Obama’s Drug of Choice: Welfare Addiction
July 12, 2011 By 11 Comments
Susan Stamper Brown, FloydReports.com
Once upon a time, people’s hands were busy putting food on the table and they were too busy or too proud to consider extending those same hands out to the government for a handout. But that time has long passed, and time is running out before America the Great turns into America the Nanny State.
Let this Conservative go on record: When used properly, welfare can be a force for good for those most in need. Unfortunately, we have an administration, whose failed (0-97 in the Senate) 2011 budget bulged with middle-class handouts meant to expand the welfare state. Democrats are bent on making addicts of otherwise perfectly capable citizens to the designer drug of taxpayer dollars. In an attempt to make this addiction permanent, the administration rolled out Obamacare.
In 2008, anxiety over a failing economy and soaring costs of healthcare helped to propel Obama to the White House, but, three years later, and after the passing of Obamacare, the anxiety has morphed into anger – as the truth about this poorly constructed bill unfolds to find that it is nothing more than a compilation of mistakes, bloopers, paybacks and blunders that fix healthcare about as well as handing a bandage and bottle of blood thinner to a gunshot victim.
The most recent “blunder,” which involves dropping people from the middle class and rolling them onto the welfare rolls, will not only add billions of dollars of cost to the bill; it will throw millions of middle class retirees into the Medicaid program. Medicaid was created to help the most needy in our society. Medicare actuary, Richard Foster, told the House Budget Committee that a provision in Obamacare did not consider social security benefits when calculating eligibility for early retirees, effectively branding those making up to $64000 per year as destitute. Talk about the destruction of the middle class.
Most troubling is the White House admits Democrat lawmakers knew this provision was in the bill and passed it anyway….
Michigan Man Still on Food Stamps After Winning $2 Million Lottery
May 18, 2011 By 1 Comment
WJBK, Fox News Detroit
A Michigan man has continued to accept food aid from the state even though he won big in a state lottery game and said he told officials about it.
Leroy Fick won the $2 million jackpot in the “Make Me Rich!” contest in June. Despite receiving about $850,000 in winnings, the Auburn resident is still using his Michigan Bridge Card, an electronic version of food stamps.
Fick’s lawyer said his client hasn’t done anything illegal.
“He did call the state,” John Wilson, the Midland attorney representing Fick, told The Bay City Times for a story Wednesday. “Not to mention, the state knows he won. They issued the check.”
Further, Wilson said, Fick’s case was recently reviewed and his eligibility was confirmed.
“It’s not him,” Wilson said. “As far as him doing the right thing by the (Department of Human Services), he did the right thing.”
(Hat tip: Sweetness & Light.)
Cloward-Piven, Here We Come: Obama’s Food Stamp Enrollment Corps
April 15, 2011 By 3 Comments
Michelle Malkin, MichelleMalkin.com
So much for the new era of fiscal responsibility. The federal government’s dependency drones have been spared the chopping block. After vowing to eliminate funding for President Obama’s bloated $6 billion AmeriCorps social justice army, House Republicans retreated — and will shrink the AmeriCorps budget by a minuscule 6.7 percent.
Politicians originally sold AmeriCorps as an alternative to big government — a program to “renew the ethic of civic responsibility and the spirit of community throughout the United States.” With bipartisan support, the program has morphed into an all-purpose progressive slush fund. Instead of reining in the national service boondoggle, Washington has turned taxpayer-subsidized helping hands into a legion of Nanny State handout helpers. Goodbye, AmeriCorps. Hello, FoodStampCorps.
Yes, across the Internet, the feds are recruiting AmeriCorps VISTA (“Volunteers in Service to America”) workers to apply for jobs as publicists for the welfare state. Their mission: to sign up as many people to federal food stamp rolls as possible. Because, you know, the record-breaking 12 million that have been added since Obama took office is apparently not good enough.
Here’s a typical job ad in Boston: “AMERICORPS VISTA: FOOD STAMP COORDINATOR (INTERNSHIP) Through this project, the Elderly Commission will be able to provide information, assistance and support to senior citizens of Boston in applying for food stamps. Develop a full knowledge of the Food Stamp program and application process. Assist seniors in senior housing and community centers to fill out Food Stamp applications; assist seniors with gathering necessary proofs together for applications; follow up with the Department of Transitional Assistance to ensure seniors receive awarded benefits. Recruit volunteers to be trained on the application of the Food Stamp program.”
In New York, Philadelphia and a total of 30 sites across the country, AmeriCorps and the Department of Agriculture are funding the “National Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps” to “increase access to food stamps.”
National Affairs managing editor Meghan Clyne reports that the administration is roping in left-wing churches to aggressively promote food stamps.
The Democratic House: So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye….
January 6, 2011 By 1 Comment
Susan Stamper Brown, FloydReports.com
Oh, the irony of poetic justice. Every once in a while it happens. In the Bible story of Esther, Jew hater Haman was hung on the same gallows he’d originally set up to hang Queen Esther’s Jewish uncle. In the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade movie, the Nazi double agent who claimed to “believe” in the grail, but secretly loved the swastika, fell to her death after greedily reaching for the grail.
After November midterms, it seemed poetic justice had struck again when the worst Congress in modern day history who has made an art form out of kicking the American people where it hurts was itself booted out of power – until it became apparent it takes more than losing an election for those with selective hearing to get the message.
Albeit the Democrats were booted because Americans grew weary from being ignored by elected officials, Democratic leaders ignored the election results and continued their march forward in lockstep purveying the message that they may have lost a battle, but will not lose their war.
Give them credit for their determination, but it’s time to get real. Gallup awarded the 111th Congress a final record low 13 percent approval rating. It is hard to imagine any Congress who has done so much with so little support, and alienated so many. And the audacity of one such member – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – who published a press release listing the legislative triumphs of the 111th Congress….
