US becoming a food stamp nation.

Well maybe BMH, but we seem to reward those that don't want to work and punish those that do or have done. In some countries they take care of their elderly we throw em by the side, many have worked hard all their lives only to have nothing at the end when they can no longer work. So programs for them maybe needed.

Pathetic when everyone who needs help, including the elderly, disabled, recently unemployed, and your neighbors is a "looter"...

My offer to help you pack still stands.

CinnamonGirl wrote: I just had to throw my two cents in here. I have a family member who abuses the government system and is REALLY good at it. She does it to an extreme...

But, making judgement on these people without knowing their personal story is not fair. These guys need help to know how to get out.

CG: What a wonderful post!

A little background on experiences I've had in my lifetime: When I was growing up in a family of five (then six for a year and a half, then back to five), my mother was a stay-at-home mom. She babysat for extra money and a lot of the time I can remember she periodically sold things through "at-home" parties (she sold clothing through a company called Beeline and toys through a company I don't remember the name of now). My father, bless his fuzzy heart, was self-employed and did landscaping during the summer and a lot of winters he sold firewood.

My father was not a good provider...if he had money in his pocket he'd spend it on things I thought at the time were cool (a Barometer as a gift for my mom; a beautiful music box for my mom; ice cream or 3 Musketeers candy bars), but now realize the money could have and should have been used more wisely. By the time I was 4 years old, we had lived in 14 different homes/apartments...largely because rent wasn't paid and we were evicted. The place we moved into when I was 4 was a decrepit little home next to the town park that had been vacant for some time and was being used as a shelter for the (I assume) high school kids to party in. My mother's step-grandmother (I think with prodding from some of her other family) took pity on us and purchased the house. We lived there for 10 years and never paid rent or property taxes or insurance. There were many times the electricity or natural gas were turned off due to lack of payment...one time the gas was off during the winter for over 9 months.

I do not remember a time prior to my 9th grade year in high school, which is when my folks got a divorce, that we were not on food stamps. Of course, with 3 and 4 children to feed, my mom had to do something. We had a huge garden growing up and grew several kinds of squash, cucumbers, corn, carrots, pumpkin, potatoes (a couple of years, but they didn't do so well), lettuce (the friggin' grasshoppers would eat the leafy veggies, so a lot of those didn't do well either), and in another part of the yard we had rhubarb, strawberries, mint, and chives...mom tried to grow raspberries and peas, but us kids would pick them and eat them right there, so she decided she wouldn't grow them any more. We also had several chokecherry bushes and a couple current bushes on the property.

Mom canned and pickled and froze a lot of what we grew, and whenever we ate dinner we always had a salad...though a lot of times it was without dressing.

I remember a lot of times in the winter eating pinto beans in tortillas...and that was all we had. It was widely known where we lived that my dad poached deer...we usually had venison in the freezer and that was a lot of times the only meat we ate for a period of time. To this day I refuse to eat pinto beans or venison.

At that point in my mom's life, food stamps were a necessity for survival and for her children's survival. She wasn't lazy...she wasn't playing the system...and she knew how to make those food stamps last...we did not drink soda-pop when I was growing up or chips or cookies (unless they were home-made) or candy. The one "treat" my mom kept in the house was popcorn, and we made it on the stove in a dutch oven-type pan.

My parents rarely bought us brand-new clothes. We went thrift-shopping a lot (still do it to this day...have a hard time paying more than $40 for a pair of jeans I can get slightly used for under $10) and my mom was the sewing Queen...my first little sister and I always had new long dresses for Easter and a lot of our summer clothing was hand-sewn. I remember once when the butt of my corduroy pants blew out, we patched them with what I thought were cute feet patches...I was made fun of for that at school for days.

The vehicles my parents owned when I was growing up were hand-me-downs or purchased for very little money. And they usually broke down after a couple of years...I still don't know how my parents were able to keep a working vehicle all the time, but somehow they did it...we couldn't live without one due to where we lived and my dad's work. There were several years where all six of us fit in a single-cab pick-up truck because that was the only vehicle we had at the time.

