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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Nip this one in the bud

Nip this one in the bud

by Kay|  December 2, 201111:07 am| 146 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Election 2012, Fuck The Poor, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue

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It’s panicky, I know, but I’ve seen this movie before.

Before every food stamp recipient in the country gets smeared and lied about by Newt Gingrich, before we start pretending there’s something to debate about Gingrich’s lie that food stamps are credit cards, and go wandering off into the he said/she said weeds where things are unknowable and mysterious, let’s just stipulate that there is A TON of easily accessible information on food stamps in all fifty states and at the federal level. Boat loads. Huge collections of facts and figures. It isn’t chaos out there in foodstampland. There isn’t a lot of gray. There isn’t a lot of discretion, and opinions don’t differ.

And we now give it away as cash — you don’t get food stamps. You get a credit card, and the credit card can be used for anything.

Food stamps aren’t credit cards. He’s lying.

Here’s a state, and here’s the federal government. That only scratches the surface, because we collect information on food stamps like we collect information on every state and federal program. There’s no excuse for anyone to repeat this lie, or treat it as debatable. If Gingrich continues to repeat it, and he will, he should be called out each and every time he does so. If he isn’t called out every time, then we’re in birth certificate and death panel territory, and we’ll never find our way back.

Here is a primer on food stamps that has many exciting facts and figures.

I think the “working poor” part of food stamps is always interesting. No one ever wants to talk about that, because then we’d have to admit that many, many people work at jobs that don’t pay enough to feed their families. Maybe we could have a roundtable on why that is, instead of making shit up.

I also like this. I’ll discuss this anytime. Doesn’t get talked about NEARLY enough. It’s from 2005, so well before the Age Of Obama:

Rural Americans disproportionately rely on the
Food Stamp Program to help purchase food for a
healthy diet. Based on our analysis of data from the
Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP),
22 percent of the nation’s population lived in nonmetropolitan or “rural” areas in 2001, but a full 31 percent of food stamp beneficiaries lived there.
Overall, 7.5 percent of the nation’s rural population
relied on food stamps, compared with 4.8 percent of
urban residents.

There’s also an “elderly people on food stamps” sector that Gingrich, noted policy expert, might want to learn about before he goes wandering off all crazy with the food stamp lies, because he’s already announced he’s targeting the elderly with these lies.

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Reader Interactions

146Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 2, 2011 at 11:11 am

    Of course he’s lying.

    It’s absurdly easy, when you fucking thing about it, to code anything in a grocery store as “food stamp purchasable” or not. All the cards do are provide a means to identify the participant and authorize their use. What they can purchase is readily controlled from a central database, and the entire idea is to make the process more convenient not only for the recipient, but for the retailer as well.

    This is, if you think about it.

    Something that the 27% simply do not do, because it’s elitist and liberal to think.

  2. 2.

    4tehlulz

    December 2, 2011 at 11:12 am

    KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY FOOD STAMPS

  3. 3.

    Phylllis

    December 2, 2011 at 11:13 am

    And the flip side that no one talks about, particularly in rural areas, is how much grocery stores and the like rely on food stamp recipients for their business.

  4. 4.

    sukabi

    December 2, 2011 at 11:22 am

    If Newt’s lips are moving he’s lying… but if you squint real hard and turn your mind into a yoga pretzel, then the disbursement cards that food stamp recipients get from the state could be called ‘food credit’ cards.

    but that’s only if you’re intent on being a douchebag…

    one group you left out of ‘working poor’ are enlisted military below the grade of E-5 with spouses and children… at least that was the case 30 years ago… I know they’ve improved the pay scale a bit, but don’t think it’s keeping the lower enlisteds out of the official ‘poverty level’ grouping.

  5. 5.

    MattMinus

    December 2, 2011 at 11:22 am

    All of your “information” comes from the federal government, which is a well known ACORN front group. I’d trust PROFESSOR Gingrich’s information a lot more.

  6. 6.

    General Stuck

    December 2, 2011 at 11:28 am

    After numerous flirtations with a list of different GOP flavors, should we be that surprised, the last one standing would be the most viscous, lying, mean spirited pasty white sumbitch of them all. If I had a clue of what motivates wingnuts to do what they do, I would have predicted it.

    Newt knows the secret words, all of them. And none tap more straight into the suspicious stingy nerve for callous republicans, than the existence of food stamps, a program that has launched a thousand winger memes of liberalism leading us into all sorts of nefarious soshulist plots for polluting the well of feedom and liberty. Hungry people buying food with foodstamps? That cannot be the message, it must be wide screen teevees, and slightly used Cadillacs. lying liars.

  7. 7.

    Cathy W

    December 2, 2011 at 11:29 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: …and having worked as a grocery cashier in the age of paper food stamps, I can tell you just what a blessing the switch to cards was. You had to verify the customer’s ID against the book. You had to personally watch them tear any stamp more valuable than $1 out of the book. You could only give change in $1-denominated food stamps, for that reason. The line was getting impatient, because those perforations *never* tear easily. The customer was getting dirty looks, because you’re using my tax dollars to hold up the line! regardless of how many steaks or lobsters may have been in the food-stamp user’s cart. Now it’s simple: if all you’re buying is food-stamp eligible items, it’s the same as a debit-card transaction. Swipe! PIN! And Done! Worst case is a second transaction with cash or another card for non-food-stamp stuff.

    …and it saves the government money, too – how much did it cost to print all those little perforated booklets and account for all the little perforated slips, compared to the cost of computerized updating of food stamp accounts?

  8. 8.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 11:29 am

    Regardless of the facts about the various foodstamp programs, I think we’ve lost the battle over the racial codeword aspect. People can dissonance the hell out of this shit.

    Do you think that poor rural whites think of themselves when Newt goes off on his foodstamp tirades? Unlikely. More likely, they think of this one guy their cousin kind of used to know who used his foodstamps for hookers, blow, and Xboxes.

  9. 9.

    Ejoiner

    December 2, 2011 at 11:30 am

    Thank you, Kay, for an immediate and obvious response to the drivel coming from the right. Why isn’t this the standard response of all media outlets with a vested interest in getting actual facts across to the US population at large? Oh, wait….

  10. 10.

    carpeduum

    December 2, 2011 at 11:32 am

    Let’s see. Looks to be somewhere around half a dozen Newt blogs.

    Hey BJ fluffers…..did ya hear unemployment is down to 8.6%? If it had gone up I have no doubt Cup Half Empty Cole would have 6 blogs up by now.

    Oh well. The blogging day ain’t over yet. I’m sure Cole will find something to justify his antidepressant prescription.

  11. 11.

    cat48

    December 2, 2011 at 11:33 am

    Hi Kay,

    Does this mean if I apply for and receive foodstamps, I can’t use it to go to Hawaii like Pres. Gingrich said yesterday?? It appears he may have been LYING again! Damn!

  12. 12.

    boss bitch

    December 2, 2011 at 11:34 am

    There are plenty of Republican voters who are on food stamps and they have to know from these statements that this man is a liar.

  13. 13.

    khead

    December 2, 2011 at 11:36 am

    @Phylllis:

    Newt should have to work a grocery store in southern WV the first week of the month.

    —-

    And of course Newt’s lying, but those same WV folks above that are hitting the grocery stores already know he’s not talking about them.

    Edit: Slag got there first.

  14. 14.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 11:37 am

    @Cathy W:

    …and having worked as a grocery cashier in the age of paper food stamps, I can tell you just what a blessing the switch to cards were.

    I know this isn’t true because the government never improves efficiency. Never ever. It’s one of Newton’s God’s laws.

  15. 15.

    Social Outcast

    December 2, 2011 at 11:38 am

    You’ve misunderstood Newt. He isn’t complaining that the poor get food stamps, he’s complaining that giving them a credit card to buy food crowds out private industry from making loans to people to buy food, loans that could be paid back via indentured servitude on Citibank and Capital One debt farms. The guy is filled with ideas…

  16. 16.

    justawriter

    December 2, 2011 at 11:41 am

    This.
    When I was a filthy pinko hip-eye freak rural community organizer, one of Wellstone’s many brilliant ideas was to bring poverty organizers from the Twin Cities to rural areas during the farm crisis of the ’80s and help farmers sign up for food stamps. The money quote for the action came from one of the organizers who said, “I wasn’t really surprised that farmers qualified for food stamps. But I was really surprised how easily they qualified.”
    Rural residents and farmers were among the first parts of the New Deal Coalition to be peeled off (remember the “Sagebrush Rebellion”?). Montana showed that Democrats can reclaim a lot of the rural states if the national party would just make it a priority. Especially with the Senate it would be a huge gain for a minimal investment.

