it should always be up to the individual to decide what to put in his own stomach. Is it really so much to ask, to be given that little bit of dignity?

[cstanleytech]

37. Oh I agree

(and btw I am one of the poor people myself) but do you really think an increase would gain the support of both the varies state legislatures and the voters themselves without any strings attached?
I dont think it would stand a snowballs chance in hell of happening unless its setup so that the increase can only be spent on healthy choices of food.

[DLevine]

42. I understand what you're saying.

I really don't think there will be an increase in benefits anytime soon, under any circumstances. In any case, I can only speak for myself, but whatever my food stamp allowance, I want the choice of what food to buy to be mine. It's just a dignity thing.

[Zoeisright]

71. So when someone gets to the checkout line, not only

will they be under pressure and stress from pulling out a SNAP card, they will have food taken away because it's not "approved"?? All that will do is add more misery to their already difficult situation. Bad, bad idea. The only reason some people have this false concern about what poor people eat is make themselves feel smug and superior.

[cstanleytech]

73. No, they can still buy most of the stuff they currently can but

a larger allowance could be setup to allow them to buy more fresh produce thus encouraging them to eat healthier assuming of course the states and voters approved it which is probably the only way such an increase would get passed.

[bread_and_roses]

74. Amen to that. Who the hell do these people think they are?

The very notion that those who receive some sort of "benefit" should have their food choices manipulated - even if with a carrot rather than a stick - betrays the underlying assumption that they are somehow lesser, inadequate, undeserving or incapable of the ordinary choice of what to eat.

Guess what, Health Police? They are just POOR. And when you're poor you make the best choices you can to survive. I am quite sure that if people receiving the paltry starvation "benefits" we dispense had more money, they'd buy better quality food. I am intimately aquainted and shop with a mother of two who relies on SNAP. SHE CAN'T AFFORD FRESH FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLES. Got it?

I've been here for years and we regularly have this discussion - it sickens me every time.

[cstanleytech]

75. Perhaps you should read my replies in the thread before stupidly lashing out?

Of course its your choice not to do that if you dont wish to.

[bread_and_roses]

94. At you? Not intended.

Looking at the sequence I see how it reads that way and apologize. When I read your comment it I understood you to be saying that only under such a requirement was there any hope of getting an increase in benefits. I don't happen to agree with you on the merits of the idea as a tactic, but an increase surely would be a good thing and I did not take you to be poor-bashing but rather miserliness/judgementalism bashing.

My response was directed to the general comment in the post I responded to - it's not in front of me now so can't remember the exact wording - but something about the smugness of those complaining about what poor people buy with benefits.

Again, I apologize if reads as if directed at you. My fury over the classism, bigotry, ignorance, smugness, and profound authoritarianism of those who would control the very food "the poor" would put in their own mouths makes me literally see red, and not careful enough about clarity.

[cstanleytech]

101. Apology accepted :)

Now if only the republicans would change from making war on most americans to working for most americans things would be a heck of alot better for this country and maybe things like the poverty level level could be addressed.

[rrneck]

31. Thank you and well said. nt

[marew]

34. I agree wholeheartedly.

Do not let the jerks get you down!
Those of us who have never had to live as you do should be grateful for our good fortune instead of attacking and degrading those who must struggle. I will never comprehend the callousness of some human hearts, never!

[Nac Mac Feegle]

35. When you change a pereson into a label,

You can rationalize any abuse of them.

They are no longer a human being, that hurts, bleeds, loves, and lives.

They are now just a (insert perjorative), a thing, and therefore subject to any abuse you can think of.

This mindset has been used throughout history. It is past time it was stopped. We need to work for this.

[thenooch]

36. I receive the maximum...

$200 for a single adult with no income and no bank account.

I find it pretty easy to live on the ~$7.00 a day stipend and I buy really healthy food.

I will stock up on skinless chicken breasts when they are on sale...$1.99 a pound. You can do a lot with chicken
breast and I do actually like it. Last week fresh corn was 8 for $2.00, yep I ate corn for a week! I do occasionally
splurge and buy a rib-eye (if they are on SALE $5.99lb) but you know what?

The grocery stores where I live would go OUT OF BUSINESS if not for the food stamps. Seriously, I am willing to bet that
Safeway here does 70% of it's business in the first ten days of the month. Oregon staggers benefits from the 1st to the 10th.

Food stamps are the best financial stimulant for any economy because 100% of the money is spent almost as soon as it it
released. I believe it's about $1.70 economic stimulant for every dollar the govt deals out as SNAP.

I do actually miss the old days when they gave out real food "stamps" (aka monopoly money). Sure, it was a little embarrassing
if the cashier had to call out over the PA, "I need change on register 4 for a $10 food stamp", but it was currency.

The EBT was supposed to cut down on fraud and retailers giving out coins for change, but now people will just sell their card
and PIN if they need drinking money and claim it was stolen or lost and get a new one.

