Welfare Reform...

I’m at a crossroads in my education where I need to make some choices about where to go next.  When returning to college I chose a field within the Humanities that I was truly passionate about, but it’s one of those areas that enriches you greatly as a person without giving a clear direction of where to take it.  Invited to apply for a graduate program in politics, I seriously considered it for a minute.  It’s not for me for various reasons, including the fact that I wouldn't be able to say that some people suck.

When Geoff Diehl (R-Whitman)’s “17 Reasons to Reform Welfare” showed up on my Facebook feed, I felt the need to discuss some of the suckness™.

1. Earlier this year the Inspector General released a report detailing over $25 million in abuse.

That’s straight forward; $25 mill in abuse should be addressed.  No suckness here.

2. 9800 EBT recipients got 10 or more replacement cards.

So?  This goes for 3,5, 9, and 16—random pieces of information that mean pretty close to nothing.  Are we supposed to be mad that these little pieces of plastic, which probably cost a few cents each, are made in greater batches than necessary to keep a stock of replacements?  Or is the problem that those horrible welfare recipients are proving just how irresponsible they are? 

4. The Patrick Administration had to spend $3.5 million for overtime for DTA workers in order to fix their records.

Ahah!  Something we can talk about.  The state shouldn't have to pay an extra $3.5 mill for people to do their job right.  This has absolutely nothing to do with welfare reform, but it’s still a waste of money and something should be done about training and oversight of state workers.

6. $2.4 million in welfare benefits went to dead people.

The fact alone doesn't impress me much.  It doesn't tell us how much is fraud—someone actively taking on the identity of a dead person to scam the system—versus how much is individuals dying and, with no notification to case workers, continue to receive benefits.  The latter is a non-issue.  Without someone having their card and knowing their password, the money just sits there and should be retrievable when it is discovered that they're dead.

7. 47,000 welfare applicants and recipients had bad addresses. 19,000 are stilling missing.

Again, so?  To get welfare, applicants have to prove their need.  I don’t care if they moved without notification or even lied about their address.  At a certain point, benefits run out and the recipient has to prove their need and jump through other hoops (job training/adult day care, etc) to get anything more.  So 19,000 people will eventually either come forward or lapse off the dole.

8. No one has yet to be fined for purchasing alcohol, tobacco or lottery tickets with their EBT card.

We must punish the naughty!  At last, a reason that has some (dubious) merit!  If we give some of our tax dollars so that you have woefully insufficient money to pay your bill(s), we damn well demand that you only pay your bill(s). 

Of course, there’s a flip side.  Welfare consists of “food stamp” money-money on the EBT card that can only be used for food; if you need dish washing liquid or toilet paper and that’s all you have, you’re shit out of luck—and cash assistance for your bills that isn’t enough for any adult, let alone a family, to really pay bills.  So you pay for electrify and have to hope that you pay for enough of the heat bill to get to the point in the winter where they can’t shut it off.  Of course if you don’t have some way of paying rent, none of that will matter.  Maybe you and your kids are crashing on your Mom’s living room floor, but you’re probably one of the working poor.  You have a job or two, but you can’t make ends meet.  And the Republicans want you to pay a fine now on top of everything else for having a vice.  Yeah, that’ll help.

10. 85% of the cash assistance is taken out in cash.

This is why rich people shouldn't make rules for the poor.  When Geoff Diehl needs to pay his electric bill, he or his wife probably pulls out their check book.  Maybe they’re forward thinking and pay all their bills online.  Perhaps he thinks cash assistance magically jumps from an EBT card to a check book or credit card (also magically providing the computer and internet access because, unless you've just become poor, you don’t have either).  People with real thoughts realize that you have to take the money out and get a money order or go to one of the places that will allow you to pay in cash.

I’m tempted to stop ranting here, but there are two more of significance:

13. $27 million were used outside of Massachusetts. $4.5 million was spent in Florida, the Virgin Islands, and Hawaii.

Here we finally have a real argument for reforming welfare.  Sort of.  If you can afford to go to Florida, the Virgin Islands, and/or Hawaii and you’re on welfare, you’re scamming the system and you should be stopped/fined.  I think it’s interesting that $27 mil were spent outside of the state but only $4.5 mill in exotic locales.  Could it be that the rest of the money was spent by people who live on the border and prefer to do their shopping where they can get more for a buck—ie, people who are doing nothing wrong?

14. The Boston Marathon bombers collected welfare

This, at best, is random trivia.  At worst, it’s the ultimate in suck.  The fact that these people once collected welfare tells us that they were once poor enough to qualify.  It tells us nothing about welfare.  Just stating the fact and leaving it floating there near the end of his reasons subliminally suggests that other people on welfare are potentially dangerous and should be punished. 

The powers that be (legislators, case workers) should absolutely get at the root of fraud and put an end to it.  Spending Massachusetts EBT money in Maui?  Without proof that your Hawaiian grandmother died and your rich aunt sent you to the funeral, you should pay fines and maybe even have some jail time.  But most of these arguments are crap.

*I said “so what” to the amount of cards replaced because that doesn't affect the amount one receives.  Maybe the recipient is trading the cards for cocaine and we can’t have that.  But maybe they’re living off Ramen noodles and trading the food stamps for rent money.  That’s called survival and shouldn't be punished.