  17. 17.

    Chris

    December 2, 2011 at 11:44 am

    @General Stuck:

    After numerous flirtations with a list of different GOP flavors, should we be that surprised, the last one standing

    Race isn’t over yet.

    Rick Santorum still hasn’t had a go, has he? If Newt fizzles out like Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann and Donald Trump – and going off of the record, that seems not at all unlikely – I say Santorum’ll go next. I think that’ll be their last, because neither Ron Paul nor Huntsman are ever getting the Not Romney nomination.

  18. 18.

    David Hunt

    December 2, 2011 at 11:44 am

    @boss bitch:

    There are plenty of Republican voters who are on food stamps and they have to know from these statements that this man is a liar

    Nope. Most of the Republican leaning food stamp recipients will manage to convince themselves that this is even more proof that they’re downtrodden by a vast conspiracy. Even though they can’t buy these luxuries with their food-stamps, there must be a some sinister agency that is preventing them from taking advantage of the system in the same way as those people (i.e. anyone dark than Jennifer Connolly)

  19. 19.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 11:45 am

    @khead:

    And of course Newt’s lying, but those same WV folks above that are hitting the grocery stores already know he’s not talking about them.

    This is why TNC was so right on when he said that empathy was the handmaiden of reason and empiricism. If these people could manage to see others as they saw themselves, Newt’s snake oil would never sell at the dollar store.

  20. 20.

    somethingblue

    December 2, 2011 at 11:45 am

    Maybe we could have a roundtable on why that is, instead of making shit up.

    Or an independent, blue-ribbon commission!

  21. 21.

    El Tiburon

    December 2, 2011 at 11:46 am

    Doesn’t matter if he is lying – at least not to the MSM. They need their match up for Romney and then Obama.

    As the Washington Post noted: newt is The Idea Man.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    December 2, 2011 at 11:48 am

    Kay, I was with my brother-in-law over the holidays. He is a good guy. He manages a large grocery store in the poor end of town, so they get a lot of food stamp purchases.

    He was telling me that they can buy anything with their food stamp card, even alcohol and lottery tickets and everything. He checked with the VP of the company, and he was told that there are “supposed to be” limitations on what they buy, but that it’s legal for them to pay for anything with food stamps.

    He is angry because he sees people buying junk like that with the food stamp card, but if he doesn’t sell them that stuff on the card, they will take their business elsewhere and his store is already losing money.

    Like I said, he is a good guy, and he really surprised me with this. He lives and works in Michigan. I was frustrated by this but was going to let it go until I saw your post just now. Is there a nice little link that would tell me what can be purchased with SNAP cards? Does it vary by state? Is there any accountability, like being able to know what WAS purchased with the SNAP card?

    Not your problem, I know, but I have too much going on to research this and thought I would ask if you or anyone else has a handily link they could share.

  23. 23.

    James Gary

    December 2, 2011 at 11:50 am

    Hey BJ fluffers…..did ya hear unemployment is down to 8.6%? If it had gone up I have no doubt Cup Half Empty Cole would have 6 blogs up by now.

    I think this is about the fifth time you’ve pointed it out on this blog, so maybe someone should tell you that it’s bullsh*t… the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that “the civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to 64.0 percent.” That’s another way of saying that more people were not actively looking for work — a sign that many had given up. That 8.6% rate is essentially the result of juking the stats.

  24. 24.

    bemused

    December 2, 2011 at 11:50 am

    Newt week has been a blast. So much hilarity. Sadly, the top GOPers really, really doesn’t want Newt to be the nominee and I think they will throw everything they can at him to prevent that. I’m just going to enjoy the Newt circus while it’s still in town.

  25. 25.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    December 2, 2011 at 11:50 am

    Yeah, I work in a grocery store, and when people use their food stamp cards, there are only certain goods that the system will allow them to buy.

  26. 26.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 11:52 am

    @carpeduum:

    Let’s see. Looks to be somewhere around half a dozen Newt blogs.

    I know you’re something of a stalker, but I did want to adress your complaint, because there’s a reason for it. I never write about unemployment “trends”, good bad or indifferent, because I honestly don’t know much about that.

    I do know a little about food stamps, and I think these lies catch hold really quickly. I wish that weren’t true. I didn’t used to believe it was true. But it is. Something simple and rule-based can turn into this strange unrecognizable mystery overnight. We’ve seen it again and again. The recording/keeping of state birth records. The provisions of the ACA. Registering to vote and voting.

    These are not mysteries. Hawaii has a perfectly ordinary (and orderly, and consistent) state process for recording births.

    “Food stamps” isn’t elastic. It means something. Yet, again and again we’ve had drummed-up “controversy” over the basic facts and rules of what are easily understandable things. I think that’s deliberate on the part of conservatives, and nothing makes me crazier.

    I want Obama re-elected. I’m not working against that. Just to answer your complaint.

  27. 27.

    Phylllis

    December 2, 2011 at 11:53 am

    @WaterGirl: If they can ‘buy’ those things, it’s because the retailer is allowing it. In other words, the retailer is perpetrating food stamp fraud.

  28. 28.

    Chris

    December 2, 2011 at 11:54 am

    @David Hunt:

    Most of the Republican leaning food stamp recipients will manage to convince themselves that this is even more proof that they’re downtrodden by a vast conspiracy. Even though they can’t buy these luxuries with their food-stamps, there must be a some sinister agency that is preventing them from taking advantage of the system in the same way as those people (i.e. anyone dark than Jennifer Connolly)

    Yep.

    Matt Taibbi registered this same thing in his teabagger article:

    “I hear this theme over and over — as I do on a recent trip to northern Kentucky, where I decide to stick on a Rand Paul button and sit in on a Tea Party event at a local amusement park. Before long, a group of about a half-dozen Tea Partiers begin speculating about how Obamacare will force emergency-room doctors to consult “death panels” that will evaluate your worth as a human being before deciding to treat you.
    “They’re going to look at your age, your vocation in life, your health, your income. . . .” says a guy active in the Northern Kentucky Tea Party.
    “Your race?” I ask.
    “Probably,” he says.
    “White males need not apply,” says another Tea Partier.
    “Like everything else, the best thing you can do is be an illegal alien,” says a third. “Then they won’t ask you any questions.””

    The fantasy that the people with the least rights and protections in society are actually some kind of empowered, conspiratorial all-controlling cabal is a recurring theme with these people. See also the guys who used to believe that the Jews controlled society.

  29. 29.

    Steve

    December 2, 2011 at 11:54 am

    In Michigan they have recently been cutting off various groups from food stamps, as a budgetary measure of course. The merits are debatable. For example, under the prior rules apparently pretty much every college student was eligible for food stamps, which some people might think is silly. There were also some high-profile examples of abuse, even though they were anecdotal of course.

    But realistically, who cares? Sure, I want the government to run the food stamp program responsibly (and every other program too), most notably because I don’t want to see money taken away from the truly needy by scammers. But I have no interest in sitting here pontificating on the merits of whether such-and-such an individual “really” deserves food stamps. The whole debate appeals solely to the sort of person who likes to see the poor stigmatized, the sort of person who gets angry when they see someone buying a pie with food stamps because poor people shouldn’t have nice things. I’m glad I’m not the kind of person who obsesses over whether someone, somewhere, is getting a little more out of the food stamp program than they deserve.

  30. 30.

    handsmile

    December 2, 2011 at 11:55 am

    [Somewhat of a re-post from an earlier thread, but perhaps more topical here.]

    Should Neutmentum be more than simply this month’s collective anti-Mitt hysteria and should the “food stamps as credit card” lie take hold of the Village imagination, I have an idea for some enterprising Democrat to organize.

    Food stamp recipients should go to Tiffany’s and present their vouchers for jewelry and other luxury merchandise. Why, they could call themselves the “Calista Corps.”

    A little agit-prop (and the miracle of YouTube dissemination) may better expose this lie than “huge collections of facts and figures” (sadly).

