St. Michael, Amen!
Paidion, I just got through reading your story. Thank you for sharing. 
This is truly humbling and I suddenly feel spoiled rotten. 
On an added note, I believe that many children would benefit greatly from hearing stories like yours, told by real life people, in the classroom.
Here in the mid south where I live, quite a few people *try *to get on disability so they do not have to work a crappy minimum wage job. And many have no intention of bettering themselves. I have known a handful just from the place I work at. Cindy’s post about the culture of the poor is correct. Thus I think checks and limits are necessary, which you seem to agree with.
In the news this week three states here in the US are looking to require drug testing for persons receiving food subsidies. In my area that could be a big problem for some. As I mentioned earlier: “Society Is only served if the whole understands the need for production across the board.”
I need to make a statement, regarding the SNAP program. Geoffrey asks
,
or something to that effect.
I believe it’s done, at the store owner level. Take a convenience store, grocery store, drug store or dollar store - for example. If the store utilizes the SNAP program, they (i.e. owner, manager and employees) are not supposed to use the SNAP funds, for alcohol or tobacco (or in some states, recreational pot). And who is supposed to be policing this?
The federal agencies (with outdated IT equipment)
The state police
The local police
Etc.
Now I have never seen a liquor store in Illinois, that offered the SNAP program. I’m sure the same would be true, for those states offering recreational pot.
So, Geoffrey. If you were D.T.:
How would you safeguard the SNAP program?
Or what would you replace it with?
And how should it be administered and regulated?
And if we scrape Obamacare or replace it with something equally “questionable” - guess what? Poor folks will go to the hospital emergency room, like they did in the past. And how can you collect or get reimbursed, if they don’t have funds to pay? So what happens? The hospitals raise rates, do **in part **to this. And pass on the costs to us.
Anyway, renown marketer Seth Godin, had an interesting article today entitled The powerful seduction of ‘powerless’
And thank you, LLC for your appreciation of my early life experience.
What is D. T.?
Certainly (in Colorado, at least) a SNAP card simply will not work for purchasing items that are not human food: toiletries, alcohol, tobacco, dog food, toys, books, etc. Problem solved, right?
No.
It is as easy as lying to trade one’s SNAP card for cash: “Hey, buddy. I’ll give you my $200 SNAP card for $100 cash. I need to buy, um… medicine for my little daughter!” I was once approached in a grocery store as I had just scanned in my last item using the self-check-out system. The woman said, “I’ll pay for your $26 groceries with my [SNAP] card if you give me $20 cash. I need to buy gas.”
It is Economics 101: A SNAP card is a valuable good, and as such it can be traded for other goods.
Now for your three questions:
I do not think it is possible to safeguard the SNAP program. I think it is literally impossible. It’s far too big and too anonymous and too dependent on the honor system.
I would replace SNAP with innumerable little local programs that operated similar to that LDS church that I mentioned earlier in the thread. No one, and I mean no one, would ever get a red cent without strict accountability. God is not pleased with our lazy and careless giving. He counts the tears of alcoholics and addicts and of those harmed by them. It is a great sin to carelessly give an addict assets that he can use to feed his addiction. We will not escape God’s fearful correction for that, and any pitiful excuse (“But I meant well!”) will not deliver us from correction. Christ commanded us to be wise. Being stupid is not acceptable to God. He gave us our intellectual talents to think with. Remember the fearful fate of those who do not use their talents.
Again, similar to the LDS church I mentioned earlier. No honor system. No trusting. (“Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men, in whom is no salvation.”) No crossed fingers. No hoping for the best. God commands us to care for the poor, not to play-act and lazily give money to “the poor” while blindly trusting and hoping for the best, without a care in the world if our “help” harms them. Fearful correction comes upon those who treat the poor with such casual contempt. God’s commandments are serious business, and treating them lightly or as through they were part of some sort of political game is not something we should dare to do.
I should hasten to add that my harsh words are not directed towards anyone here. I’m thinking of that fellow parishioner of mine I mentioned earlier.
Me either. Once something gets big, it doesn’t work right anymore. Accountability is lost in the face of anonymity.
In terms of civil government, I like the size of Liechtenstein with its population of 37,000. When the current Prince of Liechtenstein was married, he was able to send each of his subjects a personalized wedding invitation.
In terms of parish churches, I like the active congregation to be under 100 souls. I want to be on a first-name basis with everyone there.
qaz, my friend, I feel you may be deceived.
Geoffrey, I am in complete agreement with everything you have stated in your posts. Yes, people do buy alcohol, drugs and who knows what else with their food stamps. The store may not sell these things directly to them, but as I have seen with my own eyes, since their basic needs have been met, the money they do earn can now be used to purchase such things.
