Maine Just Put Welfare Leeches In Their Place

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: bobs_uruncle

As a man who was unemployed and facing a tough situation in 2009, i can tell you that requiring a person to attend job training in return for SNAP seems very, very reasonable. And were such a measure available to me in 1999, I would have been extremely thankful for it. As it turns out I got lucky and found a corporation that was willing to give me a playground to learn job skills in. Not everyone gets that kind of gig.

This is the state using the states money to make the state a better place. Not make victims, but make more capable workers. Or, at the very least, give the community something back out of their tax dollars by requiring 24 hours a month of community service for people unwilling/unable to recieve job training.

Im kind of baffled how this is not a good thing.

Regardless, it is still extortion. I agree with job retraining and developing a work ethic that will sustain people. I don't agree with calling things what they are not. One cannot equate extortion with volunteering.

Cheers - Dave

It seems simple you CAN volunteer or not so it is voluntary.

People I know have high speed internet and get food 'stamps' card.

What they lack is a sense of self worth. The volunteering very often leads to real jobs and even careers it gives a person feed back from others and can change lives.

Maine has a 4.7% unemployment rate.

It has been dropping for a couple of years.....

Maine BLS tables

a reply to: xuenchen
Didn't see that in the initial link, did you? You know...the one with all the Black folks and crowing about what a great plan it was? Like I said...not a lot of nuance in that world.

Yeah this is sure missing a few things. There was a time we got WiC--spelling? We got some free vouchers for Milk, Cheese, Cereal, Bread, Rice, Peanut butter etc. We really couldn't afford that otherwise...coincidentally we also didn't have and couldn't afford healthcare Insurance during that time. I was working about 70 hours a week.

Was I a leech? You going to tell my kids they were leeches? That's pretty pathetic.

Then, just based on what was written in the article and on this thread...questions.

How does one get to volunteer work without transportation? Who watches their children if they have no immediate family close by that can do that for free? How do they afford that? How do these people afford the vocational training if they have no money? Is the state either offering free vocational training or partnering with business to give that training? Lot's of questions. It appears only those that need real assistance are going to be hurt from this. Those poor pathetic leeches.

When the right hears moochers they always assume minorities. Hence the pic of black people with the article.

They don't even seem to comprehend that this will effect white people also.

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck
a reply to: xuenchen

Didn't see that in the initial link, did you? You know...the one with all the Black folks and crowing about what a great plan it was? Like I said...not a lot of nuance in that world.

I didn't see anything either !!!

That's why I looked it up.



Maine has a very low food stamp rate compared to the national average. Why is that?

Jobs must be plentiful.

originally posted by: xuenchen

originally posted by: fshrrex
a reply to: xuenchen
With all due respect...This quote was not in the OP Source article. If It was it would have been a better conversation.

That's why some research is always a smart thing to do.
Especially when something sounds lopsided.

That's up to the OP, now isn't it? Not up to me to chase down additional links in an effort to support his contentions...I simply worked from the 'facts' as he provided them. Because they really really didn't surprise me, even as such.

a reply to: trollz

20 hours a week or 80 hours a month and the average money paid to a single person is about $150 a month in food stamps. That comes out at just under $2 an hour and this is supposed to be progress??? Give me a break.

Sounds to me like the GOP want slave labor. It's not even money but food stamps which they also want to dictate what food they can buy beyond the normal restrictions now.

This is all a bad joke.

GOP Mantra should be, No Birth Control, No Abortions!! Because we need to put your babies in Prison, in Battle or watch them starve to death. Real compassion there guys.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck



Well *Excuse* ME !!

This is all my fault now?

O.K.

a reply to: trollz

they do it in my state as well but not for everyone. i dont know the criteria.
my brother in law is a giant turd and he gets food assistance.
he is perfectly able to work he just wont.
he is supposed to do like 20 hours of work as well but he fakes it all the time.

he has his father sign a paper saying he cuts his grass and cleans his yard and #. of course he doesnt do anything of the sort but thats how easy it is to scam it

a reply to: RoScoLaz4

clearly the meaning of the word 'volunteer' escapes you. and the republicans.

And free handouts? Last I checked most benefits were paid by Govts out of the taxpayer funds, taxes that are imposed on salaries and goods and services. So therefore everyone is entitled to a benefit, unless they were a drug dealer from birth and used cash from their dealing activities to pay for consumption of goods.

a reply to: xuenchen


I don't have a problem with 18 -49 yrs old with no dependents (maybe they care for a sick parent/family) doing 24 hours at a non-profit, as long as transportation in rural Maine is addressed (or trade school/program).

When I used SNAP I fit that criteria.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

As a man who was unemployed and facing a tough situation in 2009, i can tell you that requiring a person to attend job training in return for SNAP seems very, very reasonable.

