Things I learned today that pissed me off.

Published on March 15, 2004 By dharmagrl In Misc

Today I learned some things that I didn't know before...things that really pissed me off.

I learned that in this state (SD) a family of 4 is eligible for $465 a month in food stamps. I don't (can't afford to) spend that much and there's 5 of us!!! Bear in mind that food stapms don't buy soap, paper goods, personal toiletries etc...so the whole amount is going on edible food!

I also learned that women with kids who are under the age of 6, who can show that they have no adequate childcare can use TANF for more than the current 60 month limit. So, they'll just keep on having kids to secure their income, huh?

I learned that people who lived on "Indian land" where there is an unemployment rate of 50% or more are also exempt from the 60 month limit. Way to encourage people to get off the reservations...

Today I learned a lot about disability. Did you know that substance addiction disorder can qualify you for disability? So, we're paying for crack heads and alcoholics to feed their addictions. Depression is also a disability, I didn't know that. If I had known I could have gotten paid for staying home and being depressed I wouldn't have gone and sought help! (I'm kidding) Obesity, that'll get you SSD payments too. People are getting paid for being fat.

I'm sorry if I sound bitter..scratch that, I'm not sorry. Right now I am feeling bitter, and to be honest a little 'ripped off'. I don't mind my tax dollar (yes, I pay taxes, just because I'm not a citizen doesn't mean they won't tax me) going to help someone who really needs it, but this....this is just ridiculous. My husband busts his ass, and we can't afford to spend as much on food a month as some people get in food stamps...and they have fewer people in their family! It just makes me sick that someone who decides to play the system gets as much, if not more, than the honest joe who works a 40+ hour week and looks after his own.

I know this article is going to piss some people off. I don't care. I stopped caring when I read that alcoholism is a disability, when I saw how much some people get to spend a month on food.

There, I said it.

BTW, all the info about disability came from the government site. The info about food stamps and TANF came from the SD state site.

Comments (Page 2)

WiseFawn

on Mar 16, 2004

http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/welfare.html

In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (Welfare Reform Act). The new law eliminated AFDC, placed permanent ceilings on the amount of federal funding for welfare, and gave each state a block grant of money to help run its welfare program. For example, under the 1996 law, federal funds may only be used to provide a total of five years of aid in a lifetime of a family. Another significant change was the complete exclusion of legal aliens from receiving any SSI benefits. The passage of the Contract with America Advancement Act of 1996 further narrowed the number of people allowed to receive SSI disability benefits by requiring that drug addiction or alcoholism not be a material factor in their disability.

Dynosoar

on Mar 16, 2004

Crazylady,
I only posted the comment to notify the author of potential aid. It was never an attempt to bring reproach upon military families at all.
I know how hard it is to have a family and be military ( I was in Egypt in '84, when my first wife decided to move the kids swing set to her boyfriends house )

As I have always stated, "I have no problem with anyone receiving assistance ", it is, indirectly ,how I make a living.
I just want it recognized for what it is, a lifestyle choice perpetuated by Government Agencies.

crimson

on Mar 16, 2004

Dharmagrl, I went to school near the Chippewa reserve in MI. I always thought of that commercial from the 70s with the native american with the tear on his face. Well, these guys don't exactly keep their land looking pristine. The government provides them with cars. Do they maintain them? No. They drive them into the ground, dump them in the front yard and acquire a new one. The place looks like slumland. Is it because they don't get money? No. Their casinoes are a booming business there. Drug and alcohol abuse run rampant. I am not saying they all live that way mind you. There are some outstanding groups that do their heritage justice. The Pow Wow they have every year is really something to experience. I just don't see a way of helping those that don't truly want to be helped. Too many just want to be maintained.

Jilluser,
I think you are mistaken about a great number of things regarding Native reserves and history. I don't know of any Native band, American or otherwise that get vehicles provided for them. For the most part, reserves are slumlands for a myriad of reasons. You can't take generations of people from their homes, place them into residential schools, affect hunting grounds, pollute waters and land, and redefine Native society without expecting thousands of people to be able to adjust so quickly. Alcohol and drug dependency is a direct result from colonialism... we didn't have it before first contact.

Note that many reserves have been relocated to lands that are useless to begin with. Do you think that there was a reason for their removal from their former homelands? Most reserves have experienced legal struggles over land claims and treaty rights that have gone on for decades, and are no closer to being resolved... because of current legal system imposed.

