Swamp Musings

That's about all I can say about the shear stupidity of those $2,000 FEMA and Red Cross cards. What a totally asinine way to do "disaster relief". You've probably read a few comments around the web and might have seen this little jewel from Houston. It comes with a fun video.

"Entitlements" have amused me since I was a kid. Abuse of, that is. Paid off-the-books wasn't invented just for the 10-20 million Mexicans, it was running full till long before. Fraud? Oh my! Back in my years in California, I was acquainted with quite a few kids that attended UC Santa Cruz (Bezerkely South only slightly more commie) and was truly amazed at how many were on some form of welfare. One fella was getting payments for 3 kids he invented and had been for at least 2 years I was aware of, a 30-something gal had 11 paying quite well (she had none at all), the number of kids getting "free money" for "handicaps" was boggling. That system was gamed sooo thoroughly... ..which reminds me of an April 14th when I was 23. Finishing off the dreaded income tax forms for state and fed and trying to find a miracle deduction.. In addition to the withheld tax from my regular employer, my side jobs had brought in enough that I was gonna have to cut a check to the IRS alone that was more than my daddy made the last year I lived at home. Yeah, I felt real good about the kind of gummit that had it's hand in my pocket digging out scads of cash to hand those drug-addled sponges.

Nah, not going to backtrack to my 2 1/2 years in DC. DC is nothing but a welfare island. The only thing I miss about that place is my Sundays at the Smithsonian. One could go there every Sunday for the rest of one's life and not see it all!

Fast-forward to the last quarter-century and Florida, limited to food stamp fraud. I guess the concept of food stamps is actually pretty good for a welfare program but not near as good as the old free commodity handout. It's not necessasary for me to describe what goes into the carts of folk that have been on the dole for 3 generations as it's pretty obvious from the fact a large proportion of them have to go through the check-out sideways. There are also 3 grocery stores I will never visit again. One is backed up against a welfare office and has the sorriest, most overpriced stuff imaginable. It is only marginally cleaner than a gas station john. Another was within easy walking distance of the projects and another welfare office. Grim. The third was in a broke-down plaza that featured one of those cash-for-your-car loan (at 270%)/cash for your next (pay)check/pawn and shady deal joints. THAT one had the biggest beer supply I've ever seen.

One of the curiosities I observed quite a few times was the open trading of food stamps for cash. The usual rate was between 30-50 cents per dollar of face value and the folk would put who had a fistful onto a dealer that traded "best". "Best" is your guess, probably drugs. The EBT card temporarily screwed that particular bit of the underground economy up. It turns out that any retail establishment that could take credit cards and sold something on the list like soda pop, bread, beer nuts, etc., could sign up to take the EBT. You KNOW where that went, didn't ya?! Yeah, some get caught.

Where is this going? Easy. How old is the food stamp program? How old is the FEMA/Red Cross debit card program? Even with the requirement these days of positive ID of self, dependants, income source, interviews, and threatened heavy penalties for fraud, the food stamp program is still gamed. I'll have to give good ol' guv Jeb a big kudu for fixing a nasty hole in Florida's. It still has one that glares but it just involves anchor children and relatives. The FEMA/Red Cross 2K is open season for fraud. Been thinkin' since on my GOOD days, I look like something that crawled outa a Lousiana swamp, I oughta go get me a few of those cards! Lost all my particulars, don'tcha know?!

Other than the obvious fact that the card was a piss-poor method of relief, it will "only" cost something like $680,000,000 last I checked. It's likely quite a lot of that money will be used responsibly, that just depends on the type of people lined up for the "free gummit money". Your guess is probably better than mine. The true nightmare is the $200 billion+ that apparently is going to go to reconstruction. The share allocated to Nawlins and the rest of Louisiana is to be administered by that state's existing gummit? The state that has been the justified butt of humor as the most continually corrupt in US history? Sounds like a swell idea. Just for fun and games, $200 billion divided by 1.2 million affected (latest number quoted) equals $166,666 for every man, woman, and sucessful breeding. Times a family of 4, $666,666,666.67. Wierd, eh? Another way of looking at it is the "donation" each person that filed a tax return last year paid. Obviously a lot of the returns resulted with a net payment in addition to a full refund due to the "breed more babies" totally ficticious "earned income credit" but the raw numbers are again $200 billion divided by 133 million yielding $1,504 per tax return. Where will your money actually go America?

A neat chart:



This is from FederalBudget.com. Go look.

< /rantoff >