The geniuses in our current administration, led by 45 and
Max Mulvaney of the Office of Management and Budget and Georgia’s own chicken
man Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, think it would be a good idea to
provide boxes of food for the indigent instead of the debit card currently in
use with the SNAP (food stamp) program.
This, they say, would save tons of money and eliminate the abuse they perceive as a source of extra cost and waste in the program. An article in March 2017 TIME magazine detailed the incidents of Food Stamp Fraud in an article entitled “The Very Short History of Food Stamp Fraud in America”. Their conclusion was “While critics still like to use old arguments of rampant abuse to lambast a program that feeds millions of Americans, the fraud rate has decreased from “about 4 cents on the dollar in 1993 to about 1 cent” by 2006 and this decline has only continued, with the 3.5% rate of fraud in 2012 reducing to less than 1.5% today.
All agree that the overwhelming majority of Food Stamp users are women and children. I also personally know it’s in use by the disabled of all ages—and the amount is rarely enough to support the nutritional needs of a person with a chronic illness and special dietary needs. What are the odds that a box of food, deemed “nutritious” by well-fed government bureaucrats, will do a better job with this?
In the meantime, tax “reform” will ensure that the wealthiest Americans will continue to become wealthier. Many government programs are either on the chopping block or in danger of drastic reduction, including Public Housing and Community Block Development Grants. Facebook’s 45 supporters love to give examples of SNAP recipients mooching off the government by using their benefits at convenience stores for drinks and chips. One poster said these people eat “lobsters, sushi and crab legs” on his dime. This in a country with a 4 trillion dollar budget and a 666 billion deficit (predicted to rise under the current administration).
Of course, many are outraged by this latest suggestion. They are also of course, “libtards” who vote for Democrats so everyone can keep getting “free shit”. Free shit. What price freedom? This morning one of dogs bit me while I was giving him a treat. Yes, literally biting the hand that feeds him. This is nothing new. Henry was rescued from a pound hours before he would have been “put down”. He was full of worms and fleas, malnourished to the point of being in a stupor. I don’t know what happened to him during the course of his life, but I wager most of it wasn’t good.
So now Henry has no reason to bite me. He is well-fed, indulged, petted and played with. I still love him because I understand that your life experiences determine who you are and some bad things can never change. Does that analogy carry over to humans? Of course, humans have the ability to reason and therefore change their behaviors and life circumstance. But we also know that a lifetime of abuse and neglect leaves its mark on many people, in the form of mental illness, criminal behavior and substance abuse. There are ways to change those things also, but unfortunately that involves social programs—“free shit”—and those resources are increasingly limited.
Honestly some of the patients I work with do piss me off at times. Many are demanding, entitled and unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. As a Social Worker, one of our core beliefs is to foster autonomy in those we serve. Yet my job will always be to do what I can for everyone. I am not God and can’t say some of my patients “deserve” assistance while others don’t. I know most of my patients and worked and suffered throughout their lives and get to a point where they feel hopeless. We tell them how to eat right—but can’t help them buy groceries. They need transportation to get to dialysis, but most don’t drive and many have to beg others just to get here 3 times per week.
So, bear with me and imagine you are one of those. You worked at a minimum wage job and didn’t have health insurance. Because of that, you didn’t visit a doctor once a year for an annual physical exam. You ate whatever you could while you were feeding your family and sometimes ate from the fast-food dollar menu on days you were running behind. Then, either because you developed diabetes or untreated hypertension caught up with you, you were told your kidneys stopped working. The “good” news is that you are now qualified for a disability check and Medicare—the bad news is that you have to be hooked up to a machine 3 times per week for 3 hours at a time for the rest of your life. The bad news is you still don’t have enough money to eat what they tell you you must, get back and forth, afford your medicine co-pays and your rent and light bill.
So, stay with me here—you go to DFCS (“welfare”) and find out yes! You are eligible for Food Stamps! A light at the end of the tunnel. Except there’s been a change—when you go to pick up your SNAP card they hand you a cardboard carton and tell you this is your food allotment for the month. With difficulty, you pick up the box and load it into your car. When you get home you find…..?? Dry milk, canned beans, flour, grits, and a lot more cans of “stuff”. Free shit indeed. Half the things aren’t on your restricted diet and the other half require you don’t know what to make edible. Exhausted from your day of treatment and travel, you go to bed and pull the covers over your head.
I know not everyone is on dialysis. Some people still work a minimum wage job or two. Some people could get those jobs and don’t—and some people can’t find any jobs. Some people have family that helps them—and some do not.
Did I ever get “free shit”? When I was a child, due to chronic illness in the family, we received temporary partial public assistance. Along with that, we had to change our phone from a private line to a cheaper “party line”; since this was before your time, I’ll explain it: other people had the same phone line as you, so when you picked up the receiver to make a call there might be someone else using it. If it was an urgent call you were making you could ask the other party if they could end their call. And they could say no, accuse you of listening in, or call you names. The worst part for me was the shame of needing help. I had to tell everyone my new phone number and try to explain why it had changed (I still remember the numbers: Dickens 2-2223 was changed to Nightingale 9-0956—how weird). The rest of my family’s assistance came from my Aunt Esther, the family matriarch, who would wrap up money in a handkerchief and pin it to my coat, shame times 2.
Since that time I have needed unemployment insurance income twice, which of course, is not exactly free shit. I am now old enough to collect Social Security, but I’d hardly count that as free since I’ve been paying into Social Security for over 50 years. I went to college when the City University of NY had no tuition plus I had a State scholarship. I went to Graduate school on a full grant from the National Institute on Mental Health—again, not free shit. So why do I care about people who don’t have what I had?
Why indeed. I’m pretty sure that every major religion has something in there about being your “brother’s keeper” and that it is better to give then receive. I don’t think it says to only give to those who you think are worthy. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say only to give to people who you think work hard enough, look like you, or kiss your feet for every scrap—or box of food—throw in their direction.