  31. 31.

    Linnaeus

    December 2, 2011 at 11:55 am

    @WaterGirl:

    Here’s a link to Michigan’s Food Assistance Program (FAP) website. There are items that are not eligible, alcohol being one of them.

  32. 32.

    AndoChronic

    December 2, 2011 at 11:56 am

    But of course it’s always the brown folks and liberal urban utopians who get thrown under the bus!

  33. 33.

    General Stuck

    December 2, 2011 at 11:56 am

    @Chris:

    Santorum is a fruit loop of the first order, the rest don’t measure up to tea tard standards for so called conservatism. Newt’s near overnight surge, and surge is putting it mildly. More like rocketed to the top, has all the signs of a decision made, imo. by the GOP that will be voting soon. They already know Newt well, and his many flaws, and seem to have forgiven him, or they are just stuck with him. either way.

  34. 34.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 11:56 am

    @Linnaeus:

    Thanks. I was just about to put this up:

    Eligible food includes:
    Any food or food product intended for human consumption except alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and foods prepared for immediate consumption.
    Seeds and plants to grow food for personal consumption.
    Meals prepared by organizations approved by FNS as specified below.
    Meals prepared and served to eligible residents for example by a shelter for battered women and children, certain adult foster care homes, substance abuse treatment centers etc.

  35. 35.

    flukebucket

    December 2, 2011 at 11:57 am

    It cannot be over emphasized how important and helpful posts like this are. For guys like me who are not very skilled in google foo it is so nice to have somebody give reliable information.

    This will help in arguments that I am sure about to flood Facebook.

    Thank you Kay. You are a jewel.

  36. 36.

    chopper

    December 2, 2011 at 11:57 am

    @WaterGirl:

    that doesn’t make sense. maybe if the store didn’t have any computerized system (no scanners) so the checkout couldn’t differentiate between snap approved and non-approved items, but then it wouldn’t be a ‘big store’.

    if he’s actually letting people buy booze on their EBT cards he’s likely violating federal law.

  37. 37.

    FlipYrWhig

    December 2, 2011 at 11:57 am

    @David Hunt:

    (i.e. anyone dark than Jennifer Connolly)

    I volunteer to calibrate the Connell-o-meter. I have a feeling setting the right baseline is going to require a lot of careful observation.

  38. 38.

    bleh

    December 2, 2011 at 11:58 am

    Look, this is just “strapping bucks buying T-bone steaks” again, and it will catch hold and be repeated because people want to believe it.

    Facts won’t change that. All you can say is, “no, he’s lying, there are restrictions, do you think the administrators of the program are really that stupid?” and hope that OTHER people in hearing will consider your words.

    Don’t waste your breath on the 27%-ers. They know what they believe, and they’re not gonna change their minds on the basis of some silly “fact” from some librul welfare-scum-loving elitist.

  39. 39.

    Linnaeus

    December 2, 2011 at 11:58 am

    @Phylllis:

    If they can ‘buy’ those things, it’s because the retailer is allowing it. In other words, the retailer is perpetrating food stamp fraud.

    Exactly. I suspect the VP of WaterGirl’s BIL’s company would rather have the money than enforce the rules.

  40. 40.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    December 2, 2011 at 11:59 am

    Exactly — In Maryland, if the item’s bar code isn’t approved, then the item is pulled out of the purchase.

  41. 41.

    carpeduum

    December 2, 2011 at 11:59 am

    @kay: Hi Kay. My comments were not really directed at you. Your post just happened to be the latest at the top of the page.

    At least you tried to inform. Most of the other posts are just people caught up in the Newt vortex of “hey look, Newt intentionally said something stupid to rile people up again”

  42. 42.

    mk3872

    December 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    Essentially, the current Republican presidential field is made up of your crazy idiot uncles that are stupid enough to believe chain emails about food stamps paying for a trip to Hawaii or being used by millionaires.

  43. 43.

    Schlemizel

    December 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    My daughter got food stamps after she graduated college & the system her in MN identifies ineligible goods and will not allow prepared foods, I know for a fact. I think it is safe to assume cigarettes, lotto & booze are right out also.

  44. 44.

    Surly Duff

    December 2, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    It never ceases to amaze me that the typical response to any discussion of food stamps is not, “Holy shit, we have 43 million people in this country that are incapable of having enough money to feed their families without assistance from the government. That is absurd. We need to ensure that no one is so poor that they have to rely on stamps to not be hungry”. Instead we get, “You know, I remember ONCE hearing about this ONE person who bought alcohol and cigarettes (or prime rib and foie gras) with food stamps. I’m pretty sure it is true. The program should be killed because there is no way that 43 million people in this country can’t afford and be happy with ramen noodles. Ingrates.”

  45. 45.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    @General Stuck:

    After numerous flirtations with a list of different GOP flavors, should we be that surprised, the last one standing would be the most viscous, lying, mean spirited pasty white sumbitch of them all. If I had a clue of what motivates wingnuts to do what they do, I would have predicted it.

    The food stamp thing on the Right is pervasive, and coordinated.

    My House member is telling farmers here he wants to redirect federal funds from SNAP to farm subsidies.

    The “re-direct” thing is ridiculous on its face. Food stamps, are, of course, used to purchase agricultural products.

    My idiot House member is telling farmers he’s going to cut off a huge chunk of their end-use customers. Not that they figured that out. In the town hall meeting account I read they were accepting him setting this up as “farmers versus food stamps”. Fucking ridiculous. Farmers need food stamps, because food stamps are used to purchase what they produce.

    Anyway, it’s going to be all food stamps, all the time, because conservatives can’t win elections unless they set one recipient of federal assistance against another.

  46. 46.

    Raven

    December 2, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    @WaterGirl: He knows better.

  47. 47.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    @carpeduum:

    Your post just happened to be the latest at the top of the page.

    Because I stepped on AL’s post, which I didn’t mean to do :)

    I look, but then I forget to check back before I post.

  48. 48.

    Schlemizel

    December 2, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    @carpeduum:

    So, what you are saying is you have no interest in being part of the discussion, you just want to stop by, drop a big steaming turd & then hope for some fireworks?

    Thanks for clearing that up crappyduum

  49. 49.

    wrb

    December 2, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    There is a real food stamp problem:

    “In addition, Senate Republican leaders would go after “millionaires and billionaires,” not by raising their taxes but by making them ineligible for unemployment compensation and food stamps and increasing their Medicare premiums.”

  50. 50.

    Cathy W

    December 2, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    @WaterGirl: It may be that your brother’s store sees a lot of people who have cash assistance as well as food stamps – they’re handled by the same card. Cash assistance is, well, cash, and, yes, can be used for alcohol and lottery tickets and anything else.

    Food stamps, proper, can only be used for food.

  51. 51.

    Raven

    December 2, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    This’ll piss em off, check out the languages on the Georgia DHS Food Stamp site!

    Arabic (Arabic)

    Chinese (Chinese)

    English (English)

    Farsi (Farsi)

    French (French)

    Hmong (Hmong)

    Italian (Italian)

    Portuguese (Portuguese)

    Russian (Russian)

    Spanish (Spanish)

    Vietnamese

  52. 52.

    Satanicpanic

    December 2, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    @Cathy W: Here’s the point though-

    The line was getting impatient, because those perforations never tear easily. The customer was getting dirty looks, because you’re using my tax dollars to hold up the line!

    They miss the days when they could hate on people in person

  53. 53.

    wrb

    December 2, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    @cat48:

    With the awesome powers of the food stamp credit card you won’t NEED to go to Hawaii. You can order your birth certificate over the internet and they will mail it to you!

  54. 54.

    sukabi

    December 2, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    @Cathy W: the cost of the cards is a bit more complicated than that… the state / fed PAYS a fee to the banks to produce the cards & load them, the banks take a FEE FROM the recipient for EACH TRANSACTION… the food stamp recipient gets screwed, the state gets off and the banks get rich… how is that a better, more efficient system?

  55. 55.

    Comrade Mary

    December 2, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    @WaterGirl: Wow. This really sucks for your BIL. Given what people have said, if the scanners can be set by store owners, and if the store owners can override what should be the correct settings, then he’s working for a company that’s committing fraud. Up until now, your BIL could just be angry at a distant state government, not the people who sign hi pay cheque.

