The Truth About Illegal Aliens, Amnesty Aliens, and Food Stamps

With the current discussion about "immigration reform", on the one hand, you have people like Marco Rubio, saying these those given amnesty will not be about to get "welfare", but others saying that they already do. So can they get Food Stamps (now known as SNAP) or not? The answer is "yes and no", but mostly "yes".

I have not worked in the Food Stamp, Medicaid, or TANF programs directly since 2005, but I checked the online policy handbook for Texas Health and Human Services Commission, and the policies are basically the same in this regard. Most illegal aliens tend to have intact families, and so usually they would not be on TANF (cash assistance), but their children, if born in the United States, are usually eligible for Medicaid, and their children are eligible for Food Stamps. Not only that, the fact that the parents are "not eligible" for Food Stamps, often results in them getting more Food Stamps for their household than they would have if they were eligible -- because instead of counting their income fully, their income is prorated.

I remember when the Amnesty Aliens under the Reagan Amnesty completed their five years of "ineligibility" in the early 1990's. Back in those days my Spanish was better than it is now, but still limited, however, I could usually get through most of an eligibility interview before calling in a translator to make sure that something wasn't confused. And if I was dealing with someone who could speak some English, usually I could get through the whole interview. On one occasion I was interview a man who was a blue collar worker, making decent money, who was married, and had about 5 kids. He had been getting several hundreds of dollars each month in Food Stamps, despite him and his wife being "ineligible". I made it through almost the entire interview, but when I ran the budget on the case, now that he was "eligible" and his income was counted fully, his case was denied. So I tried to explain to him that now that he was "eligible" he was ineligible for anything. He was understandably confused. Finally he said, "Somebody speaka da Spanish?" So I brought in an interpreter, but it didn't make any more sense in proper Spanish. Welcome to the United States of America!

It makes no sense that a household should end up with more benefits because the wage earner is "ineligible" than they would get if he was "eligible". What should be the policy is that the benefits should be calculated for the household the same way as they are for a fully eligible household, but then the benefits should be divided by the number of people in the household, and multiplied by the number of "eligible" people. And so, for example, if the whole household would otherwise be eligible for $400.00 per month, and there are two ineligible adults and 5 eligible children, it should be calculated thus: $400/7*5=$286. But in the case that I mentioned above, since his whole household would have been ineligible, it should have been calculated as $0/7*5=$0 all along.

How liberal do-gooders criminalize the poor

Here is an old forum post of mine that was written in 1995, in response to someone who asserted: "The GOP is criminalizing all poor while helping BIG BUSINESS get richer." At the time, I was working in the Food Stamp, Medicaid, and TANF (then AFDC) programs, and HUD subsidies were less than they are now.

*************************************************************

Let me tell you how Liberal regulators are "criminalizing" the poor. First off HUD housing subsidies for welfare recipients raise the rent on the honest working poor. In Houston, HUD pays $500 a month to subsidize a two bedroom Apartment -- usually for a dump that most people wouldn't live in if they were paid $500 dollars a month to do so. Now if you are an Apartment owner, and the Government offers you $500 dollars a month Guaranteed -- would you rent the same apartment to a poor working
man who could only afford $350 dollars a month?

Secondly, even in Houston, the public transportation system is not good enough for someone to depend on it to get to and from work, unless they are willing to spend several hours a day doing so. As a result people generally must depend on their own transportation -- and in rural areas, there is no choice but to do so. Liberal regulators have made owning a car and running it legally prohibitively expensive for
many borderline working poor. For one thing, they must have insurance, they must have a current inspection sticker, and they must have a current vehicle registration. And had the Democrats won the Governor's race last year, the cost of an inspection in Houston would have climbed from about 15 dollars to possibly $400 dollars. Most working poor folks, with families to take care of, cannot afford all this. As a consequence they simply drive uninsured vehicles.

