SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - SC Lieutenant Gov's controversial welfare comments

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:13 pm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_lt_gov_don_t_help_the_poor

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

On the one hand, that's completely uncompassionate and cruel. On the other hand, he's sorta right. The only way to truly end poverty is to complete ignore it.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:14 pm

Agreed, make this man President.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:21 pm

I agree its heartless, yet also true.

I have to ask though, is the part about it going away if we ignore it tongue in cheek or serious? I honestly can't tell. If serious, I wouldn't mind hearing your reasoning--I sort of see what you're getting at, but I'd rather hear you articulate it than me guess at it.

If its just a joke, then I'm a tool. Razz

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:23 pm

What they need to do is put a lockdown on welfare recipients having kids. It should be that once you're put on welfare, any kids you have after that point do not earn you more money.

Also, they should be forbidden from extravagant or wasteful expenses such as flashy clothing or eating fast food. In order to track this stuff, the welfare should be distributed via some sort of debit card.

It may sound harsh, but if you're living on another person's dime, you have no right to spend money on anything non-essential. I also wouldn't be opposed to forcing welfare recipients into some form of community service (perhaps this community service should be imposed after the person gets off welfare, but it would accumulate like debt).

Welfare should be made as unpleasant as possible.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:26 pm

^ Actually, that's a really frigging good idea. I'd mitigate the "no money for more kids" thing by possibly allowing an appeal for exception process, but yeah. Very on the right track. ...Why haven't we done something like that yet?

The debit card's a good idea too; sounds a lot like food stamps though.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:36 pm

SoldierHawk wrote:

^ Actually, that's a really frigging good idea. I'd mitigate the "no money for more kids" thing by possibly allowing an appeal for exception process, but yeah. Very on the right track. ...Why haven't we done something like that yet?

The debit card's a good idea too; sounds a lot like food stamps though.

I wouldn't be opposed to having an appeals process for the "no money no kids" rule, so long as the court actually has the balls to uphold the law when appropriate. Which in my mind, should be most of the time. I mean christ.....condoms are cheap. Or just keep your damn legs closed.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:40 pm

No argument from me, Ice. Nod

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:41 pm

I should point out that the guy later clarified his comments and said that he wasn't advocating letting people starve to death, but that welfare should come with strings attached such as drug testing and mandatory parent-teacher conferences, because the point of welfare is supposed to be to help people who don't have the means to better themselves to advance out of poverty, not to perpetuate their poverty.

I was being half serious. Nietzsche, whom I loathe, often attacked Christian values such as charity. He believed that such values were weak and represented an attempt by the weak to govern the strong. I absolutely believe in helping the less fortunate, but I think that NPOs and churches do a much better job of it than the federal government does. They are better organized, and more cost effective. As Ronald Reagan once lamented: "The best minds are not in government." Now, I'm not saying the government should abandon welfare, but it certainly needs to be better regulated.

Unfortunately while welfare reform needs to happen, it probably never will. It's one of those things that Republicans dream of the way that Democrats dream of healthcare reform. Everyone agrees that something needs to happen, but no can quite agree on the specifics. And every time something starts to get off the ground, alarmist attacks end up killing it.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:45 pm

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

the welfare should be distributed via some sort of debit card.

That already exists, it's called EBT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Benefit_Transfer

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:49 pm

SoldierHawk wrote:

The debit card's a good idea too; sounds a lot like food stamps though.

We have that in MD, it's called an independence card. People can also use it to withdraw money from ATMs or get money back when buying groceries making the whole idea of controlling purchases pointless.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:51 pm

Syd Lexia wrote:

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

the welfare should be distributed via some sort of debit card.

That already exists, it's called EBT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Benefit_Transfer

Ah.....I had heard of the idea before but I didn't realize it had already been put into practice. The article doesn't mention what kind of restrictions (if any) are place on it, though. Can you use this card to buy a $200 pair of Air Jordans and get away with it?

Posted: Jan 26 2010 12:53 pm

Here is a brief description of the one used here:

http://www.ebt.acs-inc.com/ebtcard/mdebt/index.jsp

Like I said, its pointless. You can use it to buy illegal drugs if you want to by the way the system is currently set up (and people do).

I would also like to point out that my brother works as a front end manager at a grocery store and people will often get cash back on their purchases and spend it on Lotto tickets.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

“Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.”