    OTOH, it would be great if the state could make sure that only eligible items are scanned. If they can’t manage a live link to servers, do they run any kind of random audits? Have retailers been investigated or prosecuted for this practice?

  56. 56.

    MeDrewNotYou

    December 2, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    @Steve:

    The whole debate appeals solely to the sort of person who likes to see the poor stigmatized, the sort of person who gets angry when they see someone buying a pie with food stamps because poor people shouldn’t have nice things.

    That’s something that especially pisses me off. Being on food stamps is no picnic; it means you don’t have the money to spend on things ‘for yourself,’ like a night out or a video game. One of the few pleasures you’re going to get is from treating yourself to some food you like.

    In my case, I absolutely love Reese Cups. When I had food stamps, I’d buy a small package, which ran around $1.25, along with the rest of my groceries. The dirty looks I got from some people were infuriating. I could help but laugh, though, when I heard some elderly person in their Medicare scooter mutter about it.

  57. 57.

    r€nato

    December 2, 2011 at 12:14 pm

    @Steve: there’s fraud and abuse in military contracting, as we all know well, and in terms of the dollars involved it’s on a scale that dwarfs abuse of food stamps. $9 billion famously disappeared in Baghdad.

    But if anybody suggested we should get rid of the military because of that…

  58. 58.

    aimai

    December 2, 2011 at 12:14 pm

    I lurk on a board of mostly pregnant women and a huge number of those women are or have been on WIC or some other foodstamps program. The humiliation they are still made to feel by the check out clerks and by people behind them is unbelievable–and this is for things like trying to buy “two half gallons” of milk when the form says that they can buy 1 gallon of milk. Or having any kind of “overage” like a dollar or two and trying to pay cash for the difference. Its incredible how closely watched people are when they are handling their private finances. The chances of people “getting away” with anything at the checkout line is ZERO. Fraud in these programs largely happens at a much higher level, I presume, just like its not the grandma getting her drugs who is responsible for MEdicare fraud but doctors/hospitals/pharmacies overbilling or billing fraudlently for services not rendered.

    aimai

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 2, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    @bleh:

    “no, he’s lying, there are restrictions, do you think the administrators of the program are really that as stupid as you?“

    Amended to get to the heart of the matter

  60. 60.

    lacp

    December 2, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    So now we’ve got strapping young bucks chowing down on taxpayer-funded T-bones…in Hawaii!!!!

  61. 61.

    Mary Jane

    December 2, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    @WaterGirl

    : but if he doesn’t sell them that stuff on the card, they will take their business elsewhere

    There’s the answer.

    and his store is already losing money.

    Hmm, really? A lot of employees hear that. It may be true but this particular employer has already been proven a liar.

  62. 62.

    Certified Mutant Enemy

    December 2, 2011 at 12:17 pm

    @Social Outcast:

    Hitler had a lot of ideas, too.

  63. 63.

    Maude

    December 2, 2011 at 12:19 pm

    @Comrade Mary:
    The EBT food portion of the card won’t pay for forbidden items. It will reject it. Some people have their Social Security benefits put on the cash portion of the card.
    I have EBT food only.

  64. 64.

    r€nato

    December 2, 2011 at 12:19 pm

    @mk3872: hate radio program hosts regularly ride this hobby horse, tales of somebody who read something somewhere about someone (usually it’s a minority, explicitly stated or implied) who was taking huge advantage of food stamps or unemployment.

    Radio stations can actually contract with a division of Westwood One or Clear Channel (I forget which) to have astroturf callers call in, to kickstart whatever topic the host wants to rant about. No kidding.

    If you listen to this stuff all day long… just like Fox News Channel, pretty soon you believe it’s true and happens everywhere, all the time, with just about everyone who uses government assistance.

  65. 65.

    Catsy

    December 2, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    He was telling me that they can buy anything with their food stamp card, even alcohol and lottery tickets and everything. He checked with the VP of the company, and he was told that there are “supposed to be” limitations on what they buy, but that it’s legal for them to pay for anything with food stamps.

    This is categorically untrue. Your BIL has been misinformed, and if his store is allowing customers to buy alcohol and lottery tickets with their benefits, both store and customers could suffer some fairly severe penalties. If his VP thinks otherwise, the company needs to find a new VP fast–this one is an incompetent idiot who’s exposing the company to huge legal liability.

    ETA: I see others have touched on this, including the fact that the POS equipment would likely have to be deliberately reprogrammed in order to allow this to happen.

  66. 66.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    @Surly Duff:

    Holy shit, we have 43 million people in this country that are incapable of having enough money to feed their families without assistance from the government. That is absurd. We need to ensure that no one is so poor that they have to rely on stamps to not be hungry”.

    That’s how I think of it. I also think the low-wage work subsidy aspect of food stamps would be a great conversation to have.

    Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about how we got to the point where we’re subsidizing low-wage employers by helping their employees purchase food. Food stamp recipients aren’t the only ones who benefit from this program. They’re the ones that take all the shit, but I’d like it if we’d admit that we’re all inter-connected here, and poor people aren’t the only ones benefitting.

  67. 67.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 2, 2011 at 12:21 pm

    @r€nato:

    The important thing here is the beneficiaries of the fraud, waste and abuse are good upstanding citizens like Dick Cheney, not strapping young bucks who should, by all rights, be totin’ bales at some plantation in the Mississippi Delta.

  68. 68.

    General Stuck

    December 2, 2011 at 12:21 pm

    On the other hand, I can’t find much to argue with Greg Sargent’s tossing cold water on the Newtster actually getting nominated.

    Sure, Newt Gingrich is surging in the polls. But the blunt truth about Newt is that the people who know him best and have worked with him in Washington want him nowhere near the White House or the top of the GOP ticket — and in the end, that’s likely to doom his chances.

    It’s dicey business, ciphering what crazy people might do next. Think I’ll go soak my head instead.

  69. 69.

    r€nato

    December 2, 2011 at 12:21 pm

    @Catsy: incompetent… or knows exactly what he is doing and lied about it.

  70. 70.

    Gex

    December 2, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    @David Hunt: This. Everyone I know personally that has received assistance is a white Republican. They all complain about the programs that helped them. I’m guessing it’s like the anti-choice women who get abortions. The only good abortion/welfare outlay is mine.

  71. 71.

    r€nato

    December 2, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: exactly.

    my sperm donor hated government bureaucrats and anybody else who lived off the taxes he paid. He resented every single penny he ever had to pay in taxes.

    however, he spent his entire career working in military contracting. Which is paid for… by tax money (or borrowing from China).

    Of course, that’s different.

  72. 72.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 12:25 pm

    @kay:

    I also think the low-wage work subsidy aspect of food stamps would be a great conversation to have.

    Any recent studies on this particular point? I find that this issue ties in nicely with all the Black Monday garbage we’ve been hearing about as well. But haven’t seen anything recent to go off.

    ETA To clarify…Looking for something like: The true cost of a $2 waffle maker.

  73. 73.

    Gex

    December 2, 2011 at 12:25 pm

    @WaterGirl: If his store doesn’t want to enforce the limitations because they don’t want to lose the business to another store that does… Well that’s just the free market working as far as I’m concerned – businesses competing for customers. What is he, a soshulist?

  74. 74.

    r€nato

    December 2, 2011 at 12:28 pm

    @Gex: some years ago, I visited Milwaukee with the then-girlfriend. She grew up there.

    The first couple we met, lived in West Allis. The definition of a blue-collar, rust belt town. I had known these people for not even two whole hours, but because we were all white he felt it was perfectly OK to complain about the damned n-words on welfare.

    This was a guy who had a slight gimp from a motorcycle accident years ago and stayed at home, drawing disability checks from the gov’t the entire time. He was perfectly healthy enough, as far as I could tell, to work a desk job of some sort.

    I know a woman who is the wife of a particularly boorish, loudmouthed jackass who doesn’t know how to behave in polite company and who is a very right-wing Republican. She’s been receiving disability payments for DECADES due to chronic back pain. In her case it’s a serious issue… but that doesn’t change the fact that they are living in part off the government. Doesn’t stop him from whining about people on welfare.

  75. 75.