Within a year of my mom divorcing my dad and us moving to her hometown, we were off food stamps. She was working full time and we were able (sometimes, just barely) to afford to live. We couldn't grow a garden 'cuz the lot our mobile home trailer was on was too small, but here sisters that lived nearby grew gardens and they helped with veggies. And we were able to take advantage of being near the Grand Junction area and get lots of fresh fruit, that again, my mom canned and dried for use during the winter. We still thrift-shopped for clothing and other "things" and all of the furniture in our home was second-hand...but there were no more pinto bean or venison meals.

I learned a lot from both of my parents about being frugal...making a huge pot of potato soup and freezing it to last for several meals. Eating everything on the plate in front of you but not eating all of the meal that was cooked so left-overs could be served the next day. And eating all of the left-overs. Not letting food spoil. Drinking sun-tea or water instead of soda-pop. Re-using baggies and bread bags and jars to store things in later.

Do I use all of the lessons learned at this point in my life? Sadly, no I do not. However, I have taught both of my children how to make large pots of food and freeze the remainder for eating later. I've taught them how to grocery shop for the best quality and price of product they can get. That even though the logs of hamburger are less expensive than the flats of 92% hamburger, you will also lose half of what you're cooking to grease... My youngest even grew a garden this year in the yard his apartment is in.

Unfortunately...the lessons I learned are not the lessons others in my family learned. The sibling nearest my age has been on food stamps for the majority of his life and has taught his child that it is OK to do the same. Both "barter" the food stamps for things like gas in their vehicles and cigarettes and spend the food stamps on cases of soda and ice cream and candy.

I think food stamps, or any government program designed to keep a person alive and hopeful, is OK, if used properly and judiciously. My youngest son is on food stamps right now, but he also has a somewhat full-time job and is going to college and trying to live on his own...I help when I can but can't help as much as he needs, so at this point believe he is doing what he needs to do to survive and better his life for the future. Now...if when he is finished with college and can afford to not be on food stamps, should he continue because "they are easy"...that's a problem. He also uses them to purchase things other than chips, candy, ice cream, and soda (though he does occasionally splurge).

It is very easy to get into the rut of letting the government or someone else help you...and it is difficult for those that know this way of life to get out of. But making it easier to get and keep government help and not policing the people that are using the aid only leads to fraud and waste. It is up to each individual to police themselves...but those that don't know better don't know how nor do they want to learn.

Do I have a fix for the problems? No. Do I believe the government is being taken advantage of by it's people? You bet. Should everyone on food stamps be labeled as lazy, good-for-nothing scum? No. Are there a few bad apples ruining the whole barrel? Yes. If we (the royal we) keep going as we are, I believe America is in for a world of hurt. Do I have any answers to fixing the problem? Probably, if I were to think hard enough...but at this point I myself am trying to survive...so I don't have the energy to think about those that aren't within my immediate purview.

And CG...I too have known people like your relative...the best thing to do is stay out of their way and, yep, laugh.

story CB.

SS109 wrote:

Local_Historian wrote:

chickaree wrote: Go into a store in the poor section of town. You won't find milk, eggs, oranges and brocolli. You'll find chips, sugary drinks, hot dogs and candy. You expect a single working mom without a car tosomehow get on a bus to the 'burbs and buy a weeks worth of groceries. Oh wait. I forgot. You don't care, you just hate anyone who might actually need assistance from their fellow man. Only the strong should survive in that world.

THIS - what is the "budget" grocery in the same complex as Casa Bonita - is it a Save More, or a Save a Lot or something like that? Been in there - huge cuts of pork, lots of tripe and other assorted meat parts most people here would not eat (myself included, thanks to childhood anemia, I will not eat tongue, kindeys or liver, and tripe is just squicky to me) and LOTS of junk food. No fresh veggie section at all. Lots of beans and rice and pasta.

And people want to blame this on the store, but the customers are partially to blame. If they bought the fresh vegtables and fruit, the store would offer it. Higher margins, but meat, canned food, beans and pasta have a longer shelf life and more people buy it.

And people like to condemn Wal-Mart, but the super Wal-Mart on Colfax and Wadsworth does offer fresh veggies and fruit for their customers.

Wrong. The store will not buy stuff that will easily perish. It's a loss to them. Don't believe me? ASK the store owner.

