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    StenchofaburnerHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 5:39pm

    [it’s foolish to make a poor, unemployed hungry person] spend their time volunteering, for no income.

    The thing is, if the volunteering gig is a mandatory requirement, it shouldn’t be in exchange of food. It should be a paid job. Otherwise it’s not different from indentured servitude. If the volunteer is picking up trash, s/he should be offered a fucking job as a trash collector. This is a ruse to extract free labor in exchange of food well below the market rates for a similarly paid position.

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      ncoliphantStenchofaburner
      2/26/16 5:56pm

      I agree, people should be given more welfare, but as you say they should have to do more than nothing to earn it.

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      mike in So CalStenchofaburner
      2/26/16 5:57pm

      i was under the impression they are given a card with a cash value to be used for food, and sometimes its illegally bartered or traded for other stuff.

      if theyre being asked to volunteer 10 hrs/wk and theyre getting about $300/mo (i dont know what the numbers are), that works out to above federal minimum wage. I can eat on less than $10/day.

      So these are adults, with no dependants and no disabilities. If my numbers are accurate, im not sure i see the problem.

      Now if theyre being asked to pick up trash for 40 hours a week, at $300/mo, then yes thats some serious bullshit.

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    ARP2Hamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 5:59pm

    The question is: should there be any incentive for an able-bodied person to get a job, other than the fact that welfare benefits are already kind of shitty. Or, do you think that’s incentive enough? I think the three months in three years rule is pretty harsh, but should there be a cut-off point?

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      EBTARP2
      2/26/16 6:06pm

      Kind of shitty is generous.

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      flamingolingoARP2
      2/26/16 6:07pm

      Hunger might be motivation to get a job. It might also be motivation to say, “fuck it” and just start stealing what you need to survive.

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    marmeladeHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 5:47pm

    Well, as I keep telling my kids, keep your passports handy. With every day that goes by this country becomes more and more dreadful, more and more brutal, more and more hopeless.

    Even if, in some currently unimaginable way, decent ordinary people eventually do rise up angry and put a stop to all this for the sake of humanity and truth and American goodness and all that, the fact is we’ve passed a point of no return. There is no way forward that won’t involve us in a world of hurt, whether because we must endure the lethal realities of a Trump presidency (Jesus help us) or because he loses and his alienated, angry, and heavily armed mob decides to nullify the election results. Nullification being quite the thing in Republican circles since 2008.

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      fully nude GOP dudemarmelade
      2/26/16 5:54pm

      Have your kids learn German. They can go to college in Germany for free, or Switzerland for 1200 euros a year. If they learn a skill Germany needs they can apply for a Blue Card which lets them stay in Germany for four years, after which they are eligible for permanent residency. If they know B2 or better German they can actually apply for permanent residency after 18 months.

      Germany is nicer than quite a bit of the United States. Basic needs like housing, food and transportation are much less expensive. I moved to Berlin last year (from Minneapolis, after living in NYC, SF and Atlanta) and it has been a great decision.

      Along with essentially the same salary I made in NYC, I also have 30 days of vacation which I am using right now. Income tax at my level is actually LESS than it was in New York. Although the other taxes like VAT make it higher tax in general. Except since I’m still American, I just buy all my stuff when I’m in the USA.

      That said, now I have a new job which is taking me to Zurich.

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      flamingolingomarmelade
      2/26/16 5:58pm

      OK, so all the people with the means to leave the country go. And all the poor people who are being squeezed to death by conservatives have to stay. But their condition is worse because they’ve been abandoned by better-off liberals who could have stayed to fight.

      This is my country, not the GOP’s. Fuck those assholes.

      I’m staying and I’m going to give them hell in whatever small way I can. Even if that only means voting, donating, and writing pissed off letters to my congresscritters.

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    MediocrityFTWHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 6:37pm

    You have to love that all these conservatives that drum up scare tactics about people abusing the system and hordes of lazy poors sitting around all day suckling at the government teat are also those who claim to be staunchly Christian and are good, caring, honorable people.

    If they were truly Christian they’d donate all their money to help the less fortunate and try to make life better for all the truly needy and suffering, instead of using all their time and effort into helping corporate interest. If their beliefs are truly real, they’re going to be awfully sorry when they are judged in Heaven and found to be wanting. Going to be a sad trip down to Hell for forgetting what it means to be Christian and using it as a means to sucker rubes into voting for them.

    Also ironic that they demonize liberals as godless heathens when they are the ones fighting to help the poor and gain rights for women and the LGBT community. They are fighting for the people that need help and they’re supposedly the ones lacking morals.

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      DavidHHMediocrityFTW
      2/26/16 6:58pm

      Many Liberals are Christian, and many Conservatives goto Church to Pray for Money.

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      MediocrityFTWDavidHH
      2/26/16 7:59pm

      I understand that and have known, and been close to, liberal Christians, I’m more pointing out the hypocrisy of the religious right. I’m not trying to demonize Christianity in any way but rather those that use their religion for personal gain.

      ETA. It’s also pretty sad about those that pray for money when they have more than enough to live comfortably, since the Bible is pretty clear on it’s disdain for the rich. Churches like the Prosperity Churches that are popping up are an abomination. It’s sad that they are able to con the money out of people desperate enough to believe giving what little money to those churches so their pastors can live wealthy and buy themselves private jets will somehow earn the favor of God and that prosperity will come to them. The belief that personal wealth is proof of God’s favor and earning wealth glorifies God directly goes against the teachings of Jesus.