I'm really surprised the Republicans want to cut this corporate welfare as all the money goes straight into the hands of store owners. I understand now that you can buy prepared food (read Hot) in some places (read ghettos) but for the most part all of that cash goes straight to WalMart, Kroger, etc....

[mountain grammy]

44. You're so right. Give a tax break to a rich guy, it's hidden away.

give benefits to the poor and 100% goes to the local economy and corporate retailers.

[duffyduff]

48. You don't need to justify how you spend your allotment.

Fuck, I pay taxes, and am getting FS.

I frankly use the self-checkout to avoid that judgmental crap.

Most single people, by the way, don't get the full $200 allotment.

[Babel_17]

38. Healthy people with good jobs buying alcohol, cigarettes, and prescription drugs

Healthy people with good jobs buying alcohol, cigarettes, and prescription drugs for anxiety and depression.

Nothing unusual there and I actually sympathize with my fellow citizens trying to carve some peace and happiness out of life.

But the poor and sick and unlucky, oh my, thankfully it's ok to vent on them.

A congressman gets drunk, has a mid-life crisis, tries to screw his way to happiness, that's all forgivable. Because it's not like he committed the sin of being unemployed.

If a person down on their luck succumbs to marketing pressure, and gives into the short term solution to feeling down, and buys processed food loaded with cheap sugars, salts, and fats, why, that's just incomprehensible.

Movie stars that have their weight bounce up and down, hey, we feel their pain and we root for them.

[thenooch]

39. I receive the maximum...

$200 for a single adult with no income and no bank account.

I find it pretty easy to live on the ~$7.00 a day stipend and I buy really healthy food.

I will stock up on skinless chicken breasts when they are on sale...$1.99 a pound. You can do a lot with chicken
breast and I do actually like it. Last week fresh corn was 8 for $2.00, yep I ate corn for a week! I do occasionally
splurge and buy a rib-eye (if they are on SALE $5.99lb) but you know what?

The grocery stores where I live would go OUT OF BUSINESS if not for the food stamps. Seriously, I am willing to bet that
Safeway here does 70% of it's business in the first ten days of the month. Oregon staggers benefits from the 1st to the 10th.

Food stamps are the best financial stimulant for any economy because 100% of the money is spent almost as soon as it it
released. I believe it's about $1.70 economic stimulant for every dollar the govt deals out as SNAP.

I do actually miss the old days when they gave out real food "stamps" (aka monopoly money). Sure, it was a little embarrassing
if the cashier had to call out over the PA, "I need change on register 4 for a $10 food stamp", but it was currency.

The EBT was supposed to cut down on fraud and retailers giving out coins for change, but now people will just sell their card
and PIN if they need drinking money and claim it was stolen or lost and get a new one.

I'm really surprised the Republicans want to cut this corporate welfare as all the money goes straight into the hands of store owners. I understand now that you can buy prepared food (read Hot) in some places (read ghettos) but for the most part all of that cash goes straight to WalMart, Kroger, etc....

[Enthusiast]

62. I believe you are correct.

"I believe it's about $1.70 economic stimulant for every dollar the govt deals out as SNAP."

There is nothing more stimulative than food stamps.

[bearssoapbox]

41. Well said Akoto. Well said.

My wife and I are living on my disability benefits and food stamps. She can't work because of a medical condition, we are currently trying to get her some sort of benefits so she can get some form of medical help, and she has to take care of me. I just got out of a nursing home for physical rehab and am semi-bed ridden. We are constantly worried that something is going to happen to the car or the house that costs more than 10 or 20 dollars because we would have to cut something else to pay for it or borrow the money from my brother. He says it is will never be a problem, they're doing well, but I don't know if I could do it. He and his wife already do so much to help my wife in other ways since I've been down. (car and house maintenance etc.) We've always helped each other if needed or able but I try to stay away from money.

It can get very discouraging toward the middle and end of the month. People who are not in the situation, will never know the pain and depression involved with being in our situation.

It's not like this is how my wife and I, or anyone else on these benefits, wanted to spend the rest of our life. Scrimping and just barely scraping by while living with the everyday physical, and mental pain.

It's truly like some would not mind if we died or just went away.

Some people, like are my conservative, right wing, Rush,Beck,Hannity loving teabagger relatives that have and are currently getting some of the same benefits that I'm getting, are against Obamacare, SS and other programs like that. But as long as they get theirs, they don't care about anyone else.

So thanks for the post and hang in there.

[duffyduff]

47. Unless people have been through the experience of being poor, they need to shut up.

I am serious. I have read so many ignorant points of view about how supposedly the poor are "gaming" the system when it is damned hard to get any kind of public assistance and you have to account for it.

People need to direct their outrage over the billionaires and Wall Street crooks who have ruined this country and have been controlling the politicians.