And yes, the Walmart offers fresh fruits and veggies - it's the walmart I prefer myself. And yes, sometimes their prices are very reasonable, ike for ear corn last year- it was 12 ears for a dollar, so I stocked up and froze some - good corn. HOWEVER. I had to take an hour- literally - going through and peeling back the husks to find ears that were not rotting; the vast majority were. But *I* know to do that - people who weren't taught it don't know to do that, so end up with a bag of food they end up throwing away. THIS is why non big box stores won't carry fresh stuff, and when they do, it's at very high prices. The loss is astronomical.

HEARTLESS wrote: Do they have schools in Detroit? Do they have electricity in Detroit? You have no clue what is there from Evergreen or Tucson.

So anybody can walk in off the street and use school computers? Talk about having no clue. Those places have metal detectors and police on duty in the school, and NO ONE not there on school business will be allowed in. Even in Iowa, we had this. Even in BAILEY now, they have this - think you can just walk into one of trhe schools up there and start doing stuff? Not anymore.

Talk about integrative centrism.

Martin Ent Inc wrote: news.yahoo.com/usa-becomes-fo...160645036.html

46 million US on food stamps...nearly 15% (74% increase since 2007)

cost $68 billion in 2010.

I wonder how many of those 46 million people have a high tech cell phone, or a cell phone at all, or any of the other luxuries people call necessities.

I'm sorry but you don't need to have a damn cell phone if you can't afford to feed your child. Priorities in peoples lives need to change.

I like how you make things up in your mind to get mad about... lol

Hey kids- Our slice of the pie has been shrinking since Reagan was president, and its not by accident. Almost every Walmart Employee qualifies for food stamps- Why are we subsidizing Walmarts labor? Walmart is making billions of dollars everyday but we gotta feed and insure thier workers? Corporate welfare.....

Nobody that matters wrote:

archer wrote:

HEARTLESS wrote: Finally back to the original intention, a hand up, not a hand out.

But we don't give them a hand up..
we supply just enough for them to get by....never enough for them to get out.

We supply enough to cover the basics. We should not lift them up, we should only keep them from falling flat.quote]

Average family of four, according to the welfare sites, can expect up to $500 a mionth in food - up to. What the average family of four actually recieves is actually closer to $250. I'm a real tight on the food budget, but I cannot manage a family of four under $450 a month. So we're giving them enough, eh?

You all keep talking about how easy it is to get off the system, offering your own antecdotes. Let me ask, did you have preschool or school aged children when you did that you would have had to put in preschool or after school care at your own expense? If so, then you know it takes a goodly chunk of yor income for that alone. Did you live in Section 8 housing at the time? If you did, then you know that for every dollar you make, your rent goes up accordingly, to the point where your rent can suddenly be more than your income.

I'm gonna guess no on both counts, because then you would know that sometimes the costs of having a job outweigh the pay.

YOu keep talking about people who don't want to work. If you offered them a job that actually gave a decent rate of pay - a LIVEABLE rate of pay - that they could do, they would take that in a heartbeat. The exceptions are folks like Martin and CG have in their family.

And I really want to know - if you know people that are screwing it up for the rest of everyone, including YOU if you were to suddenly need those services, why o why do you let them get away with it??? You seriously baffle me. I don't care if it's family - I'd be kicking some ass, and if that did not work, I'd report their dumb asses. Holy hells - and some of you that know these folk are also bitching about how they're messing up the system, but still you let them do it. IMO, that makes you as bad as they are. I'm not specifically stating you, Martin and CG, but others who pull the hypocritical crap about how they should just get off their asses - well, darling, that applies to you too - get off your ass, report them, so the system starts being what it's supposed to be.

The hypocricy sickens me, truly.

LH said YOu keep talking about people who don't want to work. If you offered them a job that actually gave a decent rate of pay - a LIVEABLE rate of pay - that they could do, they would take that in a heartbeat. The exceptions are folks like Martin and CG have in their family.

Yes but it isn't just a few. Like I said raised in the south, you see it all the time. And for those that like the free money where do you suppose they would get a decent paying job when they have no skills or education to do such?