This is what I tried to get in a comment section of an article I read today... I know that my view is not always a popular one, but it is logical. I will link the article at the bottom.
"I do not understand the problem. This man, because he won, ended up paying more money in taxes to the government than he would EVER recieve in food assistance if he managed to stay on it his entire life. So what that we give him 100$ back a month for food assistance for the next 2 years. We are not paying it out of our pocket, that man did when he had to give up over half of the winnings to the state.
This money is not going to find this man a job, so it is not going to be a way for him to live out the rest of his days. I think it may be a very smart move on his part to continue to recieve the extra help while he figures out a way to make himself financially secure over the long term.
Telling someone that was on medicaid or food assistance that they can not spend 1$ on a lotto ticket is not our place. They are not doing any thing illegal. Lets take into account that grandparents and friends like to give people lotto tickets for birthday gifts and christmas gifts. Should we really tell a person that won a 30 million$ jackpot that they are only allowed to collect 600$ and the rest go to the state fund? That person will be stuck in the system forever when they could have just had the financial security to NEVER need assistance in the future! To top it off, if they were getting it in a lump sum, the taxes they had to pay would be astronomical and way more than any family would have ever had to recieve in a lifetime of being in the system.
I can't believe that so many people are so jaded against the minisecule amount of monies that go to people on food assistance, when there are so many other things to look at. Lets look at how much congress gets paid, for NOT EVEN WORKING! lets look at how much the government threw at the banks when THEY KNEW THEY WERE MAKING BAD DEALS!
Check out all the governments spending habits and you will see that the least of our proplems are the people that are using food assistance, and the very, very few, out of those numbers that use it. We are talking about a sub-set of a sub-set people.
Instead of trying to figure out how to punish lotto playing food stamp recipients, lets figure out a way to get them into stable carreers that are not 7.5$ an hour jobs that won't help a single man survive. Currently our system of "help" focuses on getting people any miminum wage job, and that job cuts the help that you can recieve, so the government is happy because they don't have to pay out as much, but then they are stuck giving out help over a long period of time. Which, in the end, costs WAY more money.
Create careers! Create TRAINING! CREATE A WORKFORCE!
This will be how to get the people off assistance. Not spending tax $ trying to create and lobby for stupid laws that do nothing to cure the problem in the first place."
http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/story.aspx?list=194414&id=619368
No comments:
Post a Comment