[nomorenomore08]

49. Just for these heartless assholes, can we waive the DU rules against advocating violence?

Please? Pretty please?

[hollysmom]

51. every once in a while you deserve a treat

I have a friend who struggles to feed her family and every once in a while you want them to get something special - a birth day cake or a special treat. Just because people are not rich does not mean they do not need a spirit lifter.

It reminds me of people who look down on those without college education, well some of them are a lot smarter than those who had the money and opportunity to go to college and are capable of amazing things. No one should be judged by others that don't know them. Some people have to walk in other's shoes before they can understand - no imagination.

[chervilant]

52. I have just drawn my last month of food stamps,

because I got a job!! (Excuse me while I do a little happy feet dance!)

I am well aware that getting a full-time job in this economy has been sheer luck. And, I only had to have food stamps for six months. However, even my struggling, low income friends begrudged me my assistance because I'm a Vegan, and I used my benefits to buy healthy food (yes, it can be done if you eat lots of beans and rice, visit the food banks, and buy produce that's just this side of going bad).

I agree with posters upthread: if the uber wealthy sociopaths can keep us divided and divisive, we will continue to be oblivious to their carefully planned rape of our world.

[treestar]

53. Of course

Republicans really suck and they are cruel people. Begrudging someone disabled a candy bar - just shows their true colors.

[Newest Reality]

55. For a single adult

you get $200 a month in my state. That's about $6.60 a day and it is not all that easy to eat well with that amount without careful planning and purchases -- you can run out very easy before the end of the month if you are not careful.

If you eat three meals a day, prepared at home, that's about $2.20 a meal and remember, food prices are going up all the time without any adjustments being made for cost of living with EBT, so far. They want to cut them?

If you splurge on some luxury items like crab meant or steak, well you are going to pay for it later in the month by FASTING or trying to find a local food pantry that can help you make it.

[undergroundpanther]

56. here,hear!

I am sick of the poor bashing.I too am on disability.

[kimbutgar]

57. Tonight I warmed up a can of healthy choice low sodium for my autistic son

We also stopped at Mexican takeout and brought him his favorite food cheese quesadilla. He decided to add salt and added too much and I ended up pouring the soup down the sink because he over salted. I was so mad at him. Everyday I see homeless people who would love to eat even that can of soup. I told him that tonight many people would love to eat that can of soup and how disappointed I was he did that. Now I know my son is special needs and his father and I have shown him that you should help others. Today we took a train to San Jose and a homeless guy asked us for money to buy a sandwich, my husband and I both gave him money. My son is lucky he can eat his favorite foods, sleeps in a warm bed every night but my heart goes out to those who go to bed hungry and by this time of the month money is scarce. I just don't get it that at least a third of our population could give a shit about thir fellow human being go hungry and think "it's all his fault and they are takers hurting us makers"

Makes me want to cry at their inhumanity. The Gomerts, fox, rush will pay one day for their evil.

[WillyT]

58. K & R !!!

[MrScorpio]

59. Thanks for bringing the truth! nt

[Enthusiast]

60. K&R!

Anyone that repeats those right wing talking points is Reagan/Ayn Rand spokesperson.

[SammyWinstonJack]

61. rec!

[Rozlee]

63. Some people will go out of their way to feed their stereotypes and prejudices.

I used to get $30 dollars in food stamps when I was a single mom. It wasn't much, but by the end of the month, it meant everything. But, I lived in the wealthy Alamo Heights area of San Antonio, not the ritzy part, the low rent district at the edges of it, where the big elegant houses ended and the ghetto portion of the drug and prostitute-infested Mahncke Park area began. The closest place to get groceries was the nice Alamo Heights HEB, where women wore their pearls to shop. I would take the bus to the S. New Braunsfels Avenue HEB, an hour and a half round trip, to avoid going to the Alamo Heights location. The S. New Braunsfels Ave. store was more economically depressed and no one looked twice at someone using food stamps (the old-fashioned ones). In Reagan's America, a minority mother using food stamps at the sacred Alamo Heights HEB would probably have been chased from it with pitchforks and torches.

[pacalo]

64. My husband & I were next in line when a young woman with a baby were told

by the cashier that she couldn't have a pineapple! When I realized the circumstances, I offered to buy it for her but she said no, it's okay -- probably due to shame. If she'd only known that I'm among those who firmly believe that they should be able to buy whatever they want. To think otherwise is to be despicably cruel, heartless, & dictatory.

People should mind their own damn business. Just remember when someone raises their eyebrows to you, that person is most surely not without vices of his own.

[starzdust22]

65. I'm With You

I'm also a disabled person receiving SS disability and now on Medicare. I'm in pain 24/7, can barely walk with peripheral neuropathy in both feet. I just was diagnosed with diabetes. Might I add severe depression (so much so that I attempted suicide 2 years ago. I've been in and out of the hospital and had too many ECT's to remember. My memory isn't what it used to be and I forget things. There are other conditions...but enough about me.

