The Truth on Food Stamps

Many Americans honestly struggle with the inability to make their paychecks meet their debt. Government programs were established to assist out of work households, single family homes, and those struggling with mental disabilities that are unable to make their paychecks meet the bills. The programs are lifesaving and benefits a lot of people. 

However, the topic of government benefit abuse is a hot topic all over America that focuses on the enormous problem of abuse and an even larger task of fixing the abuse.  The giant question of how to make the programs more effective can have many avenues.   The biggest problem I see living in rural West Virginia is the laziness of individuals receiving the benefits.  Benefits should only be given if the individual is actively making a contribution to their income. Living off of benefits is unacceptable. If America brought back factories we would have a place for these types of individuals to be employed. Not everyone can succeed in college and America is making it so they can choose, College or living off government benefits.   

The benefit should also have a time limit for out of work individuals. This would encourage individuals to seek employment, and then allow a government supplement to meet their needs. The second avenue for improvement is drug testing. It should be mandatory that every adult in the receiving family take monthly drug tests.  This is to clean up some of the drug mess that out of work individuals find themselves drawn to, to make fast money.  Government benefits like WIC is a good example of a beneficial program. It is category specific and income related, for a designated period of time.  I have volunteered at an Outreach programs that supplies food and clothing for individuals in need. Many times men and women came into the Outreach to find free clothing for a job interview. This is an example of someone wanting to take pride in their self and make their situation better. 

If government benefits were on a time limit, more of this type of self-initiation could be seen.  On the other side of the argument, some people have expressed dropping out of High School and living off the “system.” This is the abuse that has many hard working Americans in a state of anger over the lack of screening and mandates.   

This then leads to the argument of manpower to cover the additional mandates.  Unfortunately, fixing this problem will require individual state governments to hire more workers, which then argues they are out of money and cannot afford to hire additional employees. Then they look at the Federal Government for funding and they say we can’t afford to give any more money.  To see programs become effective our Federal government must see the need for stricter policies to be made and to see that the abuse is eliminated. Allowing for quality of life for many Americans to increase and be something they can take pride in.