If you weren’t upset with the Arizona Legislature already, Jim Nintzel’s cover story hitting the street tomorrow will likely push you over the edge. However, what’s remarkable and frightening is that even his extensive and somewhat lengthy story couldn’t hold all the ridiculous crap the Republicans are coming up with up there.
For example, from the East Valley Tribune:
But a Chandler Republican lawmaker wants the debit cards now given to food stamp recipients to be bright safety orange. And if there’s any doubt about the card pulled out of someone’s wallet at the checkout, that would be erased with the mandate that there be, in large, black print, the words, “Government Food Stamp Card.”
First-term Rep. Jeff Dial said his goal is not to stigmatize those who qualify for the aid, formally known as the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Instead, Dial told Capitol Media Services he wants to prevent fraud.
“If that does concern people that they have a bright orange card, I hope they go get a better education or better jobs and stop using that card,” he said.
[…]
“It’s obviously a big deal now in the state to get rid of any wasteful spending,” Dial said.
“It’s my understanding that a lot of people – and I don’t know the numbers yet – that are taking the food stamp cards are selling them basically, whether it be on Craigslist or to other individuals. I believe they should be used by the intended person and not be used by third parties or be sold for like 50 cents or 25 cents on the dollar.”
[…]
Dial said the fact that funding comes not out of the state budget but from the federal government does not reduce his desire to curtail fraud.
“What it comes to is, we’re all paying taxes to the federal government,” he said, with the state only administering the program. “It may not be coming out of our budget. But we should be good custodians.”
First of all, it seems like there are enough issues in the state right now that merit fixing before issuing a set of new cards to food stamp users because Jeff Dial thinks he heard about fraud on Craigslist. DES actually has staffers who work on chasing down fraud, but I would imagine like most state-level departments, they’ve been hit by budget cuts that might make the task of finding people who are abusing the system more difficult. Instead, let’s just issue a different colored card! That’ll fix it, and by “it”, I mean a problem that might not actually exist that Dial likely read about in an email forward.
Then there’s the other problem, which is the assumption that people on food stamps are just sitting around passing up high paying jobs and opportunities for higher education. I guess the Republican leadership thinks they’re fixing the jobs part, but with 4.7 unemployed people out there for every available job nationwide and the state prepared to make massive cuts to community colleges (the most available resource for affordable continued education in this state), it’s not quite as simple as getting “a better education or better jobs” to get off food stamps.
Jeff Dial works for his parent’s company, so maybe he’s never been laid off, struggled to find work for months or even years (even with a degree), forced to take a underpaying job just to get by, or just spent some time trying to regroup and find a new path in life, but food stamps were meant to be a program that transitioned people to making it on their own, not a badge of shame for those who weren’t lucky enough to be born into the right family and have everything go their way. But, hey, these are the people we elect, right?
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2011.
Thank you for calling this rediculous bill to the attention of your community. When I read the morning paper (Gilbert) and saw what was being proposed I was astounded. I am a former food stamp recipient. If I did not have this assistance I would not have been able to go to school (a single mother with three young children at the time). It was humiliating enough to deal with cashiers who thought I was abusing the system – and I even went as far as wearing an arm sling so coments would not be made. To think that Jeff Dial has nothing better to do than attack the working class of people who have sub-standard living conditions is sickening. I continued my education and now have a PhD – ALL WHILE ON FOOD STAMPS! SHAME ON YOU JEFF DIAL! KEEP YOUR SILVER SPOON IN YOUR MOUTH!!
Paula Hale, PhD
Gilbert, Arizona
Based on the ignorance of his comments and proposal, I suggest that Jeff Dial “go get a better education.” Although that’s a little harder since his party has cut scholarships, funding to schools, even bus routes needed to get there.
Does he seriously think that thought has never occured to anyone currently recieving food stamps? That none of them are struggling to remedy their situation and find work and a way to get an education? Does he not realize that the majority of food stamp recipients are disabled or are single mothers who are not recieving child support? What does he think they are all doing, lounging in easy chairs in front of a TV?
Does making a card bright orange somehow make it any more difficult to sell? Isn’t there cost involved in making all new cards? Not to mention the fact that he is so uninformed that he was unaware that the food stamp program is federally, not state funded.