My SS disability benefits would not be enough to live on if it weren't for my small pension. I had to retire.

I live in my small travel trailer in an RV park. I can't afford to rent either a house or an apartment. These are expensive in my area. Heck, the RV park isn't cheep either but it's cheaper than the house or an apartment. At least I have a roof over my head and both my trailer and truck are paid for.

Forget anything new. I'm out of funds, sometime before the end of the month. I've used the local food bank once. All they had was a lot of starchy and sweet things to eat.

I'm single, no kids or even an ex-spouse or girl friend. I don't receive any other financial help as I am on my own.

So, those out there that think we, the disabled, are not entitled to the benefits we earned, try taking a walk in my shoes for once.

StarzDust22

[Honeycombe8]

66. I have no problem with those programs. nt

[liberal_at_heart]

67. the reason you and others like you will be criticized on this board is because we're told we should

never bring attention to anything Obama or any other democrat does wrong, but there are those of us here who will never be silenced. We will continue to fight for the poor, the middle class, education, stopping war, ending the control the 1% have over our government and our country, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, privacy, and every other fundamental liberal cause that is being taken away from us.

[SheilaT]

68. Back in the early 60's, before food stamps,

and I was just a kid, we were very poor. My mother packed up us five kids and left our alcoholic, abusive father and moved 2,000 miles (from upstate NY to AZ) to give us a better life. Even at the time I knew she was doing the best possible thing for us, and years later when I was married and with two small children I REALLY understood how hard it must have been.

We went hungry a lot. A year or so later, when I was a sophomore in high school, there was an announcement over the PA about signing up for a baby-sitting job. I went to the office to sign up, but there were at least five or six others ahead of me on the list. Later on that day, much to my surprise, I was told I had the job. Years later I realized that it wasn't because the other kids were turned down, but because the school understood that my family needed the money. They'd already scholarshipped us kids for our textbooks (don't know what it's like now, but back then you had to buy your schoolbooks in AZ) without our asking, because they'd somehow figured out that my mother could not buy our books. Anyway, it was a Saturday babysitting for two little girls and paid the munificent sum of three dollars for the day. Three dollars! Most Saturdays when the mom was driving me home, I asked her to please stop at the grocery store so I could use the money to buy food. She was clearly astonished, could not understand why I wasn't keeping the money for myself. It never occurred to me to do anything else. Otherwise we'd have gone hungry.

Even though at various times since then I've been relatively poor, and I have less now than I did a few years ago, I am not in absolute terms poor. I do need to watch my money. I rarely buy books anymore, but go to the library. However, I'm in little danger of being homeless. I try to eat frugally, but I'm not going to do without.

If you have never been really close to the edge, you have no idea. And even in my poorest days, I was never THAT close to the edge. My mother was a nurse, and so she could always find work. She often pulled a double shift, and there was a period of time when I saw her maybe once every other week. It would be too easy to hold this up as an example of (white privilege) how she worked hard and we persevered, but the truth is times were hard. We absolutely did have white privilege that we didn't fully understand, but I will NEVER invoke that as to why someone else, whose skin might be darker, ought to wind up as successful as I have.

Being truly poor is terrible in ways that those who've never been poor cannot understand. At least twenty years ago one of the NPR shows (I think it was Morning Edition) did a series following a person who weas poor and struggling. I have never forgotten that the reporter said, in a summation of the report, that the woman's problem was simply that she did not have enough money. When her car broke down she didn't have the money to fix it, was the part I remember best.

Having reliable transportation is far more important than the privileged understand. A reliable car, or access to good public transportation -- it doesn't matter which -- but it's the reliability that matters.

These days I live more frugally than I wish I had to, but in the end I have it a lot better than most people. I just wish everyone could understand how fragile financial security can be.

[Kolesar]

77. That was really good

My mother used to recount her fantasies of leaving my father after my oldest brothers were born. She was never happy. She needed to make a point that children dragged her down and took away her freedom.

[Scuba]

69. And then there's this ...

[Cal Carpenter]

78. Excellent graph. Too bad actual results of policy

have nothing to do with what gets through the system.

Wow. I knew it was something like this, but to see that food stamps nearly double in their impact on the economy while corporate tax cuts just bleed it dry.

Something's gotta give....

[mntleo2]

72. Poverty is an INSTITUTION, not a "choice"!!!!!

People who hate the poor refuse to acknowledge that the Poverty Institution is embedded in our society and that they themselves depend on the poor. As I have often done in the past, let me reiterate and count the ways the upper class depend on the poor:

From Websters:

in·sti·tu·tion
a well-established and structured pattern of behavior or of relationships that is accepted as a fundamental part of a culture, as marriage: the institution of the family.