-Henry Ford-

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Jan 26 2010 03:17 pm

Seriously, solving the problem of poor people is easy if you stop treating them like people.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 03:40 pm

Why do I get the feeling this gentlemen has never gone a day in his life without food in his tummy? (Refering to Sanford)

Posted: Jan 26 2010 03:44 pm

SpraCoalee wrote:

Why do I get the feeling this gentlemen has never gone a day in his life without food in his tummy? (Refering to Sanford)

Actually, ironically, the government paid for his lunch.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 03:50 pm

Andre Bauer said this, not Mark Sanford. And yeah, he benefitted from free school lunches as a child.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 04:37 pm

EBT's are pretty restrictive. at least in terms of food stamps. they wont work if you try to buy anything that isnt considered food.

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Jan 26 2010 04:43 pm

username wrote:

EBT's are pretty restrictive. at least in terms of food stamps. they wont work if you try to buy anything that isnt considered food.

And all you need to do to buy non-food with them is ask the clerk to ring it in as food. The stores get paid either way so they really don't care.

Not that I partake in such shenanigans.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 04:47 pm

UsaSatsui wrote:

username wrote:

EBT's are pretty restrictive. at least in terms of food stamps. they wont work if you try to buy anything that isnt considered food.

And all you need to do to buy non-food with them is ask the clerk to ring it in as food. The stores get paid either way so they really don't care.

Not that I partake in such shenanigans.

the one week i worked at circle k didnt allow such stuff. it was all programmed thru the upc, so once it rang up, it automatically classified it as such

Posted: Jan 26 2010 04:54 pm

The card should be only allow the holder to buy general food stuffs, (Eggs, Milk, Bread, Butter, Meat, Fruits, Vegies, etc.) clothing at certain venders (Goodwill, Walmart, Kmart, etc.) and that's it. Maybe a small cash allowance on childrens birthdays and such. But, regardless, it needs to be more tightly controlled and monitored.

My parent's house (and the one I grew up in) is about 1/4 mile from the Housing Projects of Oregon City. These are the Section 8 housing for people on welfare, who have to wait sometimes for years to get into one. It's basically a little 1 or 2 bedroom duplex with a tiny living room, kichenette and a closet sized bathroom.

As a kid, I had friends and classmates who lived there. You know what many of them had inside them? Big Screen TVs, the latest videogame systems, DVD players when they were still new and cost $200+, etc. Not to mention how many newer cars are parked in front of them. Also, I shit you not, one of houses had a Porsche 911 parked in the driveway.

Tell me welfare isn't broken, I fucking dare you.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 06:58 pm

It's beyond broken. I had a discussion on this with a girl persuing her PhD in Human Services (whatever thats called) and she said Drug Testing is immoral. If they knew they couldn't get Welfare because of drugs there is one of two things that could happen...Drug use goes down and people start living beneficial lives OR they don't get it and those who don't do drugs do. It's a win win.

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Jan 26 2010 07:18 pm

username wrote:

UsaSatsui wrote:

username wrote:

EBT's are pretty restrictive. at least in terms of food stamps. they wont work if you try to buy anything that isnt considered food.

And all you need to do to buy non-food with them is ask the clerk to ring it in as food. The stores get paid either way so they really don't care.

Not that I partake in such shenanigans.

the one week i worked at circle k didnt allow such stuff. it was all programmed thru the upc, so once it rang up, it automatically classified it as such

Try working at Bubba's Discount Liquors And Stuff. I'm sure chain stores wouldn't risk that shit, but small businesses do.

Knyte wrote:

Tell me welfare isn't broken, I fucking dare you.

When I've still got food stamps from 3 months ago , even though I stopped getting them back then, there's a definite issue.

The problem is that if you go after the abusers, you also fuck over the people who really need the help (either by tougher rules that make it harder to get benefits, or by spending money that could be used on other things on going after them).

I think part of the issue is that it's a bitch and a half to get any sort of benefits, but once you have them, it's very easy to keep collecting them even if you don't qualify for them. I had to call twice to try and get them to stop my food stamps when I got a job.

Posted: Jan 26 2010 07:32 pm

Let's just kill everyone and let your God sort them out! FUCK IT! FUCK IT! FUCK IT! FUCK IT!

Posted: Jan 26 2010 07:35 pm

anything dealing w/DES is a pain in the ass to either cancel or set up.