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WELFARE ENTREPRENEURS AND FOOD STAMPS

 

By Betty Freauf
April 21, 2013
NewsWithViews.com

President Obama and his lackeys continue to assure us the economy is improving while millions continue to be on the unemployment lines and/or have decided to give up and file for disability. All this makes me long for the good old days with President Warren Harding’s frugality and after his death in the summer of 1923, President Calvin Coolidge continued his legacy.[1] Both were Republicans.

Unlike President Obama who wants to tax the rich, President Harding knew that the restoration of an economy wracked by depression would be dependent precisely on those risk takers who, if they were allowed to, would be the engines driving the recovery from it and higher tax rates would drive capital underground or into tax-free securities whereas lower taxes would draw capital into the marketplace where it could put people back to work.[1] To put it in today’s terms, Nationally Syndicated Columnist Walter E. Williams says capitalism raises all boats.

Harding cut taxes ferociously, bringing the top rate down from 73% in 1921 to 25% in 1925. He cut government spending equally aggressively and the economy leapt upward and by 1923 at the time of Harding’s death, it had returned to full employment. Under Coolidge the federal debt continued to fall and the federal budget was always in surplus. Oh yes, and under Coolidge middle class city-dwelling Americans wired their homes for electricity and bought their first cars or household appliances on credit. Under Coolidge the economy grew strong, even as the federal government shrank and we heard about the “Roaring Twenties.”[1] Next in line was Republican progressive Herbert Hoover elected in 1928 who set the stage for FDR’s nearly four terms (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944) and even government’s bigger liberal role, the New Deal.

ELECTRONIC BENEFIT TRANSFER

Today we no longer have venture capitalists willing to take a risk to create new businesses which would be offering jobs to the millions unemployed. Home Depot’s CEO says under today’s over- regulated climate, he couldn’t start a new business. Other CEOs have said the same thing. No, today, we have welfare entrepreneurs instead. Callers to a Glenn Beck radio talk show on April 4, 2013 were giving personal testimonies of their experiences in dealing with these folks with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards. Super Market Stores have signs that say: “We Accept EBT cards” and recently inside one were Easter baskets with the sign that said, “A Basket of Candy bought with EBT.”

SOME WITH NO CONSCIENCE

One caller said people outside in the parking lots were selling their cards saying, “I’ve got $50 remaining on my card, if you give me $20 cash, I’ll give you the PIN number.” He said he’d been working for 20 years in the retail grocery environment. He said those who have these EBT cards drive newer model vehicles and are dressed in nice clothes.

Another caller tells how these folks come to the checkout counter with lots of meat and seafood in their carts. They swipe their EBT card and then have to use their cell phone to call the owner of the card for the PIN number. Do they then sell these items at a discount rate? Hmmm. We had two young salesmen driving in an unprofessional-type van knock on our door recently wanting to sell us seafood and steaks. I couldn’t help but wonder whose EBT-Oregon Trail card bought them.

Others have received postcards in the mail about Obama’s free cell phones and 250 free minutes. This convenience is supposed to be for people who are looking for work and need a phone so they can be contacted when a job is available.

STILL OTHERS WILL DIE WITH THEIR INTEGRITY INTACT

A female caller from Alabama said she is actually a recipient of an EBT card. She has a college degree but has been unemployed for three years and said she had to bite the bullet, jump through a lot of hoops and they gave her $200 a month for food. She went to the grocery store and purchased $60 of fruits and veggies and the cashier asked, “Where is all your meat? Where is your chicken, fish, lobster? “ She said, “I thought it was for food not luxury food.” The Cashier replied, “You can even get Red Bull because they consider Red Bull ‘food’ because it has lots of caffeine and other natural ingredients for energy.”

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?

A convenience store clerk said he saw a guy with EBT cards from six different states. When he runs out of funds on one, he hands us another. He said every day he sees fraud, waste, corruption involved in these entitlements.

A woman now living in Wyoming used to be a cashier at Wal-Mart in Oregon and the one thing that she remembers vividly was the couple who came through her line and had about 20-30 bottles of wine that they put on the belt and a huge screen T.V. in their cart. They paid for the T.V. with a credit card and then they paid for their groceries (wine) with their EBT. An April 14th article in the Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal was entitled: Revealing the myth of Food Stamp Fraud and indicated abusing the Oregon Trail Card isn’t as common as many think. An investigator (another government employee on PERS) said he would not characterize it as running rampant as some may claim.

Then this Wyoming woman told about the lady that had $700 on her EBT card but she also had an extra $2,700 on her cash benefit card. The cashier said she had to get help with the transaction because she’d never run into anything like that before. She found out the lady had one card but two accounts.

JOB SECURITY FOR GOVERNMENT WORKERS

A caller from Washington State, another blue state like Oregon and California with Democrat governors, told how he and his wife fell on hard times so applied for an EBT until they could get back on their feet. He was working two part time jobs but the social worker encouraged his wife to leave her job and for him to give up one job so they could actually get more benefits. Instead of recognizing this couple was temporarily down on their luck, this government worker was encouraging them to become permanent residents. She seemed disappointed when the man told her they had no intentions of staying on it.

The talk show host said he went into a battery store and saw the EBT card could be used at this auto parts store and he realized he was buying a battery not only for himself but for someone with an EBT card too.

