Posted on 07/18/2015 12:55:11 PM PDT by HomerBohn
Right now American conservatives are arguing over the idea that the US should provide at least a minimum safety net for citizens who fall on economic hard times and need assistance to get back on their feet. One thing conservatives are not arguing about, however, is the idea that too many freeloaders consider such assistance an entitlement and abuse it for as long as they can.
The use of food stamps is a case in point. More and more families use food stamps as their primary means of receiving not only groceries but also questionable items for people supposedly living at the subsidence level, such as tobacco products and alcohol.
Now the state of New Mexico has decided if people want food stamps, they’ll have to start working.
The state’s Human Services Department has proposed that parents of children more than six years old will have to participate in 80 hours of activities per month, including community service, job searches and training.
This is an expansion of a requirement that had only affected single, healthy individuals, aged 16-60, previously.
The advantages of the expanded requirement are twofold. It will force food-stamp recipients to get training so they can work and take care of themselves and their families. This, in turn, will presumably lead to a reduction in the number of those on food stamps.
“In addition to reducing recipients’ need for assistance, work programs seek to enhance recipients’ sense of self-worth and esteem,” the Human Services Department added in its employment and training plan for 2016. “Working parents provide an appropriate role model for children in the home, thereby contributing to a reduction in multi-generational dependency.”
But opponents to the plan argue that the new requirement will increase the number of individuals and families suffering from poverty and hunger.
“Ultimately, it’s going to be the family that is going to have less Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food-stamp) benefits if the adult is not able to comply,” Louise Pocock, an attorney from the New Mexico Center for Law and Poverty told Albuquerque’s KOAT-TV.
Pocock made these comments despite the state’s allowances for pregnant women and the disabled, who are exempt from the requirements (H/T BizPac Review).
Nevertheless, some welfare leeches and their liberal supporters believe it is grossly unfair to require able-bodied people to work in order to obtain government assistance.
America’s transformation into an entitlement society has accelerated under the Obama regime. Credit the state of New Mexico for deciding to do something about it.
And here will come the ACLU saying they can’t force people to work for welfare ...
Good for NM, In Alabama my neighbor just turned down a promotion, raise and going full time from part time just to keep his $390 a month coming.
Didn't Maine take similar steps with unexpected results?
Oh the Children will suffer!.... Who are not the responsibility of any state but of the parents..single or married.
"If a man will not work, he shall not eat." 2 Thessalonians 3:10
My dads friend once said “ when I was on welfare, I ate steak. Now that I’m working, I’m eating Bologna. “ that was back in the eighties.
He simply doesn’t want to work full-time if he can get by with welfare.
Interesting that all the refugees we’re bringing here eventually move to states that offer the best welfare system. They not only migrate here, legals and otherwise, they migrate across state borders to where the pickings are their to pick....and they have a network of resources/connections who guide them to those states.
Food stamps are a farm subsidy. They’re administered by the Dept. of agriculture.
Turned out one of his duties was to help the underemployed and unemployed get better jobs through networking. In those days, JFK was still president and LBJ's Great Society program hadn't yet gotten traction, so most towns which were around actually had local committees of townspeople set up to do this sort of thing. The JP was automatically on that committee.
One guy was a pretty good mechanic and another town six miles away needed a pretty good mechanic. Dad and the committee hooked them up and the guy was delighted to see a decent increase in income in return for a short commute. That is until shortly after his first paycheck, he discovered all the government bennies he would lose.
Long story short is things were this bad even before LBJ and they've gotten worse since. Back then the slackard class was mostly native born and at a manageable level. Local town committees were actually in place to at least report on the abuse.
Umm...you do realize that JFK was dead before LBJ's "Great Society" began?
Few people remember that JFK was actually growing into a fair to decent president at that time, putting him on par with Harry Truman, another mediocre 20th century president who, compared to people like LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Wilson and FDR looked pretty good in comparison.
Tobacco products and alcohol can not be purchased with food stamps (SNAP). If they are there's some sort of a crime going on.
More specifically, after being inspired by a relatively recent FR thread to research Social Security, there is evidence that FDR’s corrupt, Democratic-controlled Congress had used the Constitution’s general welfare clause to justify establishing Social Security.
Helvering v. Davis
The major constitutional problem with Congress using the general welfare clause to justify anything is the following. When President James Madison, Madison generally regarded as the father of the Constitution, vetoed the federal public works bill of 1817 which the 14th Congress had attempted to justify with the GWC, Madison had noted the following in the constitutionally required veto letter to Congress. The GWC is not a delegation of specific power to Congress, but essentially serves as an introductory clause for the clauses that follow it in Section 8.
"To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. …” — President James Madison, Veto of federal public works bill of 1817.
So the low-information 74th Democratic-controlled Congress that made the bill which established Social Security (SS) made the same mistake with establishing SS that the 14th Congress had made in trying to build roads and canals. The difference is that Madison appropriately killed the federal public works bill whereas Constitution-ignoring FDR wrongly signed the bill that established unconstitutional SS.
And regardless what lawless Obama’s activist justices want everybody to believe about the constitutionally of Obamacare, Obama likewise wrongly signed the unconstitutional Obamacare bill into law.
The ill-conceived 17th Amendment needs to disappear, and corrupt senators, activist justices and lawless presidents who support unconstitutional federal laws along with it.
“Food stamps are a farm subsidy.”
Also a bank subsidy. I forget which bank is paid to process the snap and ebt cards.
They can us their EBT card if they also receive TANF to get cash instead of going to an ATM. So the person in question is being given non SNAP cash that is on the EBT card then buying any product they want with that cash.
I believe the greatest beneficiary of food stamps (EBT) is Wal-Mart
Of course. But that’s not what the poorly-schooled author stated.
The truth is I see "we accept EBT" signs everywhere, including gas station mini-marts. At least you'd expect at Walmart they're getting something with some nutrition with our money.
I have homeless asking if I want to buy food stamps for half price. I tell them it is ILLEGAL to sell EBT. They don't care...
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