You mention the civil government of Liechtenstein, I believe Thomas Jefferson had the same ideas about smaller governments in charge of a certain number of people. He also realized that when a government gets too big, it becomes inefficient and no longer able to serve it’s purpose.
Several have mentioned how the culture in which some are raised contributes to their waywardness. Paul also addresses this matter when he says something to this effect: In leaving the sheep in the care of the wolves, they are raised in ways that are contrary to the Lord. However, what may be known of God is manifest in them, His invisible attributes being clearly seen in the creation, so they are still without excuse.
Donald Trump 
Perhaps D.T. might actually bring us trade agreements with E.T. 
Of course, every system will have some abuses. And one might say,
Perhaps.
But to what extent?
What percentage?
What are the statistics?
How widespread?
Not available?
Well, there’s graft at the local, county, state and federal levels - in the US. And around the world.
Why?
Because humanity has fallen and it’s part of our fallen nature. No system is perfect.
I’m sure the L.D.S. have a great program. Perhaps Mitt Romney modeled some of his state programs after it.
But I doubt D.T. will follow it, unless M.R. is Secretary of State. And can convince D.T.
And once I bumped into a minister’s son, in his early twenties. He claims he saw a group of flying saucers.
Actually, I believe him (i.e. he saw what **appeared **to be flying saucers).
Now I could have gone running - like Paul Revere (and perhaps Geoffrey), yelling:
Or I might speak, like Scrooge upon seeing the Christmas ghost:
But what did he actually see?
Real outer space vehicles?
Perhaps.
But how widespread is it?
Or perhaps swamp gas?
Or some other scientific explanation?
Or his imagination went wild?
Or he suffered from an organic or mental illness?
We can’t make generalizations from an event we observed. 
Remember, Holy Fool, the burden of proof is on the SNAP program to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the monies going into the SNAP program efficiently translate into nutritious food in the stomachs of those who would otherwise not have that nutritious food in their stomachs.
It is undeniable that the SNAP program operates on the honor system. The program hands its recipients cards that can be used to buy groceries that are human food, and then says, “We trust that you won’t sell your SNAP card. We trust that you really need this SNAP card and aren’t using it to simply free-up money elsewhere with which to buy unnecessary things (drugs, alcohol, baseball cards, etc.).”
I would not trust any stranger to do that. Even if he were an Orthodox bishop, I would not give him goods/funds like that. God commands us to give to the poor, not to indiscriminately give to those who describe themselves as poor. We are duty-bound to verify. Not doing so hurts yourself, the con artist you give money to, and the actual poor. Nobody wins.
The 1st-century Church was strict in observing accountability. Observe:
The first seven deacons were chosen to administer goods to the needy precisely because the goods were not being distributed in an accountable way. They had the following job requirements:
Must be of good reputation.
Must be full of the Holy Spirit.
Must be full of wisdom. (cf. Acts 6:1-6)
It would be illegal to so much as ask someone applying for a job with SNAP if he was full of the Holy Spirit.
Decades later St. Paul enumerated to St. Timothy the requirements for a deacon (I Timothy 3:8-12):
Must be reverent.
Must not be double-tongued.
Must not be given to much wine.
Must not be greedy for money.
Must hold the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.
Must be blameless.
His wife must be reverent.
His wife must not be a slanderer.
His wife must be temperate.
His wife must be faithful in all things.
Must be the husband of one wife.
Must rule his children and his own house well (for if he can’t rule his own house, how can he care for God’s Church?).
Applicants must first be tested, and only after passing all of the tests can they become deacons.
Wow. Just reading that list of requirements makes one positive that SNAP employees aren’t held to standards anywhere close to those. In fact, many of those standards would be illegal.
St. Paul knew through first-hand experience that scammers, con-artists, laze-abouts, and various and sundry liars try to pass themselves off as poor so as to get free stuff. In I Timothy 5:3 he commands us "to honor widows who are really widows". Yep. When some woman comes up and gives you a sob story about being a poor widow, you are FORBIDDEN to believe her. You have to first verify her status. Maybe she really is a poor widow. Maybe she is a con-artist. He further writes in verse 16: "Do not let the church be burdened, that it may relieve those who are really widows." Imagine: “Oh, sorry, truthful widow. We don’t have the money to help you because we already gave it to a scammer who only pretended to be a widow.” Lack of accountability HURTS WIDOWS (and the poor in general). Indiscriminate giving is a sin, forbidden by God. This is serious business.
Amongst the congregation of the Church in Thessalonika, there were laze-abouts who refused to work and wanted other people to work, buy food, and give it to them. St. Paul forbade this (II Thessalonians 3:12-12). Feeding lazy people is a scandal and a blow to the poor.