In Texas, you can just count on getting a traffic ticket every so often. But if you don't have insurance, or an inspection sticker, or a valid registration sticker -- you get a ticket for each. Now this poor stiff has several hundred dollars in fines to pay, but if he could have paid the fines, he could have paid the insurance and all that other stuff. So consequently he doesn't pay the fine. Next time he gets stopped he has warrants out for his arrest -- of course he could pay the bail, but
if he could have paid the bail, he could have paid the tickets. Instead, he sits in jail for a couple of weeks. But now he is unemployed, because he missed two weeks worth of work without a good excuse.

You know where this guy goes from here? He comes to my office to apply for food stamps, Medicaid, and AFDC (if he can get it). I've seen this happen to a number of honest hard working citizens that found themselves in my office for the very reasons outlined.

Furthermore, government regulations also cost Jobs. Whereas once upon a time, poor people could start there own businesses and make their own jobs -- now due to all the red tape, this is impossible. The only free-enterprise available for poor people, is illegal.

That's how Liberal's criminalize the poor. They have made it extremely difficult to be poor and honest in this country. Your parents and mine may have been poor, but they were at least allowed to be honest and make a living.

Capitalism, Socialism, and Orthodox Christianity

Dr. Amir Azarvan and I were guests on the Illumined Heart Podcast, and had a discussion about the role the government should have in social welfare programs, and what we as Orthodox Christians should think about it. You can listen to it by clicking here.

You can read more of my thoughts on welfare, here.

The quick start guide to why Fr. John posts so much about Welfare in Texas

I decided that I should have a one post link to explain to the casual reader who might stumble across this blog and wonder why I post so often on issues related to Welfare in Texas

I worked for what was the Texas Department of Human Services (TDHS) until relatively recently (now it is the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC)) for 13 years... the last five of which I was a supervisor.

The following are the key post that put all the others into context:

1) What's Wrong With Welfare, Part I (an introduction into my connection with TDHS as a "tent-making" clergyman, and my thoughts on Welfare)

2) What's Wrong With Welfare, Part II... Let them eat Spam! (more of my thoughts on Welfare

3) The Meltdown of the Colorado Welfare System, and what it should have taught us about the Meltdown in Texas.

4) The Great Leap Forward, and Other Examples of Bureaucratic Stupidity

5) If I had a Hammer: The Limits of Privatization

6) Foxes in the Chicken House: Big Corporations taking the Tax Payers for a Ride

I left this agency after 13 years, not because I didn't like the people I worked with, or dealing with the people who needed the services it provided. I simply reached a point where I would no longer be a part of the destruction of that agency, and pretend that I could continue to serve the people I had been serving given the increasingly impossible situation that privatization was creating. On the one hand, staff have to deal with the ongoing down-sizing of permanent (and well trained) staff, without any decrease in workload; and on the other hand staff had to deal with the promise that most of them would be out of work within a year... which made the staffing problem even worse. We had to deal with long hiring freezes in the past, as well as high stress levels; but unlike the past, this time around, the only thing we had to look forward to is busting our chops for the next year or so, and then eventually getting a position at reduced pay… if we got one at all.

Given those realities, I decided it was best to create my own options, and find other means to support my family.

This wouldn’t have bothered me so much if this was happening because the state had decided to cut welfare programs, and so fewer staff were needed to do the work. It also would not have bothered me so much if I thought that the new system would work, and save the state money. However, I am firmly convinced that this new system will be a boondoggle of historical proportions when all is said and done (and this only becomes clearer as the months go by). I am also convinced that the day will come that the state will have to rebuild the agency that they are now dismantling… but at a huge cost, because they will have lost all the infrastructure that they had both in terms of facilities and equipment, and in terms of experienced staff who knew how to get the work done. This is bad business for the state, and a shameful way to treat staff that have maintained one of the most cost efficient state welfare agencies in the United States.

When I was still working for HHSC, I suppose some might have thought my complaints were due only to selfish concerns, but now that I haven't had a personal financial interest in the matter for over a year, I hope those who think so will reconsider what I have been saying.

I believe time will prove me right... in fact, I believe that the past year has steadily been proving me right, but another year or two will remove all doubts for anyone who is willing to be swayed by evidence or reason.

If I had a Hammer: The Limits of Privatization

Note: My comments are those of a private citizen, and do not represent the Texas Health and Human Services Commission in any way.

Note also: If you are wondering why a priest is talking so much about the welfare system, see this post. Next week, Orthodox Lent begins, and so I will be blogging a lot less on this topic come monday next.

There is an old saying that if your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. This is certainly true with the privatizing government work to make government more efficient. It has almost become a fad, and one almost wonders if we will one day replace the military with mercenaries that work for a company traded on the Dow Jones Industrial.

I will readily agree that privatizing aspects of government business often makes sense. For example, if an agency has its own print shop, but there is a private printer who can do the same printing for less, it makes sense to privatize your printing. And that printer can do it for less because this is his business, and he knows how to do it efficiently, and he’s in it for his own profit which motivates him to find ways to be efficient. He can be innovative, and can readily change how he does business to find new ways to beat the competition.

However, when it comes to some aspects of government work, this simply does not work. One can find printers in the yellow pages, but one cannot find a for-profit company whose business it is to give people money, food, or medical care for free. There simply is no free market element to giving people stuff… for nothing -- which is what welfare is.

If the proposal was to contract with private charities, you might have something to work with, because the Salvation Army, for example, does have experience in giving people stuff for nothing, and doing it efficiently and effectively. But if you are going to leave the same rules in place that govern welfare programs today, there is no reason to believe that any entity is better suited to administer them than the people who are currently doing it. This is particularly true in Texas, were the Texas Department of Human services had one of the lowest error rates of any state in the country, and for 5 or 6 years straight received enhanced funding from the federal government as a reward for that level of accuracy (something no other large state had ever done). And the overhead cost in Texas are among the lowest in the country… it’s workers being among the lowest paid in the country.

A private company cannot be innovative when it comes to policy and procedures that are mandated by the State and Federal government. It would have to jump through the very same hoops. And what most people who have never actually worked with these programs often do not realize is that the policies are so complicated that it takes about 6 months before one can even begin to work these cases accurately, without someone constantly looking over their shoulder and checking their work. It takes about a year to begin to really work independently. And about another year before one has really been around the block, and knows how to handle just about any case that they might encounter. Private companies can only economize on staff – and given the low level of pay that already exists, there is not much room to economize. Paying their staff less, and providing them with even less job security and medical benefits will mean that they will have a higher turn over rate. Our agency already has a problem with high turn over simply due to the low pay and the high stress, which getting back to the time it takes to properly train someone to do the job right, means that at a certain point you are being penny smart, and pound stupid when you “economize” on their pay and benefits.

The part of our agency's work which has already been privatized (the Choices Program, which is the part of the agency that helps people find work) has a huge problem with turn over, and consequently has a high percentage of staff that do not know the policies pertinent to their work. In my job, I interact with these private contractors a great deal, and about a year ago had a problem with one of their workers who made an error, and when I spoke to that person’s supervisor I was told by the supervisor that she was new, and didn’t know the policy either. (Holy blind leading the blind, Batman!) I would also say that they have a much greater tendency to cut corners with policy, to do things that help them meet their numbers but cause their clientele to suffer needless (and often unfair) interruptions in benefits, and generally operate in ways that shift work back onto the state workers in HHSC than did their state employed predecessors prior to privatization.

In short, these private contractors owe an allegiance to making a profit, first and foremost – and while there is nothing wrong with a business making a profit, that is not why we have a welfare system. The number one goal needs to be to help the people we are asked by the government to help, and to give them the benefits that the government has determined that they should have based on their needs. If there is any other bottom line at work, then the eyes are on the wrong prize.

Why don’t we replace the military with mercenaries? Because we want soldiers who fight for the love of their country and aren’t in it just for the money – and who are answerable only to the government, which is answerable to the people. The reason why we should not have a for-profit corporation running welfare is because we should have people who want to help the needy of our country rather than people who want to make a profit off of the needy. We should want people who answer to our elected representatives, rather than to their stock holders.

What I would say to those lawmakers that are advocating privatization as a means of saving money is this: If you don’t like these programs, eliminate them. If they are too cumbersome, and you want less bureaucracy, then stop complicating them with the laws you pass, and simplify them. But if you want to keep these complicated programs in place, at the same benefit levels as we have today, then please properly fund the administration of these programs. When you cut staff, or have staff that don’t know what they are doing because you can’t find competent people who will work for the pay you are offering, or keep them when you do, this only results in greater fraud and abuse. It takes time, and knowledgeable staff to work a case accurately. It takes a lot less time and skill to simply give people what they want, and get them out of your office. We have to decide what we want, and then pony up the money needed to accomplish what we have decided to do.

For a recent example of Privatization gone bad see:

The St. Petersburg State: Reality pops state's privatization bubble

And

Convergys' star not dimmed by stumbles

And to read about Accenture (the Bermuda based company that stands to gain from the privatization of much of the Texas Health and Human Service Commission's work), see this page.

And also Accenture accensured

The Great Leap Forward, and Other Examples of Bureaucratic Stupidity

"Strike the Drum of the Great Leap Forward Ever Louder"
Having worked in bureaucracy for about 13 years now, as I have watched decisions come down from the top that were based on unrealistic expectations, divorced from the realities on the ground, I have often thought back on a documentary I once saw about Communist China’s Great Leap Forward. To make a long story short, Mao wanted to make China’s economy as powerful and as productive as the American economy, so he simply decreed that it would be so. He realized that to produce more manufactured goods, he need more factory workers manufacturing goods, and to get those workers he would need to take them from working on the farms. But he knew he would still need to feed those workers, so first off he decreed that food production would be doubled. The order came down the chain of command, and all the lower level bureaucrats were told that they had better make it so. Of course the means to achieve this goal were not provided, and in fact, the means were being reduced because labor was being redirected away from agriculture into manufacturing.

"The People's Communes are good"
This documentary showed a rally were a series of Commune leaders pledged how much more they would produce than they had the previous year. One would come forward and say “Commune number such and such will produce twice as many bushels of rice as last year.” Then the leader of another Commune would come forward, and pledge to do four times as much. All of this was greeted with loud applause, however, not much thought was given to how this was going to be done.

When the harvest came, all the bureaucrats sent up reports that made it appear as if they had in fact met their goals… but they hadn’t. But operating under the assumption that they had produced all this food, they could now concentrate more on building up their industrial/manufacturing capacity. So it was decreed that each city and village would produce x amount of manufactured goods, and so local officials around China made sure that it was so. All over china, little iron smelting furnaces appeared. To meet production quotas, quality iron goods were often melted down and made into worthless low quality metal that broke into pieces when it was used.

"Everybody is fully occupied in production, the Trade Sector is also fully occupied for everybody"
While all this was going on, the reality of food production started to catch up with those who had bought into the lies, and soon there was starvation all over China.

Likewise, in my time with what used to be known as the Texas Department of Human Services (now part of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission), I have seen on a smaller scale similar acts of bureaucratic insanity. For example, several years ago the idea was pushed that if we stopped doing one on one interviews with out clientele, and started doing group interviews of 30 to 50 cases at one time, we would save all sorts of time, and have more time to devote to other aspects of our business. There were problems of course. All of our offices were laid out with one on one interviews in mind, but since another region had done this successfully, and claimed that it saved them time, it was decreed that we too would follow this model. Supervisors, who were sold on the idea, believed that they could schedule twice the number of people in a week. And in fact, many people were interviewed very quickly, but after about a month I began to notice an increase of calls from people who were complaining because their case had not been processed. This continued to increase, and it became apparent that we were interviewing people faster than we were able to complete the cases. In fact, fewer cases were being processed than before, and gradually we were getting behind. Fortunately, the office that I worked at at the time had a manager who had sense enough to go back to the old system as soon as this became apparent, even though the orders were still that we should be doing it the new way. Our office went up to the edge of the cliff, and slowly back off. However, there was another office nearby that did not have such a manager. By the time something was done about it, the office literally had to be closed. Several months of cases were now backlogged, and it fell on other offices to clean up the mess that was left over the next several months.

Sometime after all of this, I remember hearing that a time study was done, and it was determined that even when done by people who were comfortable with doing group interviews, the amount of time that they actually saved was statistically insignificant. It just seemed like they were saving time because they rushed a bunch of people in and out of their offices at one time, and had more quiet time to do the follow up work on those cases.

Unfortunately, the new approach to doing our work that is being pushed through in Texas is likewise based on unproven premises that are not connected with reality. They believe that they will be able to do the same work with 57% less staff, thanks to the use of call centers and a new computer program that still isn’t working properly and takes longer to actually use than the old program. There is every indication that they are charging ahead with this plan, despite what we see unfolding in Colorado. In the aforementioned minor implosion, there were reserves that did not implode that were able to pick up the pieces. In the proposed model, if it implodes, there will be no unaffected parts of the agency.

Here is what's in just today's news about the ongoing mess in Colorado:

1. Nearly 1,000 Emergency Welfare Cases Still Unresolved:

"Nearly 1,000 calls for urgent state welfare or Medicaid benefits following problems with the state's new computer system remain unresolved according to a report issued by the state Monday. The computer system, the subject of a lawsuit filed in Denver court, has been blamed for causing a backlog of nearly 30,000 people waiting to find out if they can receive benefits.... The $200 million Colorado Benefits Management System went online Sept. 1 even though county workers had complained of glitches. The Colorado Center on Law Policy sued the state after the system was blamed for delaying payments to thousands of residents receiving benefits and keeping cases from being processed."

2. Online welfare system still needs helping hand:

"Six months after Colorado's brand-new welfare benefits system went online, county workers and benefit recipients are still throwing up their hands in disgust. The system has been fraught with errors since its birthday, Sept. 1, 2004. Part of the problem, county officials and Weld County residents said, is that the state didn't test the system first. Denver District Judge John Coughlin set a Monday deadline for the state to slash the thousands of new cases that have backlogged since the Colorado Benefits Management System went live. Counties were ordered to complete applications for 40 percent of that backlog, nearly 30,000 cases statewide. Monday afternoon, Weld officials were confident they met the judge's requirement. But they were less confident the system will be fixed anytime soon.... They thought kinks would be ironed out with training and a better understanding of the computer program. But the longer the system is in use, the clearer it becomes that most problems are the system's fault, Griego said. For one thing, the system doesn't share information properly among various welfare programs, which was the primary reason for its creation....

Debbie Allmer, who lives in La Salle and has custody of her two young grandchildren, said she doesn't want excuses. She applied for food stamps in August and qualified, but it took until mid-December before she received any benefit. When Allmer asked for back food stamps to cover the previous months, she was told she'd receive $12 for each month. Then, a month later, she got a letter in the mail saying her benefit would drop to $2. "I don't care if your computer is screwed up," she said. "We'd kind of like to eat." Finally, the social services department solved the problem and now Allmer receives $170 a month in food stamps. Allmer isn't alone. The system is using up reams of paper to notify people who receive benefits. Often, recipients get the same notice multiple times, or the notices are incorrect...."

3). Counties fear big bill: Food stamp woes could leave them liable for millions:

"Colorado counties are so nervous they'll be billed for millions of dollars in food stamp overpayments that they've asked attorneys and social services directors to look at their options. "We've been extremely worried about the mounting costs of overpayments," said Larry Kallenberger, executive director of Colorado Counties Inc. "We have a growing lack of confidence that the state is going to find ways to hold us harmless." The overpayments began after the start last fall of the Colorado Benefits Management System, the state's troubled new computer that determines eligibility for welfare benefits. As food stamp applications were delayed and renewals bogged down, the state Department of Human Services announced that no families would be booted from the program while their cases were in limbo. That provided a safety net, but it also keeps people on food stamps whose circumstances might have improved. Every month, some 3 percent to 5 percent of people on food stamps become no longer eligible. At roughly $290 a month per family, and with some 100,000 households getting food stamps every month, county officials are worried that the overpayments can reach into the millions of dollars statewide....

