USA: Food Stamp Binge - Surf Dude Dosser Video

[arista]

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2596239526001/when-the-safety-net-becomes-a-hammock/

video

Jason - USA Dosser
will not work- loves his Free Food Stamps


He could gig playing his Guitar - taking in cash each week


He loves his lobsters


Thats a Crazy way to run a nation Obama

[Roy Mars III]

it sucks that there are people out there like this, but there are many people who do work and still have to get government assistance for perfectly valid reasons. Just because there is a someone taking advantage of the system doesn't mean the program is all bad. One of my best friends is a single mother who works two jobs but still needs foodstamps because the sort of jobs you can get when you have no higher education are not going to let you support a child, at least not anymore

[Indy]

TBH, I saw the Fox News banner and didn't bother letting the video load. The same channel that supports politicians who believe the woman's body will reject sperm in the cases of "legitimate rape" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-provokes-ire-with-legitimate-rape-comment.html?_r=0) or that pregnancy through rape is nothing more than God's will, (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/10/republican-senate-candidate-says-rape-pregnancies-are-gift-god/58282/) and the woman should embrace it.

I live in the area of the US that was hardest hit the most quickly by the recession. MSNBC decided to make a pet project of us (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31369315/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project/), after Obama came here personally during his campaign on multiple occasions to make us the poster city for the recession. After he was elected, he held a now-infamous town meeting here to announce all his stimulus plans, including extended unemployment benefits. Problem is, he was flat out lying to the people in the room with him - the start date that let people qualify for these benefits was AFTER the chain reaction of factories shutting down started here. Nobody in that room was eligible for the benefits he was announcing - other parts of the country were. People who were in the second and third wave of layoffs (distributors shutting down after the factories shut down, etc) were. The people he was exploiting as the "face of the recession" were not. MSNBC abandoned the project after a few years because it wasn't getting them the happy, inspiring stories they wanted. Instead they just found more people who were suicidal, homeless and out of hope.

Also not eligible - all the retail owners and employees who, by definition, don't qualify for unemployment. We had 2 entire shopping malls go under, 50-100 stores of employees each. A few individual stores managed to relocate, but most still ended up going under, because nobody had any money to shop. Restaurants closed by the dozen, nobody could afford to go out. Jobs that used to go to teenagers saving up for university now go to 40 year old factory workers, and when McDonald's announces a hiring day, they literally get thousands of applications at each store for only 5 or 6 20 hr/wk jobs.

We don't have a welfare system like the UK does. The only way you qualify for actual cash benefits or "free" healthcare is if you are under 18, a pregnant woman, or have a terminal or permanently debilitating illness or injury. The way you qualify for food stamps is if you make under $2000/mo (approx £1300/mo). In a house with one parent working at WalMart and the other working a minimum wage forktruck job in a warehouse, they are not making $2000/mo (they're also spending at least half of it on daycare). If you are childless, you don't even qualify for that.

To suggest that food stamps is a program full of idiots like the guy described is ignorance at its finest. In other words, it's FOX.

[DanaC]

Brilliant post Indy.

[Indy]

Brilliant post Indy.

Thanks. Thought Arista might be interested in this one, too:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-14/food-stamp-cut-backed-by-republicans-with-voters-on-rolls.html

There's one thing about that article, it suggests people buy things on food stamps to sell for drug money. I'm sure there are instances of that happening, but I've known a few people who've done that, even though it's illegal. They aren't doing it to buy drugs, but to pay their heating bill. If you file a bunch of forms basically handing all of your financial and personal info over to the gas and electric companies, they'll agree to not turn your service off for 4 months in the winter, but you still have to pay the entire amount due when that 4 months is over or face shut off, even if it's still snowing outside, even if the people in question are 80 years old and working isn't an option.

[Jesus.]

So republicans wanting to gut food stamps from the poorest is OK, but one person enjoys scrounging and the world must end?

Land of the free, and home of the brave.