Institutions remain firmly ensconced in societies because they benefit the upper classes in spite of the horrible damage this institution promotes. The elite WANT more and more people to be poor so they can use them to enhance bank accounts with exploiting people for low wages, mega-non-profit "tax breaks" that are in essence a private Cayman Islands for their $Millions, employing the upper classes as "gatekeepers" in government, the academics who crunch numbers and "study" the poor, and foundations also designed to be a Cayman Islands for tax shelters as well as employing the elite to "fund" poverty in mega-non-profits (who in essence spend most of their "donations" on themselves). Other embedded institutions that exist now and in the past are the Institution of Slavery and the Institution of Racism, etc.

The Institution of Poverty is kept in place by basing its "rationale" on the exploitation of racism, sexism (including LGBTQ),classism, ageism, and disabilities. It is important to keep this exploitation under cover and pretend they are not the reason for this exploitation, so laws that are rarely enforced are implemented in order to pretend these conditions of poverty no longer exist.

See, while people were wildly applauding Welfare Reform they were so sure that this law did not apply to them. So while trying to hide their prejudices ~ and using racism to the max to pass this sharia law under the assumption that being poor meant "being brown". They assumed wrongly that the Institution of Poverty was *not* the reason for poverty, that being poor was a "choice because the poor "chose" to "be lazy". The middle class was duped into believing that this law would just be for poor people, not THEIR "hard working" little butts. Well guess what? In America, it is illegal to pass laws for just one segment of the population, when laws are made, they apply to EVERYBODY. I might add here, that there were many people on DU who I have sparred with over the decades about this who maintained the same attitudes. But well, sad to say now that they are in the same boat, they now understand better what activists like me had been trying to tell them for years.

The truth is the whole society is based on poverty because the upper classes depend on the poor for their own comforts. The poor are the ones who serve the upper classes with low wages that have always been depressed. Now that the the falling middle class are vying for these same jobs, well suddenly they are all surprised that the Welfare Reform they wildly applauded in the 1990s has become their fate. Mega-non-profits use the poor in order for the rich to use them as their own private tax shelters, where "donating" merely means they give their riches and then get it back in tax breaks. They in essence "privatized" charity in order to use the poor, the disabled, women, seniors, and people of color as their money-makers and slave labor, making sure there is no way out. And BTW, the poor pay the highest tax rates in every single state http://www.itepnet.org/who pays, If in each state, just ONE of those richest paid the same rates as the poorest among them, they would take their own states out of deficit and STILL keep most of their $Billions.

You will notice that for those shills like Ryan, Rand Paul, Fox Ewes and their ilk that "charity giving" is almost always mentioned as 2nd on the list whenever they scream about the importance of tax breaks for the rich. They well know that this "donating" merely means more money they keep where they can stash more of their riches and that "charitable giving' is not donating at all. These mega-nons are just corporations that do not pay taxes in order to give punitive, miserly "assistance" to the poor when in fact they pull in about $54,000-67,000 per client while giving on the average of only $2000 in direct services.

These mega-nons also employ bored rich relatives in 6 figure "jobs". You can literally take a Stairway to Heaven in these places. As you ascend, the lower floors are where the broken equipment and furniture lay and the poor work for wages that would be just a dinner at an exclusive restaurant for their "Executive Directors". As you go upwards the offices are nicer for the middle class where the case managers, social workers, accountants ,and the like work as gatekeepers for the rich. The upper floors are where there is leather everywhere, original art, and new equipment. Nobody (including the government pouring $Millions in grants into these charities) asks where this money is going because they know where it is going: into the pockets of the rich who mete out employment for the middle class to do their dirty work as gatekeepers who can keep the hatred of the poor alive (and their own incomes made by living off the backs of the poor) by secretly hating their clients, blaming them for their poverty because they "chose" to be poor, all the while believing smugly that they are "helping the wittle baybees" when in reality it is more about keeping themselves secure.

Side note here: do *not* mistake megas with small non-profits because the little ones is where the REAL work is done, they get *nothing* from anyone, and they often operate on a budget for an entire year on an income that would not pay a manager's salary.

So basically, as many of us warned then when Welfare Reform was passed in 1996, they used the the Institution of Poverty to see whether or not this would work and VIOLA! Now these conditions apply to the rest of us. No it was not all Democrats, but let me tell you the key Dems today who were demonizing the poor then, were no different than the Repugs in this endeavor. I was there in the midst of the fight to stop Welfare DEFormed and I was sickened when I saw how my fellow Democrats applauded in unity with Repug hatred. Now they ALL feel smugly entitled to hate you under the blanket of fake "concern", blame you for your poverty, make low wages impossible to live on, use their "mega-non-profits" to hide their money while making sure the paltry "services" they provide will make you feel like a piece of crap, all the while they and their friends are raking in the dough off your backs. Best of all they can stand back while the poor and falling middle class who are the majority, fight among themselves over the tiny sliver of pie that is left over after the rich take the majority of it, believing all the while that the rest of us do not deserve the few crumbs we finally get.

