Public Responds to GOP Plan to Refuse Food Stamps to families with more than $2000 of total assets
There may be a need to a reasonable asset limit, however, the proposed $2,000 asset limit that the PA. Republicans will put into effect in May is absurd and lacks any compassion or reason. Here is some response to this plan:
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20120113_Letters_to_the_Editor.html
"Food stamps, first and foremost, help feed our nation's children ("Pa. plans asset test for food stamps," Tuesday). Among participating households with children, nearly 50 percent include working adults. This program, sponsored by the U.S. Agriculture Department, provides a cushion to those working at low wages. For the elderly on fixed incomes, food stamp benefits, now made available via a debit card, translate into shopping with dignity. They can have cash in their pockets for medications and keep the furnace fueled.
Requiring families to tap into their meager savings is punitive and lacking in compassion. Food stamps, funded by Washington, put food on our neighbors' tables, keep children and the elderly from being malnourished, and stimulate local economies by sustaining jobs in the retail-food sector.
Sydelle Zove, Conshohocken"
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"People struggling to feed families
I was appalled by the proposed new Department of Public Welfare rules that will make the amount of food stamps people can receive contingent on having assets of $2,000 or less for those under the age of 60. Having a car or a home is exempted, but it's hard to maintain these assets if you're unemployed. How shortsighted and cruel this proposed rule is, especially when we are struggling to come out of a recession and many people are still unemployed and struggling to feed their families. The rate of fraud in the food stamp program is one half of one percent and 30 percent of eligible people have not even applied for this assistance.
Gov. Corbett takes away what people need and tries to give them what they don't need or want. Two examples: A voter photo ID law that will cost millions to implement and an insistence that companies making millions from drilling should not be taxed. At the same time, school funding is dramatically reduced and now availability to food aid is on the chopping block.
Cynthia Jones, Warminster"
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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20120115_Pa__s_food-stamp_asset_test_gets_prominent_pushback.html
Excerpt of news article:
"It just doesn't make any sense to me," Brady, the Philadelphia Democrat, said in an interview Friday. "We're trying to figure out hunger, and this drops us back to square one. I don't think they really thought this through."
Brady's voice was one of many raised last week on the Internet, radio, and in newspapers, against the Department of Public Welfare plan.
If a person owns a car, that vehicle also would be exempt, but any additional vehicle worth more than $4,650 would be counted. "All of a sudden, the state is in the used-car business?" Brady said. "And you save a lousy $2,000 and then you're off food stamps?" On Thursday, Brady wrote a letter to Gov. Corbett calling the asset test "devastating and counterproductive." He said it would burden an "already overworked county-assistance workforce" and damage the state's food industry, including grocers.
Union officials also say an asset test is bound to cost Pennsylvania more money. "The major cost we will see is in actual hours, which will go up tremendously," said Donna Scarboro, business agent for Service Employees International Union Local 668 in Philadelphia, which represents caseworkers."
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A video that describes the issues and then moves into satire:
http://susiemadrak.com/2012/01/11/piggie-of-the-week-a-modest-proposal-for-tom-corbett/
