Food Stamps and EBT at fast food Places

The obvious solution is piss tests, without the histrionic "huge expensive bureaucracy will kill any savings" claims.

Link

Damn facts getting in the way of the libertopian dream...

Haven't read the whole thread, but considering that drugs would be legal in libertopia, and that welfare would be nonexistent, how does tafkats article do anything but endorse the libertopian dream?

Just fyi... The drug testing only applies to those applying for cash assistance. It is not given to those applying for an EBT card or medicaid.

Because "make everybody pee in a cup; it won't cost anything" is as realistic as "welfare would be nonexistent."

Tell ya what, legalize drugs, and you can keep the welfare.

You give up too easily. I'm pro-legalization, with certain qualifications. I also suspect you know there will always be people who are unable to work, and the Marso school of "their families will take care of them" isn't always viable.

UA just wants to keep all the drugs for himself.

Allowing them has nothing to do with it.
If welfare there is liek it is here, they get a week worth of minimum wage to live off of monthly. If they wanna get kicked out of their apartments and/or starve, fuck'em...
Cops waste their time on the tiny shit now. Do you really want them tracking what poor people buy? All you'll get is more criminals

It's the "shit rolls downhill" scenario.

"Stop picking on the rich! They NEED their corporate jets!"

"Damn poor people, taking money out of my wallet. Let them die!"

OK. The bit that has me mystified is:

What does that even mean? Does the poor person have to pay for the test? Even so, isn't the government giving him money? How does that work? "You don't have any money, so I'm going to give you money. But I don't want you to spend it on drugs, so I'm going to drug test you. But if I drug test you and you're clean...you get another $1,100(?) " It seems to me that this is a different meaning to "reimburse" than the rest of the world uses.

My guess is that the cost of the test gets deducted from any aid, the amount of which likely remained unchanged.

Considering WIC in many states uses EBT cards already it shouldn't be hard at all to turn all EBT cards to the WIC standard. Probably even save money just having one standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIC

I wonder what you could name such a "life skills" class? Household Economics, Personal Budgeting, Home Finances..... AH-HA! I GOT IT! We could call it Home Economics!

Yeah, fuck that noise. Even when I had a checkbook I never balanced it.

Credit Cards + Online Bill Pay + Excel take care of everything.










Or you be even lazier and just marry a smart one who does all the above for you.

Even when Drugs are Legalized I would support random drug, alcohol and tobacco testing for those getting cash handouts.

That money is to keep people above water until they can get back on their feet, not for providing any luxuries or sustaining any kind of 'lifestyle.'

The article doesn't take into account the amount of people dissuaded from requesting cash assistance because they know they won't pass. Only objective way to do that would be to wait for a time and compare it to a previous time.

Also, those who tested positive and have children have a case created for them with child protective investigators, as the State would like to look into why you're asking for cash that will likely be put toward an environment not suitable for children.

Double whammy.

ETA: The journalist got the acronym wrong, as DCF stands for Dept of Children and Families, though it is broken up into regions, with one of them named Central (located around Orlando.) Sloppy work.

They've removed "home economics" from the curricula in, at least, the county schools in the area. While I don't see anything wrong with the title, and certainly not with what's being taught, I'd still be pragmatic and call it something other than "Home Economics". Doing so lets you kill two birds with one stone: You appease the "PC" crowd by retiring what has been perennially derided as sexism attached to the name, and you rebrand it to make it an easier sell to the actual sexists who don't want their halfback or point guard taking some course designed to turn them into sissies.

I guaran-goddamn-tee you that you'll get push-back on both fronts if you call it "Home Ec", and require everyone to take it.

I forget if this is the "things we learned in school when I was a kid" thread or not, but I remembered the other point I was going to make. In one of my classes we had to make a shopping list. Then we did a field trip to the two supermarkets in town (what can I say? It was a little hick town). We compared what it cost at each store. Whole exercise probably took up one class period and IIRC, we walked to the stores, so it didn't really cost anything.

The school district that ran the schools I went to didn't offer home ec. In 8th grade we had a "life skills" class which taught students how to write checks, balance check books, make shoppling lists and such based off of how much money we had in our checking accounts. We also got certified in first aid and cpr in the class.

And another thing. What kind of logic is that? Just by denying one applicant, that saves "only" $240 a month. Yeah, and? They don't get tested every month. That's a stop of $6000 per year for both denials. In Florida, TANF can last up to 4 full years.

Seems like a savings to me.

"Life skills" sounds more PC than "home ec" (which was usually only for girls, anyway, while the boys were assigned a shop class or auto mechanics or something more "manly"), but except for first aid and CPR, you're essentially describing the same skills. (Although in home ec you'd also have learned to make a coffee cake and run a sewing machine. )

First aid and CPR - valuable skills for anyone, and kudos to your school district for including them.

You do have to wonder, though, if any of those things are offered in current school curricula in California...

Those are good points, particularly the one about monthly vs. annual figures. But there are a few wrinkles.

First, even though a person who fails the test can't reapply for a year, they can designate another person to be responsible for benefits for their children, so a denial doesn't automatically equal savings of a year's worth of benefits. (For the record, I think this is a good thing; no point punishing kids for their parents' misdeeds.)

Second, if the law is causing drug users to stay away from assistance applications en masse, it should be fairly obvious from a sudden and unexpected drop in applications. Maybe that will happen, but if it had happened so far, you'd think the state spokeswoman would have mentioned it in her defense of the bill, instead of falling back on "it's a matter of principle."

There actually are some points in favor of a law like this, ranging from protecting children from having their benefits misused to, hopefully, giving some people an extra push to clean up and get their lives on track. But while there are some good reasons to support it, large-scale savings seem unlikely to be among them.

Who in the hell appointed Margaret Wander Bonanno to be the judge and jury as to what people should or shouldn't have based on their needs?

Last I checked neither the Congress, or the President are empowered to make the decisions either.

Who started this opinion poll asking for, yanno, people's opinions? No doubt that same person will now go through every single post in this thread and demand to know why anyone other than he is entitled to express an opinion in a thread he ostensibly started in order to elicit people's opinions...

Its an opinion poll for everyone who's name isnt Margaret Margaret.

And those who's garment's have great insight's of course.

And if she were posting an opinion and not simply using the thread to make the typical, fallacious characterizations for which she's renown, your snark and her feigned outrage might have foundation.

Home Ec (whatever it ends up being called) AND Shop need to be brought back.

Going off on a tanget, but our education system started going to shit when we transitioned from 'What you need to know to get a job' to 'What you need to know to go to college.' Since a complete restructuring is out of the question I think the best solution is to expand what qualifies for "Jump Start" or whatever your state calls it. Instead of just being able to go to a junior college for your junior and senior year classes (Washington has this, my wife took I think 1 class her entire senior year actually at her highschool, the rest were at a junior college) make it so that you can go to tech schools. Even with all the effort we put to get people into college most HS grads are NOT going to get a four year degree, for most an associates or tech certificate is all they will ever need. Why force them to sit through Shakespeare and calculus when their time and our money would be better spent on small engine repair?

Renowned.

QFT