Welfare Fraud

[Celvantes]

So I'm listening to the radio this morning, and I hear about a report made in some obscure New York newspaper about large-scale welfare abuse.

Not believing that something as blatant as what was reported on talk radio could actually be happening, I decided to look up the article:

Spoiler:

[FONT=arial, helvetica][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Brooks says aid program flawed[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Serif]Back-to-school cash plan opened door to 'rampant' fraud
[/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
Jill Terreri
Staff writer [/FONT] [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]A state program that put $200 cash into the hands of low-income parents of school-age children is opening the door for "rampant" fraud and should be suspended, Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks said Thursday.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]The program has caused stores and ATMs to run out of cash and the county's Human Services Department to be overwhelmed with in-person client visits and calls to its phone system.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Members of Gov. David Paterson's administration defended the program, saying tales of increased sales of video game equipment and televisions are just anecdotes. The program allows families who couldn't otherwise afford back-to-school supplies to equip their children for a new year.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]What's clear is that the actual amount of fraud will never be documented because state officials said there is no way for them to see how families are spending the $200-per-child benefit.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]The benefit was distributed on Tuesday to families who receive welfare benefits and food stamps, including working families who only receive a limited food stamp benefit. Families with children between the ages of 3 and 17 are eligible, though the children do not need to be enrolled in school.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Wegmans and Tops report that ATMs in their stores ran out of cash on Tuesday, the day the money was deposited to food stamp accounts. The county reports that employees at the Wal-Mart store on Hudson Avenue called the Department of Human Services to say they thought welfare fraud was going on because there was a run on high-end electronics.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]The stores received no notice of the program and would have been prepared had they known, spokeswomen from Tops and Wegmans said.

The ATMs first ran out in Syracuse, then the shortage spread to stores around the state, said Jo Natale, director of media relations at Wegmans. By then it was too late to get more cash to the machines, which are run by Wegmans, she said.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Tops reported that people would go through the checkout to purchase a pack of gum in order to get cash back from their food stamp debit card and repeat the process, as only $40 is allowed at a time, said communications manager Katie McKenna. Registers ran out of money.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]"It's definitely been a problem," she said.

The county received about four working days notice. Had Monroe County been consulted, it would have recommended a voucher program for supplies, said Human Services Commissioner Kelly Reed.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Though all the grants may not be used for school supplies, getting cash into the hands of those who don't have it stimulates the economy faster because they spend the money sooner than wealthy people, said economist and social worker Irwin Garfinkel, a professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]"In terms of the stimulus, you couldn't do better," Garfinkel said.

The state said 68 percent of the cash went to families who receive food stamps but not other aid, indicating that someone in the home is working but doesn't earn enough to make ends meet.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]The program does not require a share from county property taxpayers or state income tax payers and is funded with $140 million in federal stimulus funds and a matching grant of $35 million from George Soros' Open Society Institute.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]The county reports that its phone system and waiting rooms have been pushed to capacity with people inquiring about the benefit and that someone in the waiting room at the social services office was charged with assault Thursday.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]"It's mayhem," Reed said. "We are without the means to support this."

The state will not prosecute families for spending the money on items other than school supplies, said Kristin Proud, deputy director for state operations.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]"We have as many examples of people using the dollars for school clothes, school uniforms," Proud said.

Brooks said children shouldn't be denied school supplies but said the program is flawed.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]"I don't think it's important what percentage of people are abusing the system," she said. "When you create a program that allows for abuse at any level ... taxpayer money is being wasted."[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica][email protected][/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Additional Facts[/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=arial, helvetica] [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]About the program[/FONT] [/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica]About 32,400 cash grants of $200 per child were distributed by the state to Monroe County families with children ages 3 to 17 through a 4-1 matching grant financed with $140 million in federal stimulus funds and $35 million from billionaire George Soros' Open Society Institute. Across the state, more than 800,000 children received the grant.[/FONT]

For those who don't want to read all that, the short version is that low-income families receiving $200 per child for school supplies and school clothing are using the money for electronics, video games and other things that *aren't* school supplies and clothing.

Now, I live in Oklahoma and this is happening in New York. You might ask why I care.

