On several instances within the past year and half, I have had the opportunity to work in a retail business that does business with the Dorchester County Department of Social Services.
Every day it seems I read in the paper where state and county agencies are having their employees take unpaid leaves and all sorts of other things in order to deal with budget cuts. DSS must not be affected by those budget cuts.
Every week numerous persons bring a voucher to the business where I worked and are allowed to charge gas to the Department of Social Services. For the longest time I have been trying to find the qualifications for this program. I was told you have to be collecting child support to qualify.
I have seen mostly young black females with these vouchers but recently did have a black male, a young white female and several young Hispanic females, so I don't guess there is any prejudice in the program. You just have to be collecting child support and you can get "free" gas.
And I am telling you these people don't pull up to the pumps in any junk cars. They drive Lexuses, BMWs, Cadillacs, Lincolns and mostly SUVs. I am wondering if there is a government assisted program to pay for the vehicles as well. I mean come on, someone can pay car payments and taxes and insurance on those types of vehicles but can't pay for the gas that goes in them?
Supposedly this gas is used to seek employment -- yet they often arrive with these vouchers on Friday afternoon. Now how many do you think seek employment on weekends and how much of that gas do you think is still in the vehicle on Monday morning? This is a giant waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars if -- and that is a big if -- we are going to give out any gas at all for this program. Participants should have to bring back a statement from employers saying they were INTERVIEWED -- not just that they filled out an application. We can all look at the unemployment program to see that doesn't work.
I am still stuck on the qualifications for the program. The same people using the program are the people you can follow down to the supermarket and see them with buggies full of lobster tail, shrimp, T-bones, all sorts of soda, and they get to the cashier and pay with the little green EBT card. Then they rush back to the store before 12:45 or/and 6:45 to make sure their lottery numbers are in. And we aren't talking one or two dollars for lottery numbers for some of these people, it is hundreds of dollars a week. And I don't have one thing against the lottery as long as you can afford to play it. Paying for your groceries with an EBT card and putting gas in your vehicle with a DSS voucher are NOT being able to afford it.
My funniest moments during this employment have been:
* When the gentleman couldn't get all the gas his female friend's voucher allowed in his vehicle and he asked me for jugs to put the remaining gas in.
* The young lady who came in and told me her vehicle wouldn't hold all of the gas, so her boyfriend was going pull to the tank and get the remaining amount.
Is there something wrong with these programs, or what?
-- Charles Murray, Branchville