When good programs go wrong
Friday, January 02, 2009On 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
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superfluousm wrote on Jan 10, 2009 12:54 PM:
I do have a problem with gross exaggerations and what appears to me to be a racist slant in this article. You don't have to be blind to see it, just ignorant or of a racist mind set to deny it. I've heard these stories sitting around bars and convenience stores for years and I've also heard the exaggerations. I shop for groceries too, a couple of times every week, and I've never seen lobster tails or T-bones bought with welfare money. People use it to feed their families when they're down and out. Not withstanding the fact that most people on welfare are white, these stories usually have a racist slant to them and usually when they are told, the N word inevitably crops up every time I've heard them outside of the newspaper. I'm a white guy who blends in with the usual suspects, so I speak from experience, not from guessing.
If these cards are being used for job hunting, it's quite possible that the user doesn't have a car and has to rely on working folks to drive him around. Although right now there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. Thanks to our politicians who encouraged corporations to offshore their factories. That's who I'm upset with.
Maybe when the foreigners are the biggest employers around here some of this racism that I've seen around these parts can be gotten rid of. I sure hope so. It diminishes all of us who live down south. And it keeps companies out of our area.
Articles like this one do not reflect well on us when employers look to relocate here, hurting everyone. At least that's what I think. "
norwegian wrote on Jan 9, 2009 9:29 PM:
superfluousm wrote on Jan 9, 2009 7:44 PM:
And I think the T-bone and lobster tale story is one heck of tale. What grocery store did you see the lobster tails in?
Mr.George Cogburn used to say that if an employee would lie to you, he'd steal from you. He said you should therefore regard thieves and liars as coming from the same kind of families.
I'm pretty good at sniffing out tall tales and I've heard them all, from Republicans and Democrats alike. Even from Ronald Reagan, who told one so big about a welfare queen, that no one could ever identify the person he was talking about and believe me, they looked. But Ronald used to tell his speechwriters things like "put it in there anyway" when they protested that the story he added to the speech wasn't true. The speechwriters lived to tell us about the "great" Ronald Reagan. A well known liar.
This story this writer wrote is getting so thick, I believe I could walk on it, but my feet would sink down so deep into it, I'm sure I'd need more than just a shovel to climb out if I didn't die from the smell first. "
lovehim wrote on Jan 9, 2009 7:45 AM:
norwegian wrote on Jan 8, 2009 10:49 AM:
rump wrote on Jan 8, 2009 10:02 AM:
rump wrote on Jan 8, 2009 9:06 AM:
The article was not about the ELECTION. It was about the teivery involving vouchers. "
confisus_sum wrote on Jan 7, 2009 4:09 PM:
skyler 6 wrote on Jan 7, 2009 11:36 AM:
orangeburger wrote on Jan 7, 2009 4:37 AM:
Honest working people who pay taxes just don't get it! "
norwegian wrote on Jan 3, 2009 7:34 PM:
confisus_sum wrote on Jan 2, 2009 9:34 AM: