As a high school student, I work a part-time job at our local grocery store. On one occasion while there, a man and woman with two young children came in. After shopping awhile their basket was full, and they were ready to check out. I scanned all of their groceries and they swiped their food stamp card waiting patiently to leave the store. However, their card had insufficient funds. When I calmly explained this to them they were outraged! I told them their balance and asked them what they would like to put back. They put some things back and I scanned their groceries until right before it reached their card limit. I repeated the amount and asked them to swipe their card, but once again they were irate. They began cussing at me for not ringing up their beer. “We need our beer….we have to have it!” I called for manager assistance and he tried to assess the problem. Luckily for them our small town friendliness paid off and he personally gave them twenty dollars so they could purchase it. Our manager walked away and to my disbelief there was more yelling. “We need baby diapers…” So once again our manager gives them twenty dollars to purchase more stuff. First of all you CAN’T buy alcohol with food stamps! Second of all your babies needs are far more important!
Welfare is government aid intended to help those with little to no income, including the working poor. I have people come in on a daily basis that purchase cases upon cases of soda, bags of chips, and candy bars, and pay for all of it on food stamps. And America wonders why we are obese!! I think food stamps should be like WIC, and provide families with the necessities of life, such as fruits, veggies, milk, cheese, proteins, etc. Some people abuse this privilege on a daily basis. I believe what is purchased on food stamps should be monitored as well as a time limit on how long you can use an EBT card. Some people use this so they do not have to work as much and they get free money! I mean if the government allows it why not right?
I believe the government is too giving in this aspect. They should choose who they allow to use their assistance more carefully. They should review the person’s employee back ground and see how long they have held a job for to eliminate people just using welfare to be lazy and live off of.
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Fellow classmate Kelya writes about her experience with government welfare programs.
ReplyDeleteShe talks about her own experiences working at a grocery store, with an irate couple relying on their food stamp card and mismanaging their resources, as well as many people using their food stamps to purchase large quantities of junk food. She goes on to say that the government should be more careful in choosing who to assist in order to avoid allowing lazy people to live off of welfare funds.
I tend to agree. It is not to our benefit, or to society's benefit as a whole, to essentially reward people for doing nothing. My own opinion on the matter is perhaps far more extreme, but I wouldn't be heartbroken to see welfare programs disappear entirely. To me, the most important thing is always the benefit of society as a whole. If some people can't support themselves, the government should not step in to prop them up. They can either stand on their own legs, or rely on the support of people who care about them. But if they can't do that, and if nobody cares about them, then they serve no benefit to society, and it shouldn't fall on us to support them.
It is a sad outlook to think about. I recognize that. But I truly believe that abolishing government welfare programs would be the greatest benefit to society as a whole, and because of that, it is the right thing to do.