Facebook meme: 'If you can afford beer...you don't need food stamps or welfare'

[jukin]

I don't have data, but have seen many people using the EBT card while yacking away on their I Phone.

Or getting into a relatively new car or truck that has 20 inch rims. Also add in the latest $200 sneakers.

For being the so called smartest people on the earth they can't do simple arithmetic.

[Skul]

This one caused a mini-s**tstorm.

MotherPetrie (119 posts)
5. Seriously, how can you argue with it?

I'm a firm believer in providing for the poor and I believe no one should go to bed hungry because they can't afford to buy food.

But if my tax dollars are helping to feed your hungry mouth, it better NOT be because you are blowing what money you do have that you could use to buy your own food on unnecessary luxuries like booze, cigarettes, manicures, and tattoos.

I'm as liberal as they come and I do object to that.

Around and around they went. 
Sixty related comments to that one post.

nobodyspecial (1,294 posts)
70. You can't buy cigarettes or booze with your food stamp card
Manicure and tattoo parlors don't accept food stamp cards either so I guess this really isn't an issue.

While true, let me show the DUmmie something....
"Psst, buddy, let me swipe my EBT card for that $40 worth of food you have, if you give me $30 cash."
That's how it's done, DUmmie. 
 
 

[DumbAss Tanker]

This one caused a mini-s**tstorm.
Around and around they went. 
Sixty related comments to that one post.

 
While true, let me show the DUmmie something....
"Psst, buddy, let me swipe my EBT card for that $40 worth of food you have, if you give me $30 cash."
That's how it's done, DUmmie. 
 
 

MotherPetrie's point was even more direct, it's not even that they necessarily misuse the EBT cards, it's that having the EBT card alleviates the need for them to spend their own money on their necessities, like everyone else has to do.

[obumazombie]

Money can't make you happy, but lack of money can make you very unhappy.

[MrsSmith]

I've been poor, desperately poor, poor enough to roll pennies to buy antibiotics for my third child every time he got a new ear infection.

At that time, I didn't have a cell phone.  I didn't drink alcohol.  I didn't smoke.  I didn't use illegal drugs.  I didn't get manicures or tattoos.  (I didn't get food stamps or any other welfare, either.)

My kids didn't have the best of the best, but they did have 3 meals a day, clothes, shoes, bikes, toys, and a game deck.  They got birthday and Christmas presents.  They earned allowances and saved for things I couldn't afford to buy them.

I absolutely agree with the OP.  If welfare recipients can afford drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, manicures and tattoos, they don't need to be on welfare.  They need to grow up and pay their own bills.

[vesta111]

LINK

Emmerich analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year." And that excludes benefits from Supplemental Security Income disability checks.

Actually Sparkey is correct.   At least back in the 1980's.      Ghetto, mother or grandma with 2 kids, section 8 housing, food stamps, + live in boyfriend with a job.  [ back then the children's father had to be gone but a boyfriend was OK.]----Boy friends salary was not taken into consideration.  Free health care for the mother and kids, 2 free meals at school and all kinds of after school activity's from the towns.-----opened only to the kids who were  called disadvantaged.

Free tickets to amusement parks for the kids and family,   free movie passes and free food from the local churches and free food from the government.    It was a hay day of close to free for all aboard.  

Things began to change in the 1990's, greed came about for everyone.   Banks would now sell homes at prices that were near the mortgage of section 8 costs.   Ghetto livers jumped at the chance to own their own homes with out realising they now had to pay out of pocket the utilities, heat and air, electricity, water and sewage and do their own repairs, and taxes.  

All those years of living in apartments where every thing was paid for them was a  --Oh Crap moment.       They found as home owners their kids were no longer eligible for all the free stuff they had received in the past.    SO  thousands walked away from the homes of their dreams to head back to the Ghetto section 8 apartments and all the free stuff they had grown up with and were raising their kids to expect.

[Skul]

MotherPetrie's point was even more direct, it's not even that they necessarily misuse the EBT cards, it's that having the EBT card alleviates the need for them to spend their own money on their necessities, like everyone else has to do.

Very true, DAT. MotherP pointed that out, and the DUmp crew blew it off.
To me, a luxury is a want, that I can't afford after I pay for needs.
I can afford some of my wants, not all of them.
The unwashed primitives demand their wants, come before their needs.

[BlueStateSaint]

Very true, DAT. MotherP pointed that out, and the DUmp crew blew it off.
To me, a luxury is a want, that I can't afford after I pay for needs.
I can afford some of my wants, not all of them.
The unwashed primitives demand their wants, come before their needs.

One of the long-time-sober guys in my AA group has told me (and others in the group), "My needs will be met by my Higher Power.  If my wants were met, I'd be drunk again in a heartbeat.  It's a good thing that my wants aren't met.  The same probably will apply to you."

[dandi]

NYC_SKP (43,260 posts)
47. IF YOU CAN AFFORD VACATION HOMES AND THREE PLUS CARS, YOU DON'T NEED TAX BREAKS.

ahem.

Ahem, yes. You're an idiot. False analogy. The money that people keep via lower taxes is THEIR'S TO BEGIN WITH.

What part of that don't you get, moron?

[BattleHymn]

Is your brain always in 'Park,' or do you actually believe in the Big Rock Candy Mountain?

H5.  