    Gex

    December 2, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    @Steve: I’ll never understand how if even one person abuses the social safety net, it is proof that the net shouldn’t exist. But it doesn’t hold for, say, tax write offs that some people cheat to get. So even if some people abuse the tax write off, it should still be kept for those who don’t abuse it. Not so for the social safety net. Everyone else needs to be punished for the occasional case of fraud.

  76. 76.

    Catsy

    December 2, 2011 at 12:32 pm

    @r€nato: If you are the VP of a company and you are knowingly allowing your employees to commit easily-proven fraud on this kind of scale, I would call that incompetent–among many other things.

    If what her BIL said is true, he needs to retain a lawyer ASAP, find out what his own legal exposure is, and seriously consider blowing the whistle on this–because he could be facing serious criminal charges for his part in it. We’re talking about doing time for fraud.

    Seriously, WG–get on the horn with your BIL NOW.

  77. 77.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 12:35 pm

    @slag:

    I haven’t found one. I see this number all over the place, though:

    About forty percent of food stamp recipients are, like Saucedo, in households in which at least one member of the family earns wages.

    I don’t know if you recall this, but there was this big conservative outrage over Medicaid, until we found out that lots and lots of low-wage working people qualified for Medicaid. How Wal Mart was depending on the rest of us to cover their employee health care costs.

    Why do so many working people qualify for food stamps?

    That’ll be a topic on Meet The Press, right?

  78. 78.

    D. Mason

    December 2, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    Well, their efforts to shit on the unemployed, medicare recipients and social security retirees more or less failed, why not food stamps next? Strapping young bucks eating t-bone steaks might be the domestic policy boogey-man of last resort.

  79. 79.

    David in NY

    December 2, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    @WaterGirl: I am sure the local US Attorney would be happy to hear about your brother in law’s business’s illegal activity. Please advise the US Attorney’s office that the store is violating federal law, and I am sure the matter will be dealt with promptly and appropriately. I note that in US v. Sarsour, the defendant who was allowing misuse of food stamp benefits at his store was sentenced to four years in prison. In the alternative, civil penalties could be applied, stripping the store of its (highly profitable) ability to accept food stamps.

  80. 80.

    r€nato

    December 2, 2011 at 12:39 pm

    @Gex: that’s because they are all heroic Galtian uber-mensch Producers who will never have need of government assistance, so why should they have to pay for it?

    This is one of the main differences between right-wingers and progressives – empathy. They don’t have it. They see no need for the social safety net or the right to gay marry or end DADT or public transit or effective regulation of food, water and financial markets or reform of health care so that Americans don’t have to live in perpetual fear of being bankrupted by medical bills and/or health insurance premiums, until the moment it affects them personally.

  81. 81.

    Gex

    December 2, 2011 at 12:41 pm

    @r€nato: That’s the oldest story in the book. We all have a dad,brother, uncle, sister, etc. working at a defense contractor that feels they are taxed too much and the government spends too much on other people.

    My brother in law works for Lockheed Martin on one of the planes that seems to just fall out of the sky. My Dad is a Chinese immigrant that went to a state college followed by working at a defense contractor for his entire career. He’s afraid the government will waste his money. I think they wasted money educating this Chinese dude and paying his salary while not teaching him the value of the society he fought to join.

  82. 82.

    Chris T.

    December 2, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    You can’t buy non-food items with food stamps.

    What you can do (and some in fact do) is buy food items, sell them to others for cash, and use the cash to buy non-food items. In particular, some junkies will use their food stamps to get food, sell the food on the street for pennies on the dollar, and use the resulting pennies to buy a single hit. This is, of course, because they are addicts and “a hit” has become more important than “food” (there’s a reason for the term “heroin chic”). The solution, of course, is not to take away their food stamps, but rather to treat their medical problem with drugs as a medical problem with drugs. Unfortunately this is far too sensible.

  83. 83.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    @kay:

    Why do so many working people qualify for food stamps?

    It’s funny when you think about how often Democrats feel the need to not just defend their particular positions on issues but defend the existence of government itself.

    And yet you never see Republicans have to justify the existence of the market or defend capitalism as a system. Those things are just a given. It’s ironic given how often Republicans reference their imaginary version of the Constitution. I wonder how many times the Constitution directly refers to market capitalism.

    I should note that I’m not an anti-capitalist. Just that the asymmetry is puzzling and problematic. And the fact that I feel compelled to note that I’m not anti-capitalist in the process of simply promoting rational inquiry is clearly an indicator that pc egalitarianism has run amok.

  84. 84.

    wrb

    December 2, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    @D. Mason:

    Maybe we should be talking about strapping young bankers buying T-bones

  85. 85.

    FormerSwingVoter

    December 2, 2011 at 12:48 pm

    Heh. Yeah, I’m sure if we start using facts in our arguments, conservatives will care.

    Wait. We already do, and they already don’t.

    If Newt says tomorrow that gravity makes things fall up instead of down, conservatives will defend it to the death.

  86. 86.

    David in NY

    December 2, 2011 at 12:48 pm

    By the way, isn’t the farm lobby in love with food stamps? It’s more than just poor people who benefit from them.

  87. 87.

    David in NY

    December 2, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    @slag: Interesting that Frank Luntz has decided that capitalism is a dirty word. Time to use it more — disparagingly.

  88. 88.

    RSA

    December 2, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    I can see the bumper stickers now:

    “T-bones, Cadillacs, Hawaiian vacations. Vote Newt 2012.”

    Or, to strip away the pretense:

    “Shiftless minorities are stealing your money. Vote Newt 2012.”

  89. 89.

    negative 1

    December 2, 2011 at 12:53 pm

    @sukabi: No they can not. They can be called prepaid food allowance cards. They do not set up a credit for the recipient under any circumstances.
    I think that this article is one of the best I’ve read in a while. I used to be an auditor for a CPA firm, we did plenty of federal audits. They are FAR more comprehensive than private sector audits, because they ARE private sector audits with a slew of additional testing. As a matter of fact, the threat that the SEC has held over the accounting profession for years is that if FASB couldn’t reign in financial sector accounting they were just going to demand federal style audits from everyone.

  90. 90.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    @David in NY: I like the idea. At least in its potential applications. One of which being when Jon Stewart has his next Republican on, he might ask him to defend the existence of capitalism. I’ll believe it when I see it.

  91. 91.

    Cathy W

    December 2, 2011 at 1:03 pm

    @sukabi: I’d agree absolutely that there should not be a per-transaction fee taken out of the recipient’s account – if you’re supposed to be getting $X/week for food, you should get $X, not $X minus banking fees.

    On the other hand – and should I put on my asbestos undies before saying this? – if a bank can manage the electronic program more cheaply than the state can manage the paper program, then it’s probably worthwhile for the state to pay a bank to manage it just to not have to deal with the paper food stamps, unless there’s some better alternative that doesn’t involve the state setting up a parallel banking infrastructure just to deal with food stamps and cash assistance payments.

    If a legitimate service is being rendered, I don’t have a problem with a reasonable fee being paid. If the state is paying too much (and, knowing the banks, I suppose it probably is), that’s an implementation problem… but I think in general the move to electronic cards over paper scrip was a good one.

  92. 92.

    Cassidy

    December 2, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    @WaterGirl: Not sure if you’ve been answered, but I can tell you about Florida. Essentially, I receive a certain sum of money every month for my family. I can buy food items. My limitations are that i cannot buy prepared, hot foods (roasted chicken, etc.), alcohol, and non-food items. I can stop into a mini-mart and buy a soda. I can buy Lobster and crab legs and t-bone steaks. I cannot buy gas, toilet paper or laundry detergent.

  93. 93.

    boss bitch

    December 2, 2011 at 1:06 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    You cannot buy lottery tickets with food stamps. The card would know that it is a non-food item and tells you to pay the balance with your own cash.

    You know its likely that your brother may be seeing customers who get cash assistance from the state. I think, I THINK, that is also put on a debit card. I don’t know the rules for how that can be spent though.

  94. 94.

    cckids

    December 2, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    @Phylllis: It may also be a case; as noted above, that the person using the food stamp card has, essentially, two transactions going–the food goes on the food stamp card, the rest on his/her personal card or checking account. Many times, the person watching won’t really know that is going on unless they are paying close attention. I’ve worked in grocery stores, too, and many of the cashiers, being at poverty-level wages themselves, are sympathetic & don’t make a big deal about it.

