LadyJazzer wrote: Just following your lame example....
So lets break this down in numbers, if 90% of people on food stamps were able bodied and were unwilling to work jobs below their dignity level, you still would continue the program and not have amy means testing or checks for fraud?
And which percentage of people on food stamps do you think are defrauding the system either by not declaring income? 1%? 10%? 50%? And at what fraud point would you want checks?
Earlier this year you started a number of threads applauding Obama's people for cutting Medicare fraud by companies, but isn't fraud fraud?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
FredHayek wrote: zhawke,
Do you feed the bears? Do you think providing wild animals with food is immoral and makes them dangerous and changes their natural behavior?
Figured I'd better respond to this even though I agree with LJ that it is pretty much an irrelevant, but cute, analogy.
No, I don't feed bears. Nor do I feed wildlife, period. But I know people who do. They feed bears, mountain lions, deer, rabbits, and fox (to name a few) in order to lure them onto their property. These people are some of the most right wing, conservative people I have ever met. They don't need to feed these species, but they do it so they can have easy pickins' when hunting season rolls around (although bear and mountain lions are off limits, as you probably already know - unless, of course, they present an imminent threat to you or to family members). They don't even bother to apply for landowner tags to make this type of "hunting" legal. My point being I do not condone this particular family doing this, nor do I condone abusers of social benefits programs. U.S. Fish and Wildlife, U.S. National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, state fish and wildlife agencies - they ALL have rules and regulations regarding what individuals can and cannot do to wildlife and/or their ecosystem and to whom fishing/hunting licenses can be given. U.S. Department of Agriculture and various state and local agencies have specific rules and regulations regarding distribution of food stamp benefits and to whom. It is up to these agencies/entities to enforce those rules and regulations to at least minimize abuses of those programs.
And, finally, with regard to your reply to LJ:
So lets break this down in numbers, if 90% of people on food stamps were able bodied and were unwilling to work jobs below their dignity level, you still would continue the program and not have amy means testing or checks for fraud?
And which percentage of people on food stamps do you think are defrauding the system either by not declaring income? 1%? 10%? 50%? And at what fraud point would you want checks?
You can posit any number of scenarios, and ask any number of hypothetical questions, but the fact remains, there has still been NO definitive proof presented from a verifiable source that food stamp fraud is "rampant". The types of "checks" you list in your post are already in place in their own agency rules, regulations, and guidelines. Bottom line is it doesn't matter what any of us "think" as to what percentage of people on food stamps MIGHT be defrauding the system. It's the actual proven, verifiable statistics that matter.