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    DarklighterHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 5:42pm

    And let’s not forget that food stamps are also an excellent economic stimulus, too. That’s money that always, always goes back into circulation immediately while providing employment for others.

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      Lee Adama's Moral CenterDarklighter
      2/26/16 5:47pm

      +1.75multiplier

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      umlolDarklighter
      2/26/16 5:52pm

      State governments scapegoat welfare recipients to make themselves appear fiscally responsible while they give their corporate buddies huge tax breaks and pet projects. It’s called “job creation.”

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    DunlinHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 5:43pm

    Translation: Can’t find a job? BOOTSTRAPS. Tried that already and still no jobs? Just have the decency to die already.

    “Are there no prisons?”
    “Plenty of prisons...”
    “And the Union workhouses.” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
    “Both very busy, sir...”
    “Those who are badly off must go there.”
    “Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
    “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

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      PoodletimeDunlin
      2/26/16 6:18pm

      Ronald Reagan, I wish I believed in the Hell he should be rotting in, is responsible for the resurgence of this pre-Dickensian thinking. Who will be our Charles Dickens? Who will write the narrative and tell the stories that remind folks in power that poor people are just like them except with way less money? Who will be our Dickens?

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      DunlinPoodletime
      2/26/16 6:22pm

      At this point, I feel it’s more like a question of whether our present-day Scrooges will ever be able to see past the ends of their own privilege.

      Wish they could try being on foodstamps for a few weeks and see first hand how fun it is.

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    KwizzHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 5:57pm

    I’m from a family of 6 kids. My parents didn’t make good decisions with family planning. We were lucky to get food stamps and other benefits, and as a result ALL of us children are educated, productive, and wholly better than the alternative history where we didn’t have access to basic things and were punished for our parents’ mistakes. In that alternate reality, society pays much much more in the long run for not helping out with basic needs. That alternatite reality is about to become reality for a lot of people soon. These choices have long-term consequences and change the types of people that our country’s children grow up to be. Just in one family, the difference in outcomes for society is HUGE so imagine the collective difference across the nation. 20 years later, our country is a shade worse than it needed to be. All because of selfishness and short-sightedness.

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      XrdsAlumKwizz
      2/26/16 6:19pm

      And if we study history we know what that alternate reality is. It's America before 1935, when life was brutal and unforgiving for the majority of people in a way most of us can't understand. It's in the process of passing out of living memory, which is why the modern GOP has the traction it does.

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      ilovecleoXrdsAlum
      2/26/16 8:22pm

      Yes, pre TVA rural people didn’t have water in a faucet There were millions of people who did not have electricity. Before social security, many people, including veterans of war, just died never having seen a doctor much less a dentist. Before even Johnnson’s Great Society. Lots of you folks have no idea what poverty can like look even it is when it is white. They really don’t know what hunger is. They really have never looked. They have no understanding of this.

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    MattyWollyHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 5:57pm

    Not surprisingly, this article is attracting racists like flies to shit.

    Never mind that most food stamp beneficiaries are Caucasian.

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      ARP2MattyWolly
      2/26/16 6:04pm

      Yes, but Minority SNAP beneficiaries take up a disproportionate share as a percentage of the general population. We should not spin uncomfortable facts.

      But, I blame systemic racism as a significant contributing factor to that disproportionality.

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      MediocrityFTWMattyWolly
      2/26/16 6:46pm

      I’m white and I’ll admit that my wife and I were on SNAP benefits for a while. We didn’t get much, like maybe $100 a month for about 4-6 months when times were tough. It helped but if both of us lost our job or were in a worse situation it would have just been a drop in the bucket. I don’t know where these people are that are supposedly getting a ton of free money and buying steaks and lobster with it, but that sure as hell wasn’t my experience with the program.

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    4thGenHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 6:49pm

    Seriously, how stupid are we, that we just swallow the notion that there’s this huge moral hazard in feeding, educating, or healing people without extracting something from them, yet none at all in shoveling money by the barrel at wars and banks and oil companies?

    We have literally been told, by rich people, that giving rich people things helps everyone, and that giving poor, or hell, just middle class people things is sinful and disgusting.

    And we have believed them.

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      DavidHH4thGen
      2/26/16 7:02pm

      And many of those rich people do nothing that is truly productive for society for a living.

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      4thGenDavidHH
      2/26/16 7:41pm

      I believe that I, personally, benefit more from my tax dollars feeding and educating children, helping the unemployed, and building roads and bridges than from bailing out banks or financing drone strikes. I don’t know how so many people have been convinced the bombs and corporate handouts are a better buy.

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    hooflungdooHamilton Nolan
    2/26/16 5:36pm

    yo bro suck on this http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/…

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      oh-indeed_cleared_his_cache_and_cookies_oopshooflungdoo
      2/26/16 5:45pm

      Are you compulsively stupid? Like, is it pathological? And, if so, is there a treatment? Do you require public assistance to obtain said treatment?

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      XrdsAlumhooflungdoo
      2/26/16 5:57pm

      What does that have to do with food stamps?

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