Then there is the case of a friend who has a friend in jail. He takes his jailed friend’s EBT card to an ATM machine to post his bail.

THE CANDY LADIES

In Chattanooga, Tennessee a wholesale food cashier said the first of the month he would see women arrive in the store with their EBT and buy $400-$500 worth of candy. They’d take it home and sell it to the neighborhood kids. I guess it is not unusual in poor communities to find these candy ladies who take the candy home, wrap it in cellophane and sell it for a quarter a piece. Another caller said he used to work in an Arcade and he would see parents use their EBT card with four kids. Every single member in this one family wore race car jackets worth $500 to $600 each. When they came to play the adult video arcades with their kids, they’d put food on (pizza) their EBT and play two hours of arcade games.

AROUND THE WORLD WITH WELFARE FUNDS

David Spady, Director of the Americans for Prosperity in California’s UTube reveals that $69 million had been withdrawn from ATMs outside the State of California, which has a $19 billion deficit. These ATM cash cards are issued by the California Social Service Agency (welfare). According to its website this agency is to protect the needy, vulnerable children and adults in ways that strengthen and preserve families, encourage personal responsibility and foster independence.

Let’s see how these welfare recipients spent the money: $387,908 was spent in Hawaii with an additional $2,246 on the Island of Lanai where the 4 Seasons Hotel is located, $12 million in Las Vegas with an additional $1,332 for tickets to the shows, $16,101 to 14 Cruise ships around the globe, $13,109 in South Beach in Miami where expensive bars and restaurants are located, and how about $7,000 to Walt Disney in Florida.

EVEN BIGGER CROOKS

But I’m not done yet. On April, 1, 2013 a Florida convenience store owner and his son were charged with fraud and misappropriating public assistance funds after investigators found that the two had bought EBT (food stamp) cards from customers and used that money to purchase store goods. According to The Daytona Beach News-Journal, the Israeli-born Bassale Sale Abu Diab, and his U.S.-born son, Matthew Bassam Abu Diab, managed to pocket $88,000 in the scam they ran out of the 4M Food Mart in Dayton Beach, Florida over a period of three months.

Authorities used undercover officers to sell EBT cards to the father-and-son duo. On Feb. 28, for example, an officer sold them an EBT card for $210, which Matthew Abu Diab used to buy $420.14 in goods from Wal-Mart and Save-A-Lot stores. “These unscrupulous business owners buy these cards for pennies on the dollar or they allow you to buy beer and cigarettes at an exorbitant price,” Daytona Beach Police Chief Michael Chitwood told WFTV in Orlando. “This guy is running a business on the taxpayers back,” he added. “It’s a fraud. He’s unscrupulous and clearly he didn’t learn from the last time we hit the store.” WFTV said that Bassam Abu Diab has faced similar charges before.

HANNITY’S BOOMTOWN

On April 4th, Sean Hannity on FOX TV ran Boomtown part 1 of his series on “The Business of Food Stamps.” Part 2 aired on April 5th. This industry has metastasized since 1960 when the Food Stamp program was created. And then Hannity’s program explained how Wall Street also is making money and that JP Morgan-Chase Co. is a participant and earns $2.20 for each EBT participant they can get signed up and social workers and others promoting it are given bonuses for increasing the numbers. This helps to explain why the young man from the State of Washington’s social worker seemed disappointed when he didn’t sign up to become a permanent dependent. There are 126 different programs involved in the welfare system and we all remember former Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claiming that they must continue supplying more funding for food stamps because it was a boost to the economy.

LET’S HIDE FOOD STAMPS UNDER WORK SHOES

What started out by The Department of Agriculture to help the farmers and supply good nutritional food such as staples of cheese, eggs, veggies, flour to the truly needed has now become a monster that allows the holders of these cards to buy cigarettes, beer and condoms and the promoters claim it is a good investment because for every dollar they give out we get $1.71 back into the economy. But now it’s time to get to the real truth. Yup, there is big money in poverty not only in the inner cities but now the government-induced poverty has spilled over into other neighborhoods and the numbers are astronomical. Maybe it’s time to starve the Obama moochers by hiding their food stamps under their work shoes so they can buy Red Bull for energy.

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CLOWARD & PIVEN

Ever since Barack Obama’s election in 2008, he has been following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University which is a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Check out the 1934 Chicago Tribune cartoon in my article about the I.R.S. showing how the young pinkies from Columbia and Harvard were deliberately depleting the resources of the U.S. and the plan of action was to spend, spend, spend. Taken as a whole, it has been a brilliant Machiavellian game plan to turn the U.S. into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

Footnotes:

1. 4/1/2013 New American (P.18), Phone 920-749-3784

� 2013 Betty Freauf - All Rights Reserved

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Betty is a former Oregon Republican party activist having served as state party secretary, county chairman, 5th congressional vice chairman and then elected chairman, and a precinct worker for many years but Betty gave up on the two-party system in 2004.

Betty is a researcher specializing in education, a freelance journalist and a regular contributor to www.NewsWithViews.com
 
E-Mail:
bettyfreauf@gmail.com


 

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Harding cut taxes ferociously, bringing the top rate down from 73% in 1921 to 25% in 1925. He cut government spending equally aggressively and the economy leapt upward and by 1923 at the time of Harding’s death, it had returned to full employment.