So ain't they SO justified in hating the poor for whom they themselves depend upon for their own comforts?


My 2 cents

Cat in Seattle
Board member of http://www.mamapower.org

[Cal Carpenter]

90. How right you are

and for anyone who questions what you are saying, you should check out the 'Development' department of a nonprofit hospital or university. Or the President's office.

I spent many years in the nonprofit world - working in a pretty great small, local org. Once in a while I would end up in someone's office just like the ones you describe. These people were working for a nonprofit..but with salaries well into the 6 figures and all the perks that go with being a corporate exec (fancy meals, golf outings, company cars)... This is a different world. This is a world of billion dollar endowments and $500/plate fundraisers. This is how the rich make up for their lack of contribution to society and maybe assuage their consciences about the wage and resource theft they commit in order to live like modern kings.

It's really fucking gross and you are absolutely right that this is part of the *institution* of poverty. It is part of the system that ensures poverty and never deals with the root causes (eta: in fact, this system *is* the root cause). It provides a superficial cover to legitimize the amassing of wealth among few.

[mntleo2]

100. Mega-nons should be abolished IMO

,,. The "non-taxable" corporations are beyond sickening, they are immoral.

One time a friend asked one of the CEOs of the "Christian" organization World Concern as to why her office was so opulent when that money could go to fulfill their supposed "mission". She was outraged at even being asked the questions and said, "Fool! I could not get rich people to donate or the government to consider us "legitimate" for grants if I had to meet them in an office with folding chairs and a dirty table!" BTW, this was a Stanford Oil heiress "Christian" who lets her own kids live in poverty (who have had to turn to food stamps in order to eat), who will give her fortune to World Concern ~ and her 4th husband. I guess she did not listen when Jesus told the temple elites that they should clean up their own acts before telling others how to clean up theirs ...

But I too have seen this "ascension to heaven" in other organizations and how they spend little on their "missions", while exploiting their poor, in low wage jobs while giving most of it to themselves. A now national food network SUED the organization who invented food banks for the name they had created, "Northwest 2nd Harvest" This was because this small non-profit had never "registered" this name and the elites decided they wanted it for themselves. I am not making this up that at the time, this inventor of food banks was the (meagerly paid) Executive Director of this non-profit. Her name was Ruth Sterling and she was laughed off the stage when her idea first began (by the same people who now profit off her idea). Ruth noticed that grocery stores filled many dumpsters with their food who had refused to donate because they were afraid they would be sued. So Ruth won the legislative after doing all that "footwork" that this mega-non, who took the name she had created, now happily uses. Such as the laws she helped to pass in order to protect grocery stores if they donate food that makes people sick if it is spoiled.

This legislation opened up a floodgate of large grocery corporations willing to donate this food ~ and of course get tax breaks for their donations PLUS the tax breaks every corporation can get for any merchandise they have to discard. Northwest 2nd Harvest has "merged" with Food Lifeline, who can afford huge semis in order to go around collecting food ~ and they have further skewed those laws so they themselves can be the biggest organizations to get these food.

Again, I am not making this up to tell you that right next door to a food bank near me is a bakery distribution company. Every day this next-door-neighbor fills those taller-than-a-man racks with bread to be thrown away. The food bank cannot get that bread next door, they have to watch it being thrown away every day. Instead they are forced to pay for trucks and the cost of transportation to use a distribution center over 20 miles away who are the only ones "allowed" to give them this same bread from the same company. This is all due to the tax breaks this company can receive that cause them to throw good bread into the trash and refuse to just wheel that tall rack of bread across the parking lot to the food bank next door ~ costing thousands of dollars charged to the food bank who could actually use that money for more food.

While getting food to those who need it is of utmost importance, the cost of this could be much alleviated if these mega-nons spent their time and money actually fulfilling their mission instead of suing the very people who have benefited them and given them the means to profit even more off the poor by skewing the laws fwith which this small non-profit has done all the footwork to implement. I am frankly sick of seeing the massive profit making of the rich living off the backs of the poor for their own profit.

The kinds of things I speak of here are not kosher for many non-profits, who fear that if these mega-nons were exposed, then what little services are given would go away (another "too big to flail" for many small profits to endure because of the greed of mega-nons and I use the word "flail" on purpose). I hear those concerns loud and clear, but think that if exposed perhaps more of this money could flow to the smaller nons. Also many of these smaller nons fear having to give up their own morals in order to get this funding, so they often just stay quiet.

For instance a small non who desperately needs support could never apply for a grant from an organization or foundation who demands that in order to be funded (by $millions of government grants that are received for themselves), the small non's "mission" cannot include things that the small non is advocating for ~ such as low income families who are advocating for reproductive and abortion rights. If these small nons apply for grants from large religious mega-church organizations who refuse to support that part of the small non's mission, they either have to give up that part of their mission or be refused support for the other very important work they do with the direct services for low income families on the ground.