    Of course, part of what is aggravating Newt & the other angry people is that the people using food stamps actually have the temerity to buy a little booze, or whatever “luxury” item they are bitching about. God forbid they try to have a bit of enjoyment. No empathy whatsoever.

  95. 95.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    December 2, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    @r€nato:

    I am a federal gubmint employee. We had a guy in this office who was the same way: hated paying taxes, spoke in code all the time referring to “those people”, etc., and generally begrudged every dime he had to pay in federal, state and local taxes.

    The asshat also worked as a federal employee for 42 fucking years in order to completely max out his retirement. He also worked behind the scenes to get his deadbeat daughter a job with the state.

    I wish him and his ilk nothing but ill.

  96. 96.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    Agencies started putting food stamps on swipe cards for the express purpose of PREVENTING THEM FROM BEING SOLD OR TRADED FOR ANYTHING UNAUTHORIZED

    The WHOLE POINT of putting food stamps on a card is so they CAN’T be used for anything else.

    Gingrich knows this, but as a fat shit liar, he knows that your average right-wing fuckhead thinks that everything with a magnetic strip is a Mastercard.

  97. 97.

    Woodrowfan

    December 2, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    I’ve seen people in my local Safeway buying food with the “Food Stamp” card, then buying a six-pack or some smokes with cash. if the card paid for anything wouldn’t they have made it in one purchase? Newt is lying scum, always has been, always will be.

  98. 98.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 1:17 pm

    This is one of those moments like when George H. W. marveled at a grocery store checkout scanner.

    I can almost believe that Newt Gingrich doesn’t know how a swipe card works unless it’s an American Express Platinum he uses to spend embezzled campaign funds on diamond necklaces for his mistress. (True story.)

    Because it’s actually a story of the triumph of technology and American innovation that food stamps are on swipe cards so they can’t be misused. The sort of thing that Newt always likes to pretend he knows a lot about, like every other dumbshit conservative “professor”.

  99. 99.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    @r€nato:

    I know a woman who is the wife of a particularly boorish, loudmouthed jackass who doesn’t know how to behave in polite company and who is a very right-wing Republican. She’s been receiving disability payments for DECADES due to chronic back pain. In her case it’s a serious issue… but that doesn’t change the fact that they are living in part off the government. Doesn’t stop him from whining about people on welfare.

    I hope you ask this guy all the time things like, “How’s it feel to be on welfare” and “how’s your wife’s welfare holding up with the Republican Congress” and then slap him on the back and laugh like you’re the best of pals

  100. 100.

    Mike in NC

    December 2, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    @FormerSwingVoter:

    If Newt says tomorrow that gravity makes things fall up instead of down, conservatives will defend it to the death.

    Sadly, this miserable excuse for a human being will inevitably self-destruct again in a matter of weeks. Hopefully before that happens people will get to see him pounding a podium and denouncing the minimum wage. Wingnuts seem to think that’s the cause of high unemployment.

  101. 101.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    @D. Mason:

    Strapping young bucks eating t-bone steaks might be the domestic policy boogey-man of last resort.

    Try first resort. If Republicans can promote a policy that will cause black children to starve to death, they will do it.

  102. 102.

    cckids

    December 2, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    @MeDrewNotYou:

    Being on food stamps is no picnic; it means you don’t have the money to spend on things ‘for yourself,’ like a night out or a video game. One of the few pleasures you’re going to get is from treating yourself to some food you like.

    This. In a nutrition class I took in college, we touched on food stamps & (this being Nebraska), many of the white, Republican kids were outraged that people could use them for Twinkies, or T-bones, or whatever they wanted. The professor did a great job, actually, of educating them about the psychology of getting govt assistance, the need to have some control over such a basic part of your life as WHAT YOU EAT, the importance for some users to develop planning and budgeting skills, and, sometimes, the simple human need to have/eat what others are eating, rather than attempting to exist on ramen & beans.
    20 years later, it is a class session I still remember, just for the sheer awesomeness of the teaching skills involved.

  103. 103.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 1:26 pm

    This is for sure a KKK gin-em-up thing where Gingrich encourages white racists to fume every time they see a black person anywhere using a card to pay for anything.

    Don’t forget, his entire strategy in Congress was based on white racist support for Republicans.

  104. 104.

    KeithOK

    December 2, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    @carpeduum: Isn’t the fact that 8.6% unemployment is considered “good news” enough of a downer.

  105. 105.

    r€nato

    December 2, 2011 at 1:28 pm

    @comrade scott’s agenda of rage: well, while we’re sharing tales of idiot co-workers…

    for a semi-brief period I worked at sperm donor’s company. I worked alongside engineers, primarily. One of them was what I took to be a libertarian or just a full-on idiot. He was casually telling me his story on one particular day, of his troubles with the IRS. Seems that his attitude towards income taxes was that the government could keep whatever withholding they took from him and that should satisfy his tax obligations, fair and square.

    He had not filed his taxes for years. Now the IRS was coming after him, I was never clear what exactly for. Not filing, hadn’t paid enough tax, whatever.

    This guy was an engineer with two degrees. Hello, jerk, you don’t have to like paying taxes but that’s not how the system works! You might even have overpaid in the past!

    I will say, to give him a modicum of credit, he was not angry as he related to me his tale of stubborn idiocy.

  106. 106.

    RalfW

    December 2, 2011 at 1:28 pm

    The following was written using each of Newt’s “negative” power words from his 1996 GOPAC memo:

    Newt Gingrich’s abuses of power, whether being anti-family, or anti-child, betrays his anti-jobs agenda. His bizarre use of the cash from the bosses of the Freddie Mac bureaucracy shows how much Newt likes to cheat to get ahead financially.

    Sure, he might not use direct coercion, but “compassion” is not enough of a reason to expect he’ll not see collapsing consequences from his corrupt empire, built on non-lobbying. This corruption, this seeking of funds to enhance his criminal rights to “historical consulting” fees has precipitated a crisis of cynicism at Baloon Juice.

    The decay of the GOP is clearly deeper that we thought. Gingrich may well destroy what’s left of the GOP brand among lunch-bucket Republicans.

    Newt’s destructive appetite for acclaim will devour his soul and disgrace his family and church. In fact he endangers all who campaign even near him.

    Sure, he will make excuses for his failure to win the presidency. But we will know it’s his greed and hypocrisy that will carry him to new ideological heights, and troughs.

    Now, should Newt win, he’ll impose his incompetent management over the nation, never knowing his own insecurity has led him to such insensitive, intolerant policy-maiking.

    Meanwhile, his liberal stance on immigration is probably a lie. He claims he wants limits on the machine of granting citizenship, but his mandate is actually obsolete. It’s pathetic to think he’d seek the patronage of Hispanic voters by pretending to have a permissive attitude towards immigrants.

    In fact Newt’s plan is pessimistic. In his efforts to punish the poor, opening the path to more low-wage workers will only make the lazy more emboldened.

    Newt has other radical ideas. He claims to hate red tape but his self-serving plan to privatize and later eliminate Social Security are the ultimate, selfish expressions of his sensationalist fantasies about who lives on SSI.

    No doubt, Newt is shallow, wallows in shame, and has a sick addiction to spending government money – a la Freddie Mac funds for Calista’s expensive Christie’s baubles – while the nation suffers stagnation and status quo. Newt is on board for the job creators continued plans to steal the taxes of the middle class, even as the rich threaten to never pay again.

    Newt’s traitors are never unionized, but for the urgency of their greed, they act as if a union – one of waste coupled with corporate welfare.

    \\
    In alphabetical order, even.

  107. 107.

    aimai

    December 2, 2011 at 1:29 pm

    Yes, having a card, like having a car, is a privilige that should be reserved for white people. Now Newt is creating a new category “CCWB” or “Credit Card Use While Black” and casting doubt on its legitimacy. How soon before white citizens will be encouraged to perform “taxpayer arrests” of people “unlawfully” charging cigarettes, diapers, and beer on their own credit cards?

    aimai

  108. 108.

    sukabi

    December 2, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    @negative 1: comment was snark… Newt will tie himself in knots trying to redefine the definition of ‘credit card’ if called on this…. it will be an epic revisiting of Clinton’s definition of ‘is’…

  109. 109.

