Posted on 06/03/2013 5:17:27 AM PDT by Kaslin
Is welfare corrupt? Of course it is, and in a damning report last week, the Massachusetts state auditor, Suzanne Bump, rounded up some of the scams:
Welfare payments issued to recipients long after they were listed as dead. Multiple recipients using one Social Security number – and multiple Social Security numbers being used by one person. Electronic benefit cards from Massachusetts being used in places like Hawaii, Las Vegas, and the Virgin Islands. Tens of thousands of blank EBT cards missing from state welfare offices. Repeated requests for "lost" benefit cards to be replaced.
In a report that covered only a two-year period, Bump's investigators identified at least $18 million in illegal or suspicious welfare payments. "It pains all of us," Bump told reporters, "to think that the program's integrity is not being maintained."
If this sounds familiar, it should. Blistering exposés of welfare fraud and abuse, in Massachusetts and elsewhere, have become almost routine.
Over a 22-month period in New Jersey, that state's comptroller disclosed last week, prison inmates collected almost $24 million in unlawful welfare benefits – including $10.6 million in unemployment checks and $4.2 million in food stamps. TV reporters in Florida documented the use of welfare benefit cards in strip clubs, liquor stores, bowling alleys, and bingo parlors. A 65-year-old cashier in New Hampshire was fired last year for refusing to let a young man use an EBT card to buy cigarettes.
The new Massachusetts audit, meanwhile, followed an earlier report by the state's inspector general, who estimated that the state is squandering $25 million a year on improper welfare payments. And before that was a national investigation by the US Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program. It uncovered fraud in every state it reviewed.
Is welfare corrupt? Is it ever. And yet the infuriating waste of taxpayer funds is only the beginning of the corruption.
More Americans rely on government assistance today than ever before. Food stamps have become almost a middle-class entitlement. At the end of 2012, a record 47.8 million people were on food stamps. Of the 115 million households in the United States, 23 million – one in five – are on the food dole.
It wasn't so long ago that such a degree of dependency would have been inconceivable. In 2001, according to federal data, 17.3 million people were receiving food aid. In little more than a decade, the food stamp rolls have almost tripled.
That didn't happen by accident. Under the last two presidents, increasing food stamp enrollment became an explicit government goal. George W. Bush sharply expanded eligibility, rebranding food stamps as "nutritional assistance" instead of welfare. States were encouraged to sign up more recipients – a ball the Obama administration took and ran with. The Agriculture Department promotes food stamps through radio ads and "public service" announcements; billboard-style ads appear on city buses. To attract even more participants, USDA advises local welfare agencies to "host social events where people mix and mingle" – show them a good time, and try to get them on welfare.
Is this any way to help the poor? FDR didn't think so. In his annual message to Congress in 1935, President Roosevelt warned that "continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber." The father of the New Deal knew that "to dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of a sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America."
It is a mark of how far we have declined that a political figure who dared to say such a thing today would be denounced as heartless, a hater of the poor, even a racist – as Newt Gingrich found out when he tried to make an issue of soaring food stamp rates during the presidential campaign. When Massachusetts lawmakers last year tried to prevent EBT cards from being used to pay for tattoos, guns, or jewelry, Governor Deval Patrick vetoed the measure, saying he would not be a part of "humiliating poor people" or making them "beg for their benefits."
FDR feared the effect of long-term dependence on government. Political leaders today enable it.
Welfare corrupts in so many ways. What it does to taxpayers is bad, and what it does to welfare recipients is worse. But what it is doing to our nation's character and deepest values may be its most damaging impact of all.
What did you say Liz, the Obama admin gives them a taxpayer ID, food stamp card , a voter registration form and coupons for Taco Bell when they make it across the border?
Dont forget the poor mans guide to Obama-care
If he did, he had a funny way of showing it.
Charity in time of need is a welcome and good thing, but when ‘charity’ becomes the norm it is no longer a good thing because the end result of too much Charity is always the destruction of ‘purpose’ and in the end the destruction of ‘purpose’ leads to the destruction of society.
Which in hindsight appears to have been the goal all along of the people who implemented ‘Welfare’ aka ‘Government Charity’. I hope that they are pleased with their efforts. I most certainly am not pleased though.
You bet. Any operation with tens of millions of people will be corrupt to some extent.
Which means the question is completely meaningless unless the answer is quantified. How corrupt is the system? And compared to what?
Is welfare corrupt?
Is Joe Biden simple?
My mother was a social worker. She brought home stories.
Funny how we scream about Obamacare and ignore the great cancer that is welfare, food stamps, disability, afdc.
If they don’t remain poor, or at least dependent upon government for their sustenance they will be lost to the left as a potential voting block. Therefore they must remain poor or dependent.
The very idea that an able bodied person is able to sit on his or her ass and collect a check to do nothing, even if there are jobs available, is corrupt.
Here is an organization that gets it: http://www.urbancure.org/
Cowards! All of us who cannot stand against immediate gratification are cowards. Unfortunately, the consequences seem too long in manifesting to educate against this evil. Where are the US heroes? To me, a hero is someone who maintains their values in the face of hostile bullying. It is like parents allowing their children the authority to make decisions for the family. Where is the backbone to do what is right?
You’ve stated the motivation for the leftist leadership class,
but for the sheeperal class of leftist, it’s all about feeling self-righteous.
They really don’t care if a program works or not,
all they care about is how they feel about themselves for supporting the program.
In fact, if you point out how these programs actually hurt people, they’ll treat you as if you had personally insulted them - which you have, because you’ve attacked their basis for feeling good about themselves.
Who cares; as long as they STILL vote us Libs into office?
Divide and conquer...
The Governor’s adroit handling of the welfare scandal is believed to have upped his stock as a potential successor for embattled Obama Administration Attorney General Eric Holder in the event the President feels compelled to dismiss him for his part in several scandals and his perjured testimony in Congress.
In related welfare news, illegal alien and mother of seven, Marita Nelson recently celebrated her 20th anniversary of receiving government welfare. Nelson currently is in the midst of a personal crusade to convince as many other illegals as she can to sign up for welfare benefits. An ally in this crusade is the Obama Administration, which has hired recruiters to sign up as many welfare recipients as possible.
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Mass Gov Deval's "tolerance" was amply demonstrated when he "compasionately" ordered all Mass state agencies NOT to release evidence of the parasitic Tsarneaev family 's obsessive sucking at the taxpayers' teat to the tune of $100,000.
"After all," Deval sobbed," how were the Tsarneav brothers supposed to build bombs if taxpayers were not lending a helping hand to these persecuted refugees?"
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