4. Number in county needing help jumps:

"...While the number of county residents in need grows, a new system meant to ease the workload for human-services employees and streamline the benefits process instead has hindered the system. Six months ago the state brought online a new computer system to improve the benefits system aiding employees who assist clients. However, La Plata County's human services employees have been overwhelmed, Pat Carlson, La Plata County's director of human services, said during the county commissioners' meeting on Monday. "We have one case worker handling most of the cases," Carlson said. "It is clear we don't have enough staff." Temporary employees were hired to help with the conversion to the new Colorado Benefits Management System that was initiated in September, Carlson said.... Before the Colorado Benefits Management System was initiated, processing a new food stamps case took 20 minutes. Now it takes more than an hour to complete. Carlson is considering asking the county commissioners to allow her to hire additional employees. "We feel like we are fighting an uphill battle," Carlson said...."

See also Off the Kuff's comments on this.

Let them eat Spam (What's Wrong With Welfare, Part II)

This is Part II of a series. Click here to read Part I.

There are a number of practical issues about how Food Stamps, TANF, and Medicaid are being administered, that I will begin to deal with in my next post, but before I get to all of those issues, I wanted to spend a bit of time on some theoretical questions that I think are important to think about… however, I am too much of a pragmatist to think that much will come of my comments on these issues, because they would involve revolutionary changes to the current system. I am more optimistic about suggestions regarding how best to administer the current system, than I am that what I say here will result in a fundamental overhaul of the system. But in any case… here it goes:

I. Should the government be involved in these programs to begin with?

As a Christian, I believe that it is primarily the responsibility of believers to help meet the needs of the poor, and I do believe that private charities do a better job of actually helping the poor when comparing the bang we get from private charitable dollars compared to equivalent government dollars. Government welfare programs can be dehumanizing and (as we have often seen historically) can result in creating more long term social harm than good.

One big problem with government entitlements is that people feel entitled to them. There is no gratitude to faceless government bureaucracies from those who receive benefits from them, and those bureaucracies are not able to evaluate particular cases based on intangible factors such as whether or not the person requesting help is doing all they can to improve their own situations, or whether that person is engaging in behavior that only worsens their situation (such as continuing to have illegitimate children from absent fathers who have no intention of providing any support to their offspring). A bureaucracy can only establish eligibility criteria that try to identify those who are needy, and if a person who is pregnant with her fifth illegitimate child is applying for benefits, she can be treated no differently than a woman who has five legitimate children from a husband she had every reason to believe would always be there to support her, but has unexpectedly left her.

I once interviewed a man who was applying for assistance, whose wife had just run out on him and his daughter, who had just been laid off his job, and had a car note and a house note that was more than his unemployment benefits. He was ineligible because his relatively new car put him over the resource limit. Now, in Houston, you cannot practically work without a car, and suggesting to this man that he should sell his car and live off that money until it ran out, and then come back to reapply would have been the most counter-productive course of action possible. Telling this man that he was not eligible for Food Stamps or TANF was one of the most gut wrenching things I ever had to do as a case worker. He was in a desperate situation, and the look on his face was like the look of Job, after the third messenger had shared the bad news of the day to him. On the other hand, I have had cases in which people were clearly milking the system for all it was worth, and I had no choice but to continue the flow of the milk, because on paper, they were more needy than the guy I had to deny, although any objective observer would have known better. Many welfare recipients have adjusted their lifestyle to receive the maximum benefits, and when all the government benefits are tallied, they actually do quite nicely for themselves, though they must engage in soul destroying behaviors that destroy their lives and the lives of their children. All too often, we end up subsidizing irresponsibility and dysfunctionality.

My grandmother lived before the Great Society, and she was pregnant at age 15 with my mother, during the great depression, was unmarried, and after being kicked out by her family, she was homeless. Had she been born 40 years later, she would no doubt have entered a generational cycle of dysfunction that would not only have imprisoned her in a dehumanizing system, but her descendants as well… myself included (that is, of course, assuming that she would not have just aborted my mother). Instead, she had my mother at a Salvation Army hospital, was helped back onto her feet, married a good man, had several more children, and became a productive tax-paying citizen. And she always felt a debt of gratitude to the Salvation Army.