I care because the program was made possible in part by federal stimulus funds which come from *my* federal income tax dollars.

So here's the deal... I worked my ass off for eight years to get to be an officer in the military. I worked my ass off for two more years to become an officer with special skills who gets paid extra for them. My work week can stretch anywhere from 40-to-90 hours, depending on what I'm involved in, and when I go overseas, I'm essentially working 7 days a week. I'm able to post this now in the middle of the day because I just got up after about a seventeen hour workday yesterday.

In short, I bust my ass for my salary... just over $60,000 a year.

That puts me in the 25% tax bracket... meaning that for every four dollars I make, the government takes one.

Now, I don't mind one bit if my tax money goes to making this country a better place. If it's being used to build our infrastructure, improve our national defense, fund lifesaving research, provide for our children's education, or aid in negotiation with other countries, I'm fine with it.

I don't mind helping people who really need it, either. If one of those low-income New York families wrote to me saying that they needed help, I would call the local grocer, put down a week's worth of groceries on my credit card, and tell the family to pick the groceries up.

But if they asked me to buy them video games or a new TV, I would reply that perhaps there are more important things they should be trying to obtain.

SO WHY DOES THE GOVERNMENT GIVE THEM *MY* MONEY, THAT I BUST MY ASS TO EARN, IN A WAY THAT ALLOWS THEM TO SPEND IT ON JUST ANYTHING?

If you're going to take $15,000 a year out of my pocket, at least have the common courtesy to make sure that it is spent properly. If you want to help people buy school supplies and clothing for their children, fine, give them vouchers for those items - NOT A DAMNED CREDIT CARD LOADED WITH $200 PER CHILD.

And I also ask, what happens to the children of those families? If that money is being spent on crap, are they still getting their school supplies and school clothes?

Somehow, I doubt it.

 

[Duddits]

Isn't this pretty much what happened when people got their FEMA checks after Hurricane Katrina?

 

[Halifirien]

SO WHY DOES THE GOVERNMENT GIVE THEM *MY* MONEY, THAT I BUST MY ASS TO EARN, IN A WAY THAT ALLOWS THEM TO SPEND IT ON JUST ANYTHING?

Short answer: It's part of the stimulus program. Buying televisions and video games does the job just as well as clothing and school supplies.

Not sure why this should be a surprise. Anyone who's ever worked a gas station has had idiots buying gum with food stamps until they've made enough change to buy cigarettes and booze.

 

[Mirewen]

Doesn't only happen in your country either im afraid. My dad got 25% of his salary taken away (teacher) while raising 3 daughters with no child support. Certain people in the town we lived in got 2-3 types of cheques, one of which was Welfare, (I wont get into what the other 1-2 are because thats' an entirely different issue). Because of these cheques, they did not have to work and (ultimately) made more money a year than my dad.

I know you work your ass off Celv, it sucks that you work so hard just to have others use the money they get for things that they aren't supposed to be used for. What sucks even more is that there isn't really a way to regulate it unless the government goes out and buys all the things these families *need* and hands them out themselves rather than just giving out cheques.

 

[Tristam Green]

Isn't this pretty much what happened when people got their FEMA checks after Hurricane Katrina?

Exactly, but not only that.

It also came in the form of the relocation to other states (re: Texas), where they were given the chance to move back, but some never did and just freeloaded the city of Houston well into 2007 and 2008.

 

[Morcheeba]

I thought there was a requirement that additional assistance for things like supplies to have the POP handed in like at the end of the month?

Honestly I think Welfare is a joke. Unfortunately there are families that require social assitance but there are many more that take full advantage of the system and screw us out of our hard earned cash. Let me tell you, I'm not even considered middle class man, although my government thinks I am >.>

There are multiple young people that get themselves in deep shit then lean on Welfare to bail them out and put diapers on their multiple children when really they should be getting different social assitance altogether. Not Welfare.

'KYLC Assistance for young mothers' Extended Schooling etc.

 

[Gohaan]

I thought there was a requirement that additional assistance for things like supplies to have the POF handed in like at the end of the month?

It would take them 2 years to check it thoough, and by that time they dont care. Its not like they can pay it back. Cant get milk from a dry cow.

