Rev. ML King stated back in the late '60s that when a nation devoted more money to its military than to programs of social benefit, it was close to spiritual death. I submit that America has long since passed that line.
-- Since Dr. King made that statement over four decades ago, the U.S. has spent trillions for Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and a plethora of other assistance programs.
But even as spending for those programs have gone up every year, the situation has gotten worse.
Why? Accountability, or lack thereof. When you have three generations of people on the program who are healthy but have never held a job....
The U.S. gov't itself says that tens of BILLIONS of dollars are lost in those programs through fraud, waste and abuse. But the U.S. is unwilling to do anything about it.
We have the greatest workplace protections in the world, yet since Mr. Obama took office we have record numbers of employees on disability.
Why? They lowered the standard to get on and are doing little if any verification before approving.
We have record numbers on food stamps.
Why? The U.S.gov't actually RECRUITED people to be on food stamps. Not just U.S. citizens but immigrants, as well.
You can blame military spending all you want. There is indeed room to cut there. But it is far from the only problem.
For example:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/poor_some_ugar_on_me_0Hq1d3iPnvj2RwpsEDS7MN
Welfare recipients take out cash at strip clubs, liquor stores and X-rated shops
They’re on the dole — and watching the pole.
Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors and even strip clubs — where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, a Post investigation found.
A database of 200 million Electronic Benefit Transfer records from January 2011 to July 2012, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request, showed welfare recipients using their EBT cards to make dozens of cash withdrawals at ATMs inside Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx.
One EBT machine is stationed inside Club Eleven, an infamous Hunts Point jiggle joint known as much for its violent history as its girls in pink thongs.
Cops have been cracking down on the Bronx club since 2009 and shut it down temporarily in 2010. In July, five men were stabbed and two others shot outside after bouncers broke up a 4 a.m. brawl with pepper spray. The club appeared to be shuttered when The Post visited Thursday.
Club Heat, another Bronx strip club that dispenses EBT cash, is also no stranger to violence. A 33-year-old woman was fatally shot in the head outside the club in December 2011.
Critics blasted the government for turning a blind eye to welfare’s sleazy money.
“This is morally scandalous,” said Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “I have nothing against strip clubs, but that’s not what benefits are for. I don’t blame [recipients]. If you are poor, it’s a crummy life and you want to have a drink or see a naked woman. I blame the people who are in charge of this.”
Welfare recipients receive food stamps and cash assistance under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Both benefits are accessed through an EBT card, but only cash assistance — meant for housing, utilities and household necessities — can be accessed at ATMs.
A single-person household could receive a maximum $200 in monthly food stamps plus $158 in cash assistance. A family of four could get as much as $668 in food stamps and $433 in cash.
The food-stamp program prohibits the purchase of booze, tobacco and lottery tickets with an EBT card. But with the cash-assistance program, users can blow money on strippers or a six-pack and to tap welfare dollars from liquor stores, casinos and adult-oriented establishments.
The Post found dozens of pubs, nightclubs and tobacco shops where welfare dough was dispensed — and presumably spent.
The Boiler Room, a gay dive bar in the East Village, had $120 and $60 transactions a minute apart on Jan. 17, 2011. The bar is around the corner from a Bank of America that takes EBT cards.
West Village tobacco shop Shisha International had EBT transactions ranging from $40 to $180 in 2011. The store is near at least two EBT-friendly ATMs.
Legislative efforts to crack down on sinful spending have fallen short.
State Sen. Tom Libous (R-Binghamton) passed a bill in his chamber in June that would outlaw welfare withdrawals at gambling dens, strip clubs and other venues of vice, but the measure is gathering dust in the Democratic-controlled Assembly.
Libous is looking for a new Assembly sponsor to carry the bill in that house in the upcoming legislative session, after past sponsor George Latimer (D-Rye) was elected to the state Senate.
With only one of the city’s Assembly members, Nicole Malliotakis (R-B’klyn./SI), as a co-sponsor, the bill faces an uphill battle.
The Assembly typically doesn’t support welfare reform, because its more liberal members think the measures “hurt the poor,” Libous said. If the bill remains stalled, the state stands to lose $120 million in federal welfare funding.
The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, signed by President Obama last February, requires states to prohibit sinful welfare spending by 2014. If they don’t, they’ll forfeit federal cash.
“The people who are stealing from the program are the ones I want to go after,” Libous said. “Not someone who lost his job or a single mom who has to feed her kids. That’s what this program is supposed to be for.”
A spokesman with the US Department of Health and Human Services said states make their own rules on EBT cards.
Some states already limit where EBT cards can withdraw money.
A rep from OTDA, New York’s welfare office, said the state does not choose or regulate which retailers get ATMs that handle EBTs. Instead, retailers decide whether to use an ATM that accepts welfare cards.
I deal with people on Medicaid and Welfare every day.
-- One woman was angry because her IL Medicaid (called Illinois All Kids) would not cover medical visit for her and her four children to a doctor in Las Vegas. Appears they were able to afford a vacation, but couldn't afford to pay their own medical services. She kept calling it "my insurance" and I had to point out that it was actually the states insurance and they allow her and her family to be on the plan and the taxes of the citizens of IL pay their costs. She cussed me out and hung up the phone.
-- Recently I spoke with a gentleman who was angry that there was a delay in "his money" being sent to "his EBT card." He said he tried to do it online, but it failed on his computer, his iPad and his smart phone. It also failed on his wife's iPad.
I pay for my own insurance and due to the cost I cannot afford a trip to Las Vegas with my family and don't have a smart phone. I only have a four year old laptop I paid for with my own money.
You can continue to blame Defense, but there are tens of billions per year (by the gov'ts own admission) that is classified as waste, abuse and fraud in the Medicaid and Welfare systems. And that doesn't even touch Medicare and the BILLIONS in abuses there, as well.
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