Government handouts are dehumanizing because instead of another human being showing their love, and helping out a person by meeting their need, showing them how to improve their situation, and holding them accountable; you have a faceless bureaucracy, with forms and rules, no love, and (all too often) no common sense. The Salvation Army could tell my Grandmother that she had sinned, but that God loved her, wanted to forgive her, and wanted her to live a better life. A Bureaucrat cannot make “value judgments” about the “life-styles” of the people who apply for benefits – he can only put their information into the computer, and see if the computer says they are eligible, and if so, for how much. There is something redemptive about a person giving someone else help, when the person receiving it knows that the help is not owed… that they are not “entitled” to it, but that the person is helping them because they love them. This kind of help inspires the receiver, and blesses the giver. But unfortunately, this is the difference between charity (which is the Latin equivalent to the Greek word “agape” and refers to the kind of love that comes from God) and welfare.

All that having been said, in the Great Depression, private charities were unable to meet all of the needs, and so the government began stepping in. I think it is highly unlikely that the government will cease to play a roll in these areas, and so do not think it is worth expending a lot of energy trying to change that reality. If we ended all government programs tomorrow, we would start creating new ones the first time we saw old people eating dog food, or kids living under bridges with their mother. I think the best we can hope for is that the government will try to play its roll in a more constructive way.

II. Should the TANF and Food Stamp Programs be done away with?

During the Great Depression, the government did help people in need, but it did so in ways that encouraged work and discouraged people from receiving this help any longer than they needed it. For example, they had work programs, in which people built roads, bridges, and Government Buildings, rather than simply handing out free money. The people who participated in this program had the dignity of hard work, they could take the money they earned with pride, and yet the money was not so good that they would want to keep these jobs any longer than they had to.

They also had a commodities program, in which the government gave surplus food to people who were hungry. One of these commodities was Spam. Now today, people think of e-mail when their hear the word Spam, but Spam is a food, which if you grew up eating it, you understand why the name came to be applied to unwanted junk mail, that comes in large quantities. Before microwaves, it was a quick and cheap meal. My father, who grew up during the Great Depression, could not stand the smell of it, because he had eaten enough of it to last a life time. These commodities kept people from starving, but there was no incentive to stay on that program any longer than necessary.

The problem with the Food Stamps is that it is too generous and too convenient. A family of four on food stamps, can receive about 400 dollars a month in Food Stamps (not to mention WIC, with which they can also buy dairy products), and with those stamps they can buy the choicest foods that one can find in a modern grocery store. What incentive do they have to get off this program? None. Now, for those who are elderly or disabled, I think the Food Stamps program is a good thing… the only problem is that these people often get very little in Food Stamps because their Social Security checks are counted against them. But for people who are able-bodied, I think we would better help them in the long run by giving them basic government commodities that would feed them, but not quite so thoroughly satisfy them as Food Stamps do.

There are food banks all over the country that already do something like this, and what is interesting is that I have often had people complain that their food stamp case was not being certified quickly enough, and that their kids would be eating dinner out trash cans, only to be told, when I referred them to a food bank, that they didn’t like food banks, because “They only give you can goods and bread.” Apparently the trash cans provide better fare.

My father was the hardest working man I ever knew, and I am convinced that he worked so hard all of his life in large part because he didn’t want to ever have to eat another can of Spam again. And while he never finished High School, he was making about $100 dollars an hour as an insulator when he retired, and his Spamophobia had the added benefit of him providing well for his children, and him having the dignity of having earned everything he had.

So I say, let them eat Spam. Let them eat so much of it, that they never want to smell it again. And then let them get a job, and buy their food in the grocery store the same way everyone else does… with money they have earned buy the sweat of their brow.

My other life... (What's Wrong With Welfare? Part I)

Yes... I lead a double life....