Shame on those single mothers for not having the wisdom to be born into a job with their own wealthy family, as Mr. Dial was! Perhaps they should all wear be forced to wear a scarlet ‘P’ on their clothing, for ‘Poor’.
If there is any karma or justice in this world, I hope that someday Mr. Flake is re-born as a single mother working a minimum wage job while trying to further her education. I would wish that, but no child should have to endure that situation, as mine have.
Correction to my comment above, ‘Dial’, not ‘Flake’, though one does remind me of the other.
Jeff Dial needs to be required to wear a bright orange shirt that says “Asshole”.
Nothing better to do Mr. Dial — why not volunteer at a soup kitchen or a community food bank for at least a year and see how many you can “snitch” on that are abusing the programs – you act like it is something people are proud of having to do to survive. Don’t criticize until you have walked a mile in their shoes.
So let me get this straight. We are giving you free money to spend on food, and you are embarassed for people to know about it?
If you don’t want to use the orange card, then don’t. Nobody is forcing you.
There were times when I lived off Top Ramen and Rice a Roni because I was so broke, I didn’t get on food stamps. If you make the decision that you are incapable of taking care of yourself and that you need taxpayers to ensure you can eat, then you will use the card we give you.
This entitlement mentality is ruining America. You ask why can’t you be treated everyone else using a debit card in the store? Because you aren’t like everyone else. Everyone else pays for their own food. You have other people paying for yours. I pay close to 45% of every dollar I earn in taxes and I go to the grocery store and see some twenty something woman with 3 kids wearing brand new clothes, jewelry, talking on an iPhone and paying with a food stamp card. I am sick of it. It is called personal responsibility.
Hi Mr. Madson – I have been working since I was 11 years old. I had to lie and say I was 12. I washed dishes in a truck stop for 20 hours a week, 10 hours a piece on Friday and Saturday night. Throughout my middle and high school years, I always had a job. I actually had a full time 2nd shift job for the last two years because I wanted a car that nobody was going to buy for me, and I got it. Graduated on time, went to a community college and managed to get my degree in less than 2 years even though I had a drive that from my home, to work, then to school in the evenings totaled 150 miles round trip. 49 hour work week, 24 hours of school a week plus drive time – I am not, nor have I ever been lazy. I was stricken with cancer when I was 31 years old and because our wonderful government is run by people that think like you, getting disability benefits is such a long and tedious process. Social Security – THAT I PAID MY SHARE.
For two years, I went through chemotherapy and if it was not for those cards, I would not have eaten for those two years. With zero income and rent of $950 plus like any other American, I had other bills, I was awarded $174 a month for food. Fortunately, by cutting out non-essentials, my savings paid the bills through those two years and that card allowed me to eat. I don’t believe I deserved the looks I got and the comments I could hear behind me in the line, but I ignored them anyway.
You want to know how to cut down on fraud? Have the clerks ask for an i.d., just like they should on credit and debit cards, and if it is not the person on the card, then don’t honor any transactions. That simple little step in the process would weed out about 75% of it.
I also saw the line where you stated “then you will use the card we give you.” So, I guess that means you are one of the people I should be thanking and feel indebted to, since you gave up your hard earned tax money to a free loader like myself. So, thank you, Mr. Madson, for giving me $2,088 over a two year period so that I could eat while I was being a lazy drain on society. I know it would have been better if I was a non-resident of this country who never paid a dime into the system and is given benefit after benefit even though my mere presence here would be against the law, but we are all thankful that we have men with common sense like yourself to keep things straightened out and hopefully, if it ever happens to me again, you can make sure that I am embarrassed further by having to flash a neon card to get my less than 50 bucks a week of groceries to survive.
I never considered myself an exceptionally bright person, but life lessons that I think most adults would have naturally learned ( like finding out people’s situations before throwing out asinine judgements of them ) and how to treat your fellow man, would have been learned by a certain age, but it still astounds me that people like yourself make those same mistakes over and over.
“Mistakes are nothing but proof that you are trying. Unless they are repetitive, then they are just proof that you are dumb.”