Low income work does not *only* include reproductive rights, it is also about other issues that poverty encompasses such as advocating for rights in the DSHS offices (who are notoriously punitive), or questioning the insanity of their government and these mega-nons that, if they want to force women to have children, why aren't they giving more support to them?

At this time only response to low income women who choose to keep their babies is to remove these children by force using CPS and their laws for their sword that create complete immunity for anyone involved in illegally taking these children. This "answer" to strong-arming women into having children has been created by the ironically named "Safe Families Act". With this money, often the very same religious institutions and government agencies who supposedly "help the wittle baybees" have created heueueuge agencies and private nons taking massive chunks of the Title IV $Billions they receive to use and profit solely dedicated to foster care and adoption agencies. Meanwhile they are routinely denying any support whatsoever for the women who decides to keep her baby. In other words everybody BUT the parents receive any assistance.

Again I hate to say it, these mega-nons and government entities dedicated to taking these babies, profit hugely from these endeavors while creating horrible conditions for the kids they take. From a study that MI Sate has done with over 90,000 "foster care and adoption alumni", they have found that these taken oper 80% of these kids experience an overwhelming amount of abuse that supposedly were "save" from. Meanwhile it has been shown by many studies that these kids would have been far more successful if left with support in their families even when their parents are substance abuses!! These mega-nons know this but do not care since they are making buccu bucks. I might add here that, while it should not matter as far as support for parenting if the other parent wants to be involved or not, a large proportion of these destroyed low income families are married or are long term committed couples who are poor whose children are taken simply because they are poor. We tend to believe that this illegal activity is only happening in other countries such as the prosecution for illegally taking African and Haitian children from their parents by the mega-non adoption agency run as a tax shelter by the religious wing nut billionaire woman from Idaho who runs the Home Shopping Network, but it is also regularly happening right here in the good ol' U. S. of A in every state. Taking children from low income parents and then giving generous subsidies for anyone involved in putting these kids into foster care and adoption is Big Business for the courts, for government agencies, for their contracted private for-profit companies, and for mega-nons!

So IMO these mega-nons need to be broken up and the government grants given to those doing real work who can prove a majority of their grant money is directly benefiting the people on the ground who need it. Sure you need offices and staff in order to do this work and they should be paid so they can DO this work. But sorry, if a mega-non only spends 20% of the $millions they receive in direct services, this should be considered grounds for refusing any grants until they can use AT LEAST 75% to give those services for which they claim their "missions" are all about. Most small nons not only do 10 X the work of these mega-nons, they are able to do this on funding that would not pay ONE DSHS manager, much less the amount of a mega-non Executive Director's pay. Instead of being judged by the amount of work they have done, mega-nons are run like a corporation where the bigger they get, they more they "deserve" $millions in government grants.

These grants if given to people who actually DO the work instead of giving funds to entities like that mega-non who are sued a small non in order to steal their name, or when dedicating their "work: to forcing women to have babies and then with the other hand are taking these children by force if low income parents decide to keep them, would do far greater good than paying these entitled dolts who show their hatred by giving themselves the perks while hating the poor with punitive and inadequate assistance!

My 2 cents

Cat

[mntleo2]

102. Article about non-profit + "rich people" greed

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/goodwill-legally-pays-disabled-workers-low-22-cents-hour

[backwoodsbob]

79. you nailed it

wish I could rec this more than once

[Turbineguy]

80. There's

another aspect to this that has not as much to do with the recipients as it does the economy in general. Benefits paid as part of the social safety net (such as it is) actually go to fund lot's of middleclass jobs. It's trickle-up.

If the benefits were a bit more generous, most likely those who criticize these programs would benefit too. As it is, the cost to them as individuals is extremely low.

But yes, it's like saying "You're lucky to have cancer because you're insured!"

[HardTimes99]

83. To quote DUer 'nadinbrzezinski' out of context, your post "should be on the

front page of every paper' (and should be prominently displayed on DU).

Bravo!

[Hubert Flottz]

84. Gohmert's crazy with greed.

How many people go and buy fifty bucks worth of prime seafood for one big meal a month and then starve the next thirty days.

I haven't seen any abnormally skinny folks around here.

Gohmert = Two Bit Douchebag.

[keroro gunsou]

107. i object!

gohmert is not a douchebag. douchebags are actually good for something and useful.

[Hubert Flottz]

110. Okay

A blownout Douchebag!

[keroro gunsou]

112. much better!

eol.

[fjlovato]

85. Wonderful

This thread did me a world of good. The meanness of the threads on DU has increased so lately that I considered just forgetting about it but you and the folks who spoke out said what I would have liked to say but did it much better. THANKS!

[iamthebandfanman]

91. sad this even has to be said on DU.

