Earlier this year the state of Maine passed enacted legislation with the
intention of ending the gravy train for able-bodied adult welfare
recipients.
The state will now impose a work requirement on welfare
recipients without dependents, which must be fulfilled in order to receive
food stamps. All adults without a disability must have to actually work for
food, volunteer twenty hours per week, or enroll in an employment
training program if they want to ensure their EBT card (Electronic Benefits
Transfer) is loaded each month. People under the age of 18 and over 50
are excluded from that law.
The law affected some 12,000 recipients of welfare benefits. Just two
months after the state began implementing the new program Maine has seen
what Republicans in the State’s legislature call a victory for welfare
reform:
Keep in mind that these individuals are adults who aren’t disabled and who
don’t have children at home and who are claiming the food-stamp benefits
because of a lack of financial resources.
After forcing these individuals to either work part-time for
twenty hours each week, enroll in a vocational program, or volunteer for a
minimum of twenty-four hours per month, the numbers showed a significant drop
from 12,000 enrollees to just over 2,500.
Republicans in the state are calling it a major victory, while Democrats
are infuriated and are calling for special measures to roll back
some of the strict requirements.
However, even if the requirements lose some of their strictness, once an
individual is removed from the Maine food-stamp program they cannot receive
benefits from the program for three years.
U.S. Herald via Ready Nutrition
That’s a 79% drop in taxpayer expenditures on welfare recipients who
were perfectly capable of mentally and physically performing labor.
Democrats are, of course, infuriated because it puts a damper on their
plans of locking every American into cradle-to-grave dependency on the
government.
Now, rather than sitting on the couch, smoking weed, and hanging out with
their friends as was claimed by one woman recently interviewed by an
Austin radio station, they actually have to produce something with their time
or starve.
Shock Interview: Welfare Recipient: “I Get to Sit
Home… I Get to Smoke Weed… We Still Gonna Get Paid”
While workers out there are preaching morality at people like me living on
welfare, can you really blame us?
I get to sit home… I get to go visit my friends all day… I even
get to smoke weed…
Me and people that I know that are illegal immigrants that don’t
contribute to society, we still gonna get paid.
Our check’s gonna come in the mail every month… and it’s gonna be on time…
and we get subsidized housing… we even get presents delivered for our kids on
Christmas… Why should I work?
Ya’ll get the benefit of saying “oh, look at me, I’m a better person,” but
when ya’ll sit at home behind ya’lls I’m a better person… we the
ones gettin’ paid!
So can you really blame us?
Perhaps southern hip-hop artist Mike Jones
said it best:
“If you don’t work you don’t eat… You don’t grind you don’t shine.”
Get a job to earn money for food, shelter, cell phones, marijuana, and entertainment?
Oh, the inhumanity of it!
Hattip Tess Pennington of Ready Nutrition
