Why I am skeptical of the food stamp/Lexus story

I have spent half my life working with the poor. I have known literally thousands of families on food stamps. And NONE have ever owned a Lexus or a Cadillac or a Hummer or a BMW or a Benz or an Audi or any other luxury car.

Sorry that story just ain't flyin in my airport.

It benefits the rich RW overlords because it makes the working poor that they rely on for their "base" focus their disenfranchised anger on other poor people, instead of the rich elite who are destroying this country and trying to send us into an Uber-Guilded Age Redux.

The poor make the rich RW feel like they have accomplished something important by being rich. And you know what? I know poor people who are ever so much more wealthy in so many other ways.

I generally don't watch corporate news outlets anymore. It just serves to make me angrier and more depressed than I already am.

but right here on DU. :cry:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x581626

Instead of a 1980s Cadillac, it's a modern Lexus instead.

That little detail makes the story so much more exciting.

gave it a great "classist" feel...don't you think?

then you gots yourself a storee. Yes siree. :)

The gratuitous detail of the private school sticker was just too cute.

on edit: This one: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x581626

i have worked with the poor folk all of my life too..and i have been the poor folk a good amount of that time. When i was a young single mother and a student in the 70s, i was on ADC and foodstamps for a good many years...and i was extremely happy to get that help when i needed it. What we are doing here is taking this one persons account of what happened to him...and dumping him into some old Regan story about the "welfare queen with a cadillac" political gain lie...like that is what welfare people are like. That doesnt mean what this guy saw didnt happen..or that it doesnt happen, because it does. There are people who scam the system and do take help that is meant to be for people who really are in need. And it is these people..the folks who abuse the system that are the ones we should be pissed off at..they are the ones who make for such "welfare queen" stories...and they are the kinds of people who just really dont care and do not give a shit about the people who really do need the help. i have no idea what the woman with the lexus story is...maybe she did borrow the car or was helping another person out...but then again, maybe she wasnt...maybe she was just some rip off the system asshole.....thing is..we dont know. But from someone who has been one who did use and need foodstamps, i would have been probably more pissed off the the guy who did the original post.

This now tombstoned poster didn't even come up with an original story.

Low post count + just joined DU + RW talking point = BULLSHIT.

it was about a woman who drove a cadilac, but it was a story about a woman who collected welfare using many diff names..and ripped off the system for over 100,000, etc. As i recall, it was nothing like this story. Am i wrong?

Same purpose as this story - let's excite the masses. Even if we have to lie to em, let's get em goin.

But, ya know..these things do happen..not a lot, but they do..people do rip off the system if they can get away with it...look at what happened in NO..a good number of folks went back and back again to collect the $2000..using different names..taking money that was for the people who really were in desperate need, but always there are people who do play the system when they get a chance...and steal from it as much as they can get...there are such nasty people out there...there really are!!

Why don't we talk about them instead of the FEW bad apples?

guess i lied..hehe! most do not abuse the system..and are people who are so in need of help..for them food stamps are basic survival..and i am so glad that there is help at even this small level for those who are so much in need..i believe there should be, of course, much, much more than there is..much more for such folks who are in need. It is because of this belief, that i so despise it when folks do not need, but take by scamming a system that is in place to help the poorest of our citizens. That system could..and i hope someday will be much more help than it presently is to people who need it..and so many do these days. But there are..and probably always will be vile such folk who will see a way to scam it..and take what little there is for poor people right now. For that reason, if someone sees what appears to be blatant fraud..and a disregard for that system...and uses it to just take from it when they do not need it..just to make there lives easier and grab some cash from it...then i think we should talk about it..i think we should shout about it...and never excuse it by letting it just slide by as just a few bad apples.

Just tombstoned.

Damn trolls.

and extra cheese?

the 80's, supposedly they drove Cadillacs. Got to keep up with the latest brands in our mudslinging, I see. Although, I've never seen a food stamp recipient who drove anything but beat up old cars.

....to be skeptical - the private school bumper sticker did it for me. You do of course realize the closer we get to election time the worse this kind ofthing will get. :grr: :argh:

or someone had given it to her. People DO donate cars you know.

at least until it got repossessed.

Poverty can strike pretty quickly. All it takes is an abandonment of a family by a breadwinner, the loss of a job, or a serious medical illness uncovered by insurance (or inadequately so). People can go two or three months after it happens before the finance company steps in and starts repossessing things like cars and plasma TV sets.

There is an astonishing amount of poverty in "nice" suburbs, especially now that so many jobs for highly educated and well trained people have been sent to other countries.

A $50,000 car can represent a $40,000 debt and only a $30,000 blue book value. Forcing a family to unload it would leave them carless and $10,000 in debt. Better to look the other way and let the sucker go to the repo man.

than $5000, blue book.