Well.... not quite like that. I am a mild mannered parish priest, but I am also a mild mannered supervisor for the Texas Works division of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (which was the Texas Department of Human Services until a few months ago).

I am often told that it seems a bit contradictory for me to be a conservative Republican who works with Food Stamps, Medicaid, and TANF (aka welfare), but you would probably be surprised at how conservative people are who work with these programs. When I began working for the agency back in 1992, I expected to be surrounded by bleeding heart liberals... and I suspect that this impression comes from those who are social workers (such as those who work in Child Protective Services). The difference between social workers (what they do) and case workers (what I do) is that social workers are advocates for people who are abused, neglected, etc –- and so this job tends to attract bleeding hearts, and their experiences in that capacity reinforce their views of the poor as victims, because the people they are dealing with usually are truly victims. Case workers determine what benefits people are eligible for, and in that capacity have to examine the household circumstances, listen to the answers to our questions, and try to make everything add up so that the people we certify get what they are actually eligible for. On their side of the equation, they are dealing with people who are clearly in need. On our side of the equation, we are dealing with people who say that they are in need… and may or may not actually be. Consequently, we see a lot of fraud and abuse of the system. This is not to say that we never encounter cases that touch our hearts, because of the genuine need we see. It is very satisfying on occasion to feel that we have helped people with the kind of needs that these programs were really designed for... it’s just that these cases are more exceptional than they should be.

I intend to post more about this is coming weeks, but suffice it to say that we often help people who are really in need, and we often help people who are really not. The system is flawed, but is better now than it was 10 years ago, prior to welfare reform. Most of the people I work with are Democrats, and the majority are minorities (this is true in my office, but is not true throughout the agency), and yet despite what you might think, most supported the parts of welfare reform that actually worked... because those of us who work with these programs are the most aware of the abuses of the program, and like most tax payers, do not like to see their tax dollars wasted. Also, most of the black folks I work with are more socially conservative than the average white person... yet they almost all vote Democrat, because they have been convinced that the Democrats are on their side, and the Republicans are not -- more on this in future, too.

As one of the few openly Republican people in my office, I have tried to defend the Republicans over the years, and sway my co-workers to believe that Republicans are not all money grubbing rich people who could care less about the poor or minorities. I think over the years I have made some headway, but what the Republicans in Texas have been doing with social services in the past 3 or 4 years has made that task a lot more difficult.

In short, they are trying to privatize these programs, and contract them out to for-profit corporations. Now, I have nothing against corporations making profits, but there is no profit motive when in comes to welfare, because welfare is essentially what happens when you give people stuff for nothing –- and this is not something that for-profit corporations have a lot of experience with. If we were talking about contracting out our functions to non-profit groups, such as the Salvation Army... then I think we would have something worth considering, but that is not what is on the table. What is actually in the works is bad for the people who receive these benefits, bad for people like me who administer them, and bad for the tax payers, because it isn’t going to work, and is going to be a boondoggle that will be much are harder to fix than it was to implement.

In future posts I will discuss why privatization of this kind is a bad idea, present alternative ways to reform the system, and talk about why real welfare reform is resisted not just by the advocates of the poor, but also by many powerful business interests. I will also talk more specifically about what has been going wrong in Texas, but to start things off I will refer the reader to an article in today’s Houston Chronicle that is discussing an on-going scandal that is tied up with the push to privatize welfare.

I have been trying to meet with my Republican State Senator (Jon Lindsay) and my Republican State Representative (Debbie Riddle) for the better part of a year now, but I regret to say that I have been more or less brushed aside. I figured that if I met with them, gave them the secret Republican handshake, and told them what was really going on, they would listen. I still hope that might be true, if I ever get them interested in listening to what I have to say to begin with. I have voted for them in the past, I voted for them again in the last election, and will vote for them in the future... because I believe moral issues, such as abortion and gay marriage are far more important; however, this is not an unimportant issue, and so I hope to use this blog to get at least some people to hear what's wrong with the system, and what's wrong with the current fixes that are in the works.

Click here for Part II: Let Them Eat Spam.