This stuff is so serious that God inflicted capital punishment on Ananias and Sapphira for simply lying about how much money they gave to the poor! Imagine, then, the correction that comes upon the man who takes food out of the mouths of the poor and gives it to the con-artists instead! That is a much more serious sin than that committed by Ananias and Sapphira. Not only is such a man robbing the poor, he is literally paying the liar to lie.
Who were these liars, con-artists, and scammers? They were members of the Church in the first century! If even amongst the faithful in the days of the Apostles there was such dishonesty in the Church, how much more so in contemporary secular society! It would be the height of naivete to suppose that our societies are remarkably more honest than the 1st-century Church. Goodness. 
The Church has no business relying upon the secular state to administer care for the poor, especially when the scriptural requirements for those administering such care are made illegal by said state. Every dollar that comes out of your pocket to be thrown into the unaccountable SNAP program is one dollar less that you have to give to the poor in an accountable manner.
Should we give goods only to the poor, or should we give goods to the poor AND to the liars? The choice is clear.
Well said, Geoffrey. VERY well said.
I agree - well said. NOW - if they would not take our tax money to do it inefficiently, and let us keep the money to give to those we KNOW need it and will use it - that would be a good thing.
Number of people in the United States: 324,720,797
Number of alcoholics in the United States: 17,600,00 (or 5.4% of the total population)
Number of SNAP recipients in the United States: 41,170,732 (or 12.7% of the total population)
If one assumed that alcoholism has a consistent rate across all socioeconomic classes, then 2,223,220 alcoholics receive SNAP benefits. And that’s considering only alcoholics.
What about those who drink a lot of alcohol but are not alcoholics?
What about those addicted to illegal drugs?
What about those who use tobacco?
What about those whose main SNAP purchases are cookies, potato chips, and soda pop?
Etc.
Unless we invoke miracle, it is inescapable that millions of SNAP beneficiaries abuse their SNAP benefits. The system practically begs con-artists to sign-up. It’s low-hanging fruit.
Accountable charity practiced on the local level would not have 1% of SNAP’s problems.
As someone very knowledgeable of statistics, it raises the **obvious **question: how many are **both **alcoholics and SNAP recipients?
You said:
It’s playing with the numbers. I can make the same case with alcohol and Democrats, Alcohol and Republicans, etc. Unless you establish a correlation between the two variables, one can’t make that assumption.
Just Google “how many alcoholics receive SNAP benefits” and show me an article, that agrees with your assumption and figures. 
So I go to the article Why Do People Believe in UFOs?
Now
How many who believe in UFO’s are also alcoholics 
Why the insistence, Randy? Have you found articles that show how WELL SNAP benefits are being spent? Of course, the government probably puts out a very positive report. What is the issue here, anyway?
Statistics and correlation, Dave. Are the 2 variables correlated or not? (i.e. alcoholics and SNAP recipients or alcoholics and UFO believers?)
Look at this online definition:
Or from the Wiki article Correlation and dependence
If you Google something and statistics have been produced, they could be by universities, independent researchers, etc. Not necessarily government bodies.
As much as I agree with Geoffrey and his theological solution, I can’t allow him to introduce “fudge factors”.
On the other hand, if I played Devil’s Advocate for SNAP, I can refer folks to this article:
6 absurd right-wing lies about food stamps
Now for the obvious question I’m wrestling with. Will Donald Trump offer Rush Limbaugh a cabinet post
Thank you for the caution, Holy Fool. My assumption that alcoholism has a consistent rate across all socioeconomic classes would have led to a number that was too low: 2,223,220. (The 5,288,683 estimate was a simple keying error that I have corrected in my post above. I accidentally multiplied by 12.7% [the percentage of Americans receiving SNAP benefits] instead of by 5.4% [the percentage of Americans who are alcoholics].)
This article shows that 9.1% of SNAP users have an alcohol disorder, and that 12% of SNAP users have a substance (including alcohol) use disorder:
washingtonpost.com/news/won … -for-that/
3,746,537 alcoholics receive SNAP benefits.
4,940,488 substance abusers (including alcoholics) receive SNAP benefits.
Please note that I am not claiming that alcoholism causes one to be a SNAP beneficiary, nor that being a SNAP beneficiary causes one to be an alcoholic. I am simply pointing out that there are millions of alcoholics who also are SNAP beneficiaries.
If you were an alcoholic and also a SNAP beneficiary, what would you do with your SNAP card? I would trade mine for cash so as to buy more alcohol.
Good article, Geoffrey - on 1st perusal. More concrete data on showing a relationship, between 2 variables. I’ll have to study it.
But I do have a concern, on reading about the author and the data:
But the article also says:
What about the other states? Are we just looking at Michigan? Or all states? I’ll have to study this article a bit. 
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