This is interesting to me because if I'm understanding you correctly, you've fallen on hard times and for some period you were unemployed. I'm assuming this wasn't because you were too lazy to work?

Assume that you are a person living in a rural community, you're in your late 40's and your employer of 25 years went under or moved somewhere else leaving you and many of your co-workers unemployed. Those who could afford to do so relocated, those who could get jobs elsewhere in your rural community quickly took what was available, even those low paying jobs that they never thought they'd find themselves taking. Some people had family to fall back on but you were an only child, your father who worked in the same factory you did all of his life died young and your elderly mother just got transferred to a crummy nursing home because you could no longer afford to pay to keep her in the one that didn't have roaches crawling on the walls.

Never mind the fact that you've been paying taxes your entire adult life, doing your part to give back to society. In the eyes of some, you're now a leech, a "lazy parasite to society who sucks the vitality out of American taxes." Not because they know you, if they did they might view you as the exception, but they don't know you personally and so you're just a statistic.

Now you're in limbo, hoping that SOMETHING will come along, that the job situation will improve, that some factory will move into town so you can get back to work and recover your rapidly diminishing self-esteem. Then one day your transmission blows and not only do you not have the money to fix it, you can't even afford to tow it back to your house that's now in foreclosure. State patrol sees it sitting on the side of the road for a week and has it towed. The tow yard charges $45 a day for "storage" which you can't pay so after a number of weeks, they apply for a title for your "abandoned" vehicle.

Now your forced to bum rides 10-15 miles into town every other week from your neighbor so you can have assholes look at you in disgust as you pay for your food with an EBT card. You go home, turn on the TV and futz around with the HD receiver you bought when you first lost your job and you thought turning off the cable was a temporary thing. On the news, you see your state's Republican governor wants to make a big show of how well he can push the conservative agenda and so he's implementing a new set of regulations to weed out the "leeches."

You can't find a job, you can't move and you don't have any transportation except your neighbor who has already grown tired of taking you into town a few times a month despite the $5 you give him for gas. Now you're being told if you don't get your lazy ass to work or find some community service to do, you're losing the lousy $100 a month in food stamps that were keeping you flush in egg noddles.

Now you're one of the 9,000 eliminated from the program and you don't know what the hell you're going to do but look on the bright side, clowns on the Internet can call you names without knowing you and declare making your situation even more bleak a victory!

Point is, it's impossible to know the circumstances of each of these people and how they ended up on the program and why they're no longer on it so maybe people shouldn't rush to applaud this "victory," particularly those doing it because it's conservatively correct.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

Unfortunately for Mr. Galbraith, morality is a social construct based on objectively derived agreements. But that in no way justifies the threat of deadly force if one chooses to be "selfish".

they should make single, able bodied people do more or just cut them off all together
my bro in law is like 28
he lives in a super small room in daddy's house.
stays up all night drinking cheap wine, smoking cheap grass and thats about it.

they should make them do actual documented work so they will get off their asses

a reply to: theantediluvian

or
youre a lazy bastard that is perfectly able to work but wont.
cant be bothered to go apply.
do nothing but bitch all the time about how hard things are but its never your fault.

save the sob stories. there is work out there

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: xuenchen
I see you need to work on those reading skills reread what I wrote.

Or people were forced to drop out due to not having any way to get care for their kids not to mention not having a way to their "volunteer" job on a regular basis.

I said people who have kids OR do not have a way to get to their jobs. I covered two thing in that post sorry it escaped your notice.

You will have to repeat this over and over and over on this thread.
The people who screamed the loudest at the start of the thread will never
1. believe you
2. understand the truth

that people with children are exempt
that pregnant women are exempt
that the disabled are exempt
the only ones who have to give back
to the community for giving to them
are adults 18-49 who have no kids and are healthy

And it turns out there must have been over 9000
of these healthy adults who are able to work
have no children, and are not pregnant
who refuse to give even 24 hours a month
for their monthly "check"

a reply to: amazing

People with children and pregnant women are exempt
from the requirement.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck
a reply to: kaylaluv
a reply to: autopat51

People with children are exempt from the requirement

That nullifies your post, sorry.

originally posted by: Mugly
a reply to: theantediluvian

or
youre a lazy bastard that is perfectly able to work but wont.
cant be bothered to go apply.
do nothing but bitch all the time about how hard things are but its never your fault.

save the sob stories. there is work out there

And you're assuming that what percentage of the 9,000 people cut from the rolls fit this description? 100%? 90%? 50%? 10%?

You simply don't know. Neither do I. The difference is I'm not pretending like I do so please, save your "my lazy brother-in-law" anecdotes and your opinions about people you don't know because they don't mean a damn thing either.