For you lurking primitives that never heard of the mythical Big Rocky Candy Mountains (a primitive's wet dream), here you go:

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqowmHgxVJQ[/youtube]

[obumazombie]

One of the long-time-sober guys in my AA group has told me (and others in the group), "My needs will be met by my Higher Power.  If my wants were met, I'd be drunk again in a heartbeat.  It's a good thing that my wants aren't met.  The same probably will apply to you."

The farther we are in our walk, the more exposure we have to our higher power, the more coincidental our needs and wants become.

[Evil_Conservative]

NYC_SKP (43,260 posts)
47. IF YOU CAN AFFORD VACATION HOMES AND THREE PLUS CARS, YOU DON'T NEED TAX BREAKS.

ahem.

Wow.

So if I went out and bought a 15 year old car as a "beater", my family would no longer be allowed tax breaks?  We have two cars and one house.  Or does your "logic" only apply if we had three cars and two or more houses?

[MrsSmith]

Wow.

So if I went out and bought a 15 year old car as a "beater", my family would no longer be allowed tax breaks?  We have two cars and one house.  Or does your "logic" only apply if we had three cars and two or more houses?

I think the poster really meant, "If you have more than I do, you don't deserve to keep the money you earn!!!"

[Big Dog]

I think the poster really meant, "If you have more than I do, you don't deserve to keep the money you earn!!!"

Insightful and right to the point, MrsS.

Hi5.

[67 Rover]

nobodyspecial (1,294 posts)
70. You can't buy cigarettes or booze with your food stamp card
Manicure and tattoo parlors don't accept food stamp cards either so I guess this really isn't an issue.

Even in Massachusetts EBT fraud got so bad that an overwhelmingly democrat congress just passed some small token bill to combat it. 
Over 20,000 cards are replaced every month due to "loss" or "stolen" claims and surprisingly the original card is not shut off.

Keep in mind that you are actually allowed to use an EBT card for Casinos, lottery tickets, tattoo parlors, porn shops, liquor stores, bail, strip joints, nail salons, gas stations, cruise ships and the one that irks me the most is that there is no problem using your Massachusetts cards in Hawaii and Florida.

Just a few examples of fraud:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/heroin-dealer-allegedly-posts-bail-with-his-ebt-card/

http://watchdog.org/43198/ebt-fraud-and-abuse-looking-past-your-state/

http://www.mass.gov/ago/news-and-updates/press-releases/2012/2012-04-19-ebt-investigation.html

http://www.examiner.com/article/swipe-your-ebt-for-porn-and-tattoos-as-massachusetts-vetos-food-stamp-reform


Law recently passed:
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/04/bipartisan_group_of_massachuse.html

[obumazombie]

What's this ? There's fraud in welfare. Say it isn't so.

[Freeper]

Even in Massachusetts EBT fraud got so bad that an overwhelmingly democrat congress just passed some small token bill to combat it. 
Over 20,000 cards are replaced every month due to "loss" or "stolen" claims and surprisingly the original card is not shut off.

Keep in mind that you are actually allowed to use an EBT card for Casinos, lottery tickets, tattoo parlors, porn shops, liquor stores, bail, strip joints, nail salons, gas stations, cruise ships and the one that irks me the most is that there is no problem using your Massachusetts cards in Hawaii and Florida.

Just a few examples of fraud:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/heroin-dealer-allegedly-posts-bail-with-his-ebt-card/

http://watchdog.org/43198/ebt-fraud-and-abuse-looking-past-your-state/

http://www.mass.gov/ago/news-and-updates/press-releases/2012/2012-04-19-ebt-investigation.html

http://www.examiner.com/article/swipe-your-ebt-for-porn-and-tattoos-as-massachusetts-vetos-food-stamp-reform


Law recently passed:
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/04/bipartisan_group_of_massachuse.html

I seem to recall that just recently California made it so they couldn't use EBT cards on cruise ships and in casinos.

[67 Rover]

I seem to recall that just recently California made it so they couldn't use EBT cards on cruise ships and in casinos.

Heartless bastards. Poor people need to have some fun too.

[Zeus]

Quite a few families Financial problems isn't a lack of finances it's a lack of priorities and discipline.

[obumazombie]

Quite a few families Financial problems isn't a lack of finances it's a lack of priorities and discipline.

Uh oh. Somebody went there. Now the cat is out of the bag. Let's see if it can be stuffed back in.

[LC EFA]

Quite a few families Financial problems isn't a lack of finances it's a lack of priorities and discipline.

Not exactly a lack of priorities ; more an incorrect assignment thereof.

[BlueStateSaint]

Not exactly a lack of priorities ; more an incorrect assignment thereof.

Exactly.  Escaping reality, via whatever means, is far, far more important than confronting reality, to them.

[Mike B the Cajun]

Uh oh. Somebody went there. Now the cat is out of the bag. Let's see if it can be stuffed back in.

To quote franksolich,

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

(or something like that)   

[Karin]

They're always breezily saying "oh poor people need fun too."  It's on someone else's money, not theirs.  Because they refuse to leave the bubble, they don't realize that a hell of lot of people don't think the way they do.  It is outrageous to have to provide for beer and smokes.  And yeah, NY just tightened up this sort of thing, like MA and CA, but good Lord, how much money have we flushed away? 

DUmmies, when those of us who work drive around at the beginning of the month, on the job, and see scads of scruffy people drinking beer at their picnic tables in their filthy yards, it starts to piss us off.  Clean yourself up, and get a freaking job.  Your buzz is not my responsibility.