 

[Morcheeba]

It would take them 2 years to check it thoough, and by that time they dont care. Its not like they can pay it back. Cant get milk from a dry cow.

I hear that, the amount of administration required it's worth the expense, but hey, if they want cash handed to them for free, it should be treated like fucking parole. An Officer per a number of 'clients' that is responsible for keeping those kinds of documents up to date. I'm only saying POP for additional funds. Not the defaulted monthly for food and rent costs. (They have to proove they've been looking for work by submitting a certain number of resumes and documenting the opportune employers they tried)

And really, it's costing us. They should step-up and make some bitches accountable.

 

[Duddits]

(They have to proove they've been looking for work by submitting a certain number of resumes and documenting the opportune employers they tried)

In the U.S. this is a requirement for unemployment insurance but the chance that they will check your submissions is like being chosen to be audited by the IRS. That's why people will submit bullshit information just to collect those weekly payments.

 

[Keryan]

When I lived in hawaii they did not give money for supplies, they actually handed out the supplies. You had pick up spots that you went to in your district to get them. Common sense is in such low supply.

 

[Dancingweapon]

This sounds a lot like that bull shit scheme in the UK we call EMA.

Where they give kids £30 a week to go to school after the age of 16 and the £30 a week is meant to be spent on traveling costs? Get the fuck out, I know of one person in the scheme that gets a train to school, the rest spend it on food for lunch (no one needs £30 a week on food for lunch when I spend around £15) The rest of the money? Cinema, clothes, video games?

GTFO.

 

[Mirewen]

This sounds a lot like that bull shit scheme in the UK we call EMA.

Where they give kids £30 a week to go to school after the age of 16 and the £30 a week is meant to be spent on traveling costs? Get the fuck out, I know of one person in the scheme that gets a train to school, the rest spend it on food for lunch (no one needs £30 a week on food for lunch when I spend around £15) The rest of the money? Cinema, clothes, video games?

GTFO.

$60.00 a month? Geez. That's given to everyone? Where I grew up only a certain group of people got paid to go to school, they got over $100.00 a month though.

What Keryan said makes the most sense, don't give them an opportunity to spend it on something that isn't necessary.

 

[Dancingweapon]

$60.00 a month? Geez. That's given to everyone? Where I grew up only a certain group of people got paid to go to school, they got over $100.00 a month though.

What Keryan said makes the most sense, don't give them an opportunity to spend it on something that isn't necessary.

No it's not given to everyone, it's if your parents earn under a certain amount. Way to teach their kids right? Just give them money for doing fuck all. It really wouldn't bother me if they gave it to the ones who actually spent it on traveling to school and school supplies, but they just straight up waste it on cigarettes and drink.

 

[bigbroon]

No it's not given to everyone, it's if your parents earn under a certain amount. Way to teach their kids right? Just give them money for doing fuck all. It really wouldn't bother me if they gave it to the ones who actually spent it on traveling to school and school supplies, but they just straight up waste it on cigarettes and drink.

This is exactly right. It wouldn't expend too many brain cells to come up with an idea like... "Give these kids a travel card amounting to said amount, rather than said amount of cash, so they can only spend it on travel."

If you give kids, or irresponsible parents, cash, they'll spend it on what they want, not what they need. If the government really thought about it, there are simple solutions to the many "problems" they create for themselves.

 

[Mirewen]

The people who get money for attending school here have their own room in the school where only they are allowed. It has a flat screen TV, a Wii, an XBox and a PS3 as well as a kitchen. They're allowed to leave class whenever they feel like and they are not allowed to be failed, they get paid as long as they stay on school grounds.

It's not teaching people any kind of monitary value. You're right, it would make more sense for your government to issue "bus/train passes" or "cafeteria cards" rather than just handing them money.

 

[Raesvelg]

Almost by definition, any public welfare system that simply hands money to its participants is doomed to failure. Because, in the truest sense of the word, it is not looking out for the welfare of its participants.

The old proverb goes: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." The current welfare system, all too often, simply results in a significant fraction of its participants lining up every day to get their fish.