I want my 2003 DU back.

[madrchsod]

95. i`ve been on food stamps for three months

my wife had to go on fmla when i had my heart attack. in fact we qualified for many federal benefits.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

97. I agreed to look over someone's household finances a while back and,...

....discovered they had over $60 a month coming out for some furniture rental place.

Turns out about 20 years ago when they first got married they THOUGHT ABOUT getting rental furniture and went into a place and started the paperwork but changed their mind and left the store. The owner quietly sat on the paperwork for a few years and completed it and started an auto-payment out of their account.

My point is, these people never even NOTICED the $60 coming out of their account for furniture they never received.

People who are poor notice when eggs go up ten cents.

[DreamSmoker]

98. imagine this,

I to am one of those Folks who lives on a very limited income.. I don't receive Food Stamps just yet.. But We do struggle here just to eat....
I was in tears recently when i was at the Store.. I watch an Man study these Packages of Hot Dogs... I pointed out the ones on sale..
He was so grateful.. He said he has to be very careful as he was on a budget and those Hot Dogs in that Package has to last him all Week..

I live they very same way every single day of the year.. Including those Holidays like Thanks Giving and Christmas... So imagine being so thankful in a prayer that you have one Hotdog left to even calibrate the Holiday.. Let alone get through the Week.. Week in and Week out 365 days a year.. With no hope for an end in site...
So many of us living this way now for years now....

[John2]

99. Everything that

I have read on here, are what Liberals are being bashed by the right for. They are being bashed for having a good heart. The Government can do more to reduce hunger and poverty than individuals. Why would some people that have thousands, millions or even billions of dollars in income, attack the poor? It is all and well they give to charity but that comes from the heart.

I grew up in the Age of Liberalism, when you had Hollywood depicting shows that focused on those values of giving. Many of those shows did not attack the poor. I don't know when the character Scrooge was created, but I remember the moral lesson from that show about helping the less fortunate if you have plenty.

I think these attitudes against the Poor, happened doing the Reagan Era, and Wall Street's longtime hatred of the Great Society. They have always wanted to destroy the Programs from the Roosevelt Era. I thought that period was America at its Greatest and what America was all about. It also bought many people to America's shores, because it was a land of opportunity for anybody. Now you have people that are anti immigration and against the poor. There is an irony, when you had Mitt Romney's own mother praising the social Programs of the United States for helping them compared to her own son bashing them in the past Election. Those words from his own mother, placed him in a awkward position. Those were liberal programs. It is their entire effort, to demonize the left.

[KBlagburn]

103. We are a family of 6 and live on $380 food stamps and VA disability

I receive $1800 of VA disability and $380 food stamps. I recently got approved my SS disability after fighting for over a year, and I receive $1300. My next food stamp update I will lose them because of the SS. So no one need be criticizing anyone on govt assistance. Everyone has their own story and own reason. It is not something we want or like to do.

[midnight]

106. Too bad our congress will not share their access to information that helps them live more

comfortable with those in need of some extra financial support...

[southernyankeebelle]

109. The first time I heard the idiot from TX talk about food stamps and crab legs I thought

if there is anyone buy crab legs was a very shelffish person to do that. I think it is expensive. Why would I waste money like that when I can buy a couple of jars of peanut butter and jelly to stretch sandwiches for a week or 2. I can buy lots of cheap food to help my family. What we need is cheaper vegetables. Maybe help bring the prices of chicken,pork or beef down so people can afford to buy protein once and awhile. I buy chicken when it is on sale. I'll buy a big bag of chicken legs cheap and then I take the skin off so I don't eat the fat. I also buy stew meat so I can make soups that can stretch 2 or 3 meals out of it. People I know who are on food stamps all work full time jobs. Their working their butts off for $8.00 an hr. You can't feed a family and buy cloths and housing on that kind of money. All people want is a living wage. Nothing wrong with that. I wish the idiot would try living on that kind stables for at least a month and see how it works for him instead of sending an aide.

[CreekDog]

111. umm

[Dr. Strange]

113. I'm not a shelffish person.

I love crab, but I'm not much of a lobster fan.

[southernyankeebelle]

117. Me neither. I don't like anything you have to work to eat that you need to crack a shell.

I don't think people would spend that kind of money on something like that when maybe they could spend it on chicken or beef that will fill the family belly.

[GTurck]

115. When I was little....

in the late 40's>early 50's if my Dad didn't make enough to buy groceries we would eat sugar sandwiches. White bread buttered and sprinkled with sugar. Those were the days when boxes of cereal were @.25 and we couldn't afford that. I never wanted my children to be that hungry and I don't want any other children to be that hungry either. SNAP seems a very good way to do that but their should be more allowance per person per day.

It should be somewhere in the way of $60 to $70 a week. Closer to what is really spend on a healthy diet.

[ctsnowman]

116. K & R