    El Cid

    December 2, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    @slag: If you are a liberal, or momentarily wish to agree with some liberal notion or policy, it is your responsibility to know everything about anything stretching across the entire history of the Universe and every historical development and socio-psychological tendency to justify anything a conservative wishes to demonize. It’s your duty.

    A conservative, on the other hand, has merely the responsibility to accuse liberals of something in a pithy and analogical or anecdotal soundbark. You do the rest.

  110. 110.

    sukabi

    December 2, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    @Cathy W: depends on if you value federal workers over private sector workers and the impact on the economy at large… ie are the banks paying their employees who deal with this fair wages / benefits, or is the state picking up the slack in food stamp allowances for their under paid employees?

  111. 111.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    @AA+ Bonds:

    This is one of those moments like when George H. W. marveled at a grocery store checkout scanner.

    It’s not at all like that.

    We never hear anything about the nuts and bolts of programs “for the poor”, as the NYTimes calls all poor-people-related news.

    Republicans started ginning up resentment on Medicaid a year ago, and it took a full six months before anyone reported that a giant chunk of Medicaid spending goes to old, poor people (nursing homes) and disabled people.

    We wouldn’t have had all that demonizing had that FACT been up-front, because even conservatives aren’t going to go after people in nursing homes and disabled people. It would have been an entirely different “debate” had we started with the facts.

    We didn’t hear anything about what Medicaid really is or where it goes, but we went full speed ahead “debating” it regardless.

    Republicans and media were talking about some imaginary Medicaid program, not the one that exists. They’re going to do the same thing with food stamps.

  112. 112.

    WaterGirl

    December 2, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    Wow. WordPress won’t allow that may links, so let me just say a big thank you to every person who replied to my question.

    Just guessing, but I am willing to be that it is the cash assistance that is making the whole thing so confusing for him. I am calling him now.

    Thanks again!

  113. 113.

    Steve

    December 2, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    It’s actually really funny to think that anyone would complain about people using food stamps to buy lottery tickets, considering the money would go right back to the government if that really happened. The actual cost to the government would be zero.

    Oh, also, that thing with Bush I and the supermarket checkout is a myth, just like Al Gore and Love Canal. FYI.

  114. 114.

    Gex

    December 2, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    @WaterGirl: Given all the answers here, I can’t help but wonder why your BIL didn’t come up with any of these on his own. More fun just pointing fingers and blaming I guess.

  115. 115.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    @AA+ Bonds:

    I don’t know if you remember this, but there was a Kaiser poll on Medicaid that came out in the midst of the Medicaid Demonization Project that caused all this head-scratching among the clueless.

    MOST people support Medicaid. That’s because A LOT of people rely on Medicaid. They know they’re on Medicaid, unsurprisingly.

    The headlines were like “most people support program for the poor”. They still didn’t get it. There’s this crazy distancing, or denial going on.

    That wouldn’t happen with the supermarket scanner/clueless Bush incident.

  116. 116.

    bemused

    December 2, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    @comrade scott’s agenda of rage:

    There’s no discrepancy in his mind. He deserves it but the other guy doesn’t.

  117. 117.

    johnsmith1882

    December 2, 2011 at 1:55 pm

    there is an aspect to this that i havent seen addressed (at least in the first 30 or so comments i read before skipping to the end): to get food stamps, you have to prove, really really prove (and it is a pain in the ass, as anyone who has applied knows), that you are really poor. really f-ing poor. when i was unemployed a couple of years ago, i applied for food stamps, and was rejected, because i had worked in the recent past, and had saved a bit of money. so, having even a pittance of money is enough to disqualify you for food stamps.

    so basically, i dont care if you can buy flat-screen tvs and trips to hawaii (i know, you cant, just play along) with food stamps, because if you are poor enough to qualify for food stamps, you use them to buy food. to eat. because you are really really f-ing poor.

  118. 118.

    shortstop

    December 2, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    Thanks, Kay.

  119. 119.

    WaterGirl

    December 2, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    @WaterGirl: Just talked to my BIL, and it is the cash assistance, rather than the food stamp program (SNAP) that allows them to buy the cigarettes, etc.

    At least now I don’t have to worry about him getting into trouble by selling stuff like that on the EBT cards.

    On the other hand, he thinks it’s just WRONG that folks get the cash assistance that they can use on liquor and cigarettes and stuff like that. I’m not sure the government is doing anybody any favors by putting the different flavors of money on the same cards – seems like it would just add to the confusion and encourage people to say you can get that stuff on food stamps, as my brother-in-law did.

    At least if the cash assistance was on a different card, it would be harder for people to confuse the two.

    I am guessing that it’s easy to see the worst behavior when you work at a grocery store because you would see all the people who DO game the system. Like the ones he says buy as much pop as they can buy on their EBT cards, then go out back and empty out all the pop, then collect their bottle return money and buy cigarettes and alcohol. I’m sure that would be maddening and it’s a shame that a few people who abuse the system give a bad name to everyone.

    Thanks again to all who answered.

  120. 120.

    Kilkee

    December 2, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    In college I was married, a father, and broke enough to get food stamps. Back then they gave you the coupon book with, say $50 worth of coupons; depending upon income you might pay $5 for it or $40 for it. As a result, the cashier could not know when you checked out whether the $10 coupon represented a $1 subsidy or a $9 one. It never stopped them from sneering. On at least one memorable occasion the cashier actually demanded to know “How long do they let you freakin’ college kids collect food stamps?” Having an infant daughter on my hip didn’t help. Anyway, after college, law school, and some time establishing a career I’m certain that, as I had promised the cashier, once I didn’t need them any more I’d pay more in taxes each year than she was making.

  121. 121.

    kwallio

    December 2, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    I think one of the objections that the rightwingers have to the cards is that it makes identifying people on assistance harder. I too am old enough to remember the PITA of waiting in line behind someone paying with the booklets of stamps. With the card its much easier, you pay like everyone else and move on. Many times I’ll see people come to the store in pairs, one person taking the food items through and then the other person taking the stuff that the card won’t pay for right behind them so its not obvious they are paying with EBT.

    Like someone else already said, the card was created to cut down on fraud. Before the cards food stamps were like an underground second currency…and stories were rife of corner stores committing fraud by taking food stamps for lottery tix, booze, etc.

    Newt is of course lying through his teeth and dogwhistling.

  122. 122.

    Linda

    December 2, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    Well, Polifact called it a “pants on fire” lie, if that helps, except that only reaches people who read past the headline, so it doesn’t really. The thing is, Gingrich knows the media’s big weakness, which is that everything a candidate says has to be treated as a distinct possibility, even if it’s an insane bald-faced whopper. We cannot treat candidates like psychopaths and liars, even if they are, because that would be “bias.”

  123. 123.

    WaterGirl

    December 2, 2011 at 2:13 pm

    @Kilkee:

    Anyway, after college, law school, and some time establishing a career I’m certain that, as I had promised the cashier, once I didn’t need them any more I’d pay more in taxes each year than she was making.

    Good comeback! I was a cashier for 5 years as I put myself through college, and I can guarantee that if you came through my line, you never got a sneering look from me. But I did work with some pretty small-minded people, so it’s sad, but not surprising, to hear that sneering was the norm.

  124. 124.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    December 2, 2011 at 2:17 pm

    @WaterGirl: Eisners!

  125. 125.

    mk3872

    December 2, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    @r€nato: Yup, I completely get that. What I find amazing is that it has now infiltrated the supposed “leaders” of 1 of our 2 national political parties. Even their presidential contenders believe this stuff !!

  126. 126.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    @Linda:

    “pants on fire”

    I’m a pain in the ass on this, and (obviously) nothing short of beating the shit out of Gingrich will satisfy me at this point, but isn’t “pants on fire” too cutesy? It ruins it for me. I associate that with cuteness.

    And. Further. In addition. Why do we even have “Politifact”? News is supposed to be fact.

  127. 127.

    David in NY

    December 2, 2011 at 2:28 pm

    @Maude: @WaterGirl: What state are you in? We might be able to help more, if we knew.

    Also, is your brother-in-law sure your state doesn’t allow people to have Social Security benefits put on their card as @Maude: noted above? Why don’t you give him a call and ask that?

    Gee, your family sure has topical conversations. I mean, who could have imagined over the holidays when your brother in law told you this stuff, that Newt Gingrich would be saying the same things just a few days later?