What's worse, of course, is that the system is prone to rampant abuse beyond those individuals who simply make it a lifestyle. Food stamps, or their equivalent, are traded (often at a significant loss) for actual money. Assistance checks are delivered to people who don't need them. Some truly demented individuals go so far as to deliberately have children in order to increase the size of their check.

The question, however, is what can be done about it. Those who despise the systems for its socialist roots would likely be equally upset the government setting up an "employer of last resort" program, in which, rather than simply handing out a check, the government hands out a job. Such a system, of course, has its own set of complications. Can you be fired from your government job? If so, what happens to you?

One must recognize that a significant fraction of the participants in the current welfare system have no interest in obtaining gainful employment, and would likely possess the same attitude in any government-mandated occupation.

Do we, as a society (this applies to all the various societies represented on the board) allow such individuals to starve if they refuse to work? Or do we proceed under the assumption that since they are capable of employment, they would seek it out once the situation became desperate enough?

 

[Zoolander]

Over the last two years, working for Domino's has really made me hate the welfare system with a passion. The busiest day of every month no matter what time of the year it is? The fucking 1st, when all the welfare checks are given out. Instead of spending it on logical things, people are all throwing BBQs and buying expensive pizzas and shit they don't need.

Its another one of those things that in theory is a decent idea, but in reality its a joke. Sure there are people that put it to good use, but that is an incredibly small number.

 

[Morcheeba]

Do we, as a society (this applies to all the various societies represented on the board) allow such individuals to starve if they refuse to work? Or do we proceed under the assumption that since they are capable of employment, they would seek it out once the situation became desperate enough?

Honestly, this is simple to me. I see pan handlers and squeegee kids down town T.O. all the time, there isn't a damn thing stopping them from doing what they have to to find work. They refuse and would rather accost passers-by and commuters.

I do not hand out cash to these people, but when I hear 'I haven't ate in three days' I offer to buy them a burger or something.

 

[Celvantes]

Do you think people would work harder and do their utmost to keep their jobs if there was no social welfare program? I think so.

Also, you know how illegal immigrants have all those job opportunities available to them because they're 'jobs Americans won't do?' I think the number of those 'jobs Americans won't do' would go down to just about 0 if there was no government safety net keeping lazy people afloat.

More people working = more money into the tax system = less you have to tax each individual.

Leave charity to the private organizations and religious institutions. I guarantee you they'll be far more efficient with the money they hand out than the government every would be.

Finally,

Short answer: It's part of the stimulus program. Buying televisions and video games does the job just as well as clothing and school supplies.

Not sure why this should be a surprise. Anyone who's ever worked a gas station has had idiots buying gum with food stamps until they've made enough change to buy cigarettes and booze.

1. I seriously doubt anyone overseeing the stimulus program even paid attention to where that money was going. It was more than likely a lump sum sent out to the State of New York. Want real stimulus? Don't take as much money from the people in taxes and THEY'LL put it to better use than the government ever could.

2. It might not be a surprise, but that still doesn't make it right. That it's been so bad for so long that people have stopped paying attention should be a huge warning flag to everyone.



As for people who bitch about 'oh, I'm poor and disadvantaged and under educated, and I can't find a job.' I say BULLSHIT. A civilian agency on my base that deals in maintenance has opened their doors to *anyone* who wants a job. After weeks of this, they STILL can't fill their payroll because no one wants to do manual labor.

...this in a city with a 6% unemployment rate.

 

[Mirewen]

Over the last two years, working for Domino's has really made me hate the welfare system with a passion. The busiest day of every month no matter what time of the year it is? The fucking 1st, when all the welfare checks are given out. Instead of spending it on logical things, people are all throwing BBQs and buying expensive pizzas and shit they don't need.

Its another one of those things that in theory is a decent idea, but in reality its a joke. Sure there are people that put it to good use, but that is an incredibly small number.

I had that while working at Pizza Hut when I was in university, busting my ass to pay tuition with no government help because my dad made too much for me to get assistance,(see previous statement, teachers salary, 3 kids, no child support).

Worst was when Treaty Tuesday and Welfare Wednesday landed in the same week. Families ranging between 10 people to 15 people showing up with no reservations just to eat a tonne of food, and leave a lot of mess without tipping.