I know someone on food stamps who drives a BMW. a 1984 bmw.

with you. Total hogwash.

That story was told by Reagan at least 20 years ago!!

especially when they come here and post them - is an important part of our work.

bought an orange at the grocery store, then took her cash change and then bought a bottle of vodka at the liquor store across the street.

The only way this story would be accurate would be if it was like this true story that I know as I witnessed it. There was a young woman from San Salvador. Came to New Jersey. Worked as an aide for an old woman who was sick. Her employer died. The young woman was then hired to take care of a widower who was in his 90s. She received $700 cash every week. Paid no taxes on it. Took the money and had someone invest it in international stocks. The young woman hooked up with a young man from Guatamala, whom she married and who moved in with her and the old man. The young woman had two children, also living in the house. The young family invited 30-40 friends over to the old man's house like it was theirs. The woman continued to get her $700 and now $200 for a weekly food budget. She took enough to buy beans and rice and invested the remainder in stocks. They added in the salary of her husband too.

She and her husband had enough money to buy a commercial strip mall with the money saved and invested. And yes, when the old man died, and the money dried up. The woman and her husband divorced so she could collect welfare for herself and her kids. They still live together in a unit of a house of which they are owner-landlords.

:eyes:

of people who set up the situation. First, the daughter of the old man just threw money at the situation, figuring that her father was being taken care of and she didn't have to think about him. She paid the woman $700 as an agency wanted that amount of money and the daughter didn't think of subtracting contracting fees from that amount, and that it came down to $100 per day for 24/7 babysitting. Second, the daughter had no concept that other aides receive much, much less. Third, the daughter didn't figure that the woman she hired didn't have to pay for shelter, utilities, insurance, etc. C'mon! How many of us get $700 and $150 per week NET???!!! I forgot to mention that when the woman went into labor, her husband didn't drive her to the hospital. No, they had a Medicaid ambulance taxi her to a hospital in the next county. Price tag was over $2,000.

I couldn't make this stuff up. It's too un-fucking believable.

That would do more good than telling the story here.

I can tell you real stories from personal experience.

BUT I WON'T! (And I don't think this is one of them.)

Any time there's a buck floating around out there, someone, somewhere, will try to steal it.

No matter how you try to perfect the system there will always be someone cheating or something going wrong, and telling stories like this, true or not, is simply trolling to demonize the the poor out there and destroy the system that is working pretty well.

And good riddance to this particular troll.

But nobody ever accused right-wingers of having perspective.

My friend drives a brand navigator, with every mod con available on it.

The daughter has no car of her own, and raises 2 little kids, she lives in a trailer, and honestly probably deserves the food stamps. She doesn't work. She is also a grade A b*tch, who thinks she deserves everyones undying servitude. She's damn lucky her mother allows her the privelege to using her car - only because thats the only way the grandbabies will have food brought for them.
Meanwhile, the daughters eldest child - whom she decided wasn't worth bringing up at the time - is being brought up by the grandmom (with the navigator) - they legally adopted her (so they can leave everything to her and sidestep her worthless biological parent/daughter) and she goes to a private school (although there is no sticker on the car denoting that)

Funny really, because its not a stretch for my friends daughter to appear in that story.

Which only tells us one thing - we really shouldn't judge, for you know not, the shoes that others have to walk in.

Each state varies, but generally, someone who owns a car, valued over 2k, wont qualify. They also take into account, other assets. That story was total BS, as others have said, it's an updated version of the "welfare queen."

Since welfare reform, circa l990s, (Bill Clinton) the criteria is much tighter.

Exactly how do you manage to see the person who was in front of you in line in the grocery store "just getting in their car" after you've checked your items and left? What did they do, stand outside and wait for you to come see them?

Sure, it's possible. Maybe you were really quick through the line, and maybe they were really slow getting in their car. It's just too conincidental.

That said, I have known people with the "card" that is used for "food stamp" access who owned expensive vehicles. They weren't receiving food stamps; they were receiving payments via an Access card for child support garnished from the non-primary care giver's wages.

and Oliver North declared Osama bin Laden the most dangerous man alive way back in 1987 when he was testifying in the Iran-Contra hearings.
And if you're driving at night, and see someone without their headlights on, DO NOT WARN THEM!!!!! It's a gang initiation and they will turn around, track down and KILL whomever warns them.
And there's lead in lipstick!
And the government forced Kentucky Fried Chicken to change its name to KFC because it doesn't serve real chicken.
And Captain Kangaroo and Lee Marvin stormed Iwo Jima in WW2!
And Atheists are petitioning the FCC to get religious broadcasting banned from American airwaves!

These are frightening times in which we live...

Please keep thread conversations in one thread