  128. 128.

    Bulworth

    December 2, 2011 at 2:33 pm

    Yeah but Newt is a Great Idea Man and he has great ideas and would make the WH a place of Great Ideas and bullsh$t.

  129. 129.

    David in NY

    December 2, 2011 at 2:34 pm

    Quiz: There is one comment on this page that oddly seems to begin (if not continue) just like a letter to the Penthouse forum.

  130. 130.

    Chris

    December 2, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    @mk3872:

    History supplies quite a long list of national leaders who were freaks, loons, megalomaniacs, delusional, shit-stupid, too bored to govern, and otherwise completely unqualified to be running a country. We like to think we’re moving past that, but unfortunately it would appear not, and there’s a ton of people who seem devoted to doing everything they can to make sure we never do.

  131. 131.

    Linda

    December 2, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    @kay:

    Yes, the news is supposed to be the facts, but that’s just the point. News people are so cowed by right-wingers that work the refs endlessly that they have to have a non-bylined column to hide behind, so that they can call a spade something other than a manual agricultural implement.

  132. 132.

    Woodrowfan

    December 2, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    @David in NY:

    Quiz: There is one comment on this page that oddly seems to begin (if not continue) just like a letter to the Penthouse forum.

    Odd, I didn’t see a single comment involving twin Swedish stewardesses…

  133. 133.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    @Linda:

    I think we have to start over:

    Food Stamps: what are they?

    Social Security: where does it come from?

    Medicare: a government-run health plan

    I read the other day that a truly disturbing number of people believe that the US Chamber of Commerce is a government agency, hence, when the shadowy Chamber run ads in my state lying about Sherrod Brown, all of those viewers must think these lies have some official seal of reliability.

    I bet that was deliberate.

  134. 134.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    @kay:

    I’m a pain in the ass on this, and (obviously) nothing short of beating the shit out of Gingrich will satisfy me at this point, but isn’t “pants on fire” too cutesy? It ruins it for me. I associate that with cuteness.

    I agree with this. It invokes the image of a six year-old trying to claim he just doesn’t know where that extra cookie went.

    I’m not down with this winky-nod communication style when it comes to dealing with responsible adults. Especially those who are vying to get their hands on nuclear buttons and economic levers.

  135. 135.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    @slag:

    Doesn’t it though? Too coy. Like they’re still afraid to call him a liar.

    One of my sisters is following the Murdoch situation in the UK., watching hearings, etc. (from here: she’s not there) and she said they’re having this great, wide-ranging, brutally honest debate on the media and coverage of politicians and politics, and whether they’re misinforming the public, and how chasing profits fits into that.

    We need that. It would be different, because we have different laws and norms, but we need something like that.

  136. 136.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    @kay:

    Doesn’t it though? Too coy. Like they’re still afraid to call him a liar.

    Agreed. It parallels the paradox that DougJ and many others have noted about how people like Tommy F can blithely go on the teevee and tell brown people across the world to “suck on this”, but then all the shoddily arranged fainting couches become a major trip hazard the moment we dare call out Tommy F’s statements as being incredibly irresponsible and borderline racist. Gasp!

    Just as liberals and conservatives have very different views of what’s a private matter and what’s a public matter, we also have very different views of what’s appropriate and what’s not.

  137. 137.

    PTirebiter

    December 2, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    I think one of the reasons ugly crap like this endures is all the anecdotal experiences huge public programs can generate.
    I live in a rural area and it’s not at all uncommon to be in a grocery check out line when a young women with small children uses her state EBT card to buy to buy a few bucks worth of over priced candy or chips and soda. Sometimes I have to remind myself about the behaviors learned in a culture of poverty and that it’s still growing. And I have to remind myself that this fairly common experience doesn’t represent the common food stamp recipient. I doubt the common recipient shops midday or impulsively buys a few items at a time. But the average recipient probably isn’t particularly memorable to the right wing because they don’t affirm the resentments that Rush and Newt have been nurturing in them for years.
    My point being it’s a lot easier to remember and resent the teenage “welfare mother” than it is to be reminded of how much harder and unfair it is for so many of our own. It never ceases to amaze me how many professional victims and perpetually aggrieved can rally under a banner of personal responsibility.

  138. 138.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Like the ones he says buy as much pop as they can buy on their EBT cards, then go out back and empty out all the pop, then collect their bottle return money and buy cigarettes and alcohol.

    Unless you live in rural Cambodia or someplace where cigarettes are the price of driftwood, this is just a lie he’s telling you, a “sister’s cousin’s dog’s nephew” urban legend that he’s claiming happened to him. Republicans do that a lot. Even my Republican friends do it when they’re losing an argument.

    Judging by your posts above, pretty much everything this guy tells you is a lie. I speak as someone who worked in the grocery business for three years.

  139. 139.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    @Steve:

    Oh, also, that thing with Bush I and the supermarket checkout is a myth, just like Al Gore and Love Canal. FYI.

    FYI, it’s completely true. Republicans are befuddled and elderly and don’t understand innovation.

    @El Cid:

    A conservative, on the other hand, has merely the responsibility to accuse liberals of something in a pithy and analogical or anecdotal soundbark. You do the rest.

    Most of my work here involves convincing liberals that they, too, can do this.

  140. 140.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 5:36 pm

    @RalfW:

    Really great job on this, probably the top comment of the thread, especially as you explain how you created it

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    December 2, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    One thing I notice in these type of threads.
    We have so many different departments/programs for “welfare” that talking about one allows the conversation to be disconnected.
    Medicare, medicaid, cash subsidies(welfare?), unemployment, food stamps, SSDI, SCHIP and I don’t know how many others. That’s the federal level, what about the state?
    All of theses give assistance but if you are getting one you can yell about anyone on one of the other programs without being hypocritical. That’s not your program, that’s the one that’s being abused. Of course many of the complainers are in one of the groups they are yelling about but still.

  142. 142.

    AA+ Bonds

    December 2, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    @kay:

    Don’t worry about that stuff. It won’t fly, it’s too complicated, it’s matched up against Young Bucks A-Strappin’. That’s my point.

    Rove Strategy: attack their strengths.

    Republicans believe that Newt Gingrich is Big Time Smarts Guy, college professor intellectual, ready to tell you about Toffler’s Third Wave and how technology is going to give us Dow 100,000 a couple months after we defund all regulatory agencies.

    But what if Newt Gingrich is so stupid and senile that he doesn’t understand How Does Card Swipe Work? What if poor old Newt thinks everything with a magnetic strip is a credit card, because he’s just that old and out of touch? “You use a debit card, don’t ya? Can you believe that Newt doesn’t know those exist?”

    Then, we’re cookin’. All of a sudden, we can attack Newt’s statement on food stamps without worrying if our viewers/listeners even support or understand food stamps.

  143. 143.

    WaterGirl

    December 2, 2011 at 6:10 pm

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): Yep! And I was the union rep. Troublemaker, even back then.

  144. 144.

    Rome Again

    December 2, 2011 at 7:04 pm

    @Cathy W:

    …and it saves the government money, too – how much did it cost to print all those little perforated booklets and account for all the little perforated slips, compared to the cost of computerized updating of food stamp accounts?

    The S&H Green Stamp method of purchase is so nostalgic. Rural folks don’t want no stinking plastic card with pin numbers. They want to hold their food dollars in their hands! I’m sure Newt will get right on that and fix this as soon as he wins the election (which will be NEVER!)

  145. 145.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    AABonds do you have any idea how many times I have heard this messaging lecture?

    Each and every election cycle, where I live ,someone wants to tell me how to talk.

    I listen politely because I generally like those people, but I’m NOT actually a pro, and the beauty part of that is I don’t have to talk like Karl Fucking Rove.

    I’m not doing it. Not now, not ever.

    YOU can do it. How about that? Good idea?

    I don’t want to. If I wanted to be ‘like’ one of them I would just BE one of them.

    I think it’s great that you want to talk like this, like a professional operative or marketing person but I don’t want to.

  146. 146.

    Exlitigator

    December 3, 2011 at 10:15 am

    It all makes sense if you treat money as fungible like the antichoicers do. A dollar in food stamps saves the person a dollar they can use for drugs. Also too, if you use your whole months budget, you can buy lobster.

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