Casinos are a booming business, at least in my area. Do you think that I, as a member of my reserve, have seen one bloody cent from Casino Rama, a reserve that agreed to allocate money to nearby reserves as well? My brother, who is a member of Rama, has received under 20,000.00 since its inception, and their membership is under 700. It's not your typical Aboriginal that sees money from them... it's those people that go into partnership with reserves to run them. Yes, reserves do get money, but most of it gets funneled back into the operation, or goes to creating new social and work programs.

I could go on and on, but the end result would be this: Yes, you are right, from a particular viewpoint. Aboriginal dependency on welfare must be changed and cannot be changed without initiative. No, you are wrong, because this dependency was created by your government, which refuses to find a way to work with Aboriginal governing bodies to make our communities better. The fact is, both American and Canadians governments have a responsibility to see that this happens, due to Aboriginal treaties and agreements made when these countries were reformed under the now dominant society's law.

dharmagrl

on Mar 16, 2004

further narrowed the number of people allowed to receive SSI disability benefits by requiring that drug addiction or alcoholism not be a material factor in their disability.

Again, we can quote stats all we want to. The site address I gave you for disability information is the Blue Book for physicians to use to determine eligibility. It's dated January 2003. Go take a look...section 12.09, to be exact.

Draginol

on Mar 16, 2004

Well there you have it. NickyG has proclaimed the truth based on his experience trumping the experience of others.

JillUser

on Mar 16, 2004

NickyG, what would it serve a person to tell me their family recieved cars if they didn't? This wasn't my conclusion, it was something I was told by a group on a bus that I was taking to a doctor appt in college. I was talking to a group that lived on the reserve. I asked why they thought there were so many cars dumped all over the yards. That is what they told me. Maybe it was a state initiative since the reserve was such a distance from anywhere to work. They openly claimed to abuse it. Why would they do that? BTW, the land where the reserve was located was beautiful. And blaming current drug and alcohol problems on colonists is just another example of making excuses. Most of those people are very proud and true to their heritage. They have control over how they procede in life.

Anyway, again, this sounds like an emotionally based discussion. We don't solve things with emotion. I am with dharmagrl on agreeing to disagree about the state of welfare. I do agree that things aren't currently handled well. The point of disagreement is who is to blame.

KarmaGirl

on Mar 16, 2004

JillUser, I took a course called "Native American History" in college. It was taught by Native Americans who lived on the nearby reservation (was also overseen by a Professor.) Their story was much the same, and they blamed "your white government" for the problems. They also talked about how it was their current culture to abandon their cars instead of fixing them because it was a "statement". (Still haven't figured that one out, but if you have a clue, please let me know). I went into the class trying to find out about the deep spirituality that they had and about their culture. I came out of the class with a bad taste in my mouth. Somewhere I still have a sheet that compares the "White man's" way of life to the "True American's" (meaning the Native American's) way of life. I learned about their tax free cigarettes and gas. About how their alcohol issues are because of "white man's whiskey". I'm still interested in the spiritual side of the Native Americans. Too bad that class didn't touch on that as it appears that all the people who were teaching the class had converted to Christianity and mainly used the class as a way of bashing on "white" people.

However, NickyG. I believe, is from Canada. Maybe things are different there.

And, I agree, there is no way that everyone is going to agree on the issues around welfare.

crimson

on Mar 16, 2004

Well there you have it. NickyG has proclaimed the truth based on his experience trumping the experience of others.

Brad: Rather than just tossing off a trite response to reading the several paragraphs that I wrote above, why don't you take the time to understand where I was coming from with my comments? One more than one occasion, I've written things that I have learned, but have always stated that my position in life is different than on-reserve living.

Relating information that a reader might not be aware of is no different that what you do in your many articles, although, we come from different areas of interest. It's obvious that you've just jumped in to say your 2 cents, but I don't see what point you were trying to make. I think that I've gone out of my way to show that there are very different perspectives on this large issue... and yes, part of mine was from a personal experience, just as Jilluser's was in her post. (So she explained, later.) There is no one 'truth' in a discussion like this, but with continued interaction and revelation of viewpoints, we are better able to see where someone with a different viewpoint is coming from.

Hell, she could be right, as far as the car thing goes... although in Canada, I haven't heard anything at all about this "statement". As far as 'tax free cigarettes and gas' goes, in Canada at least, it's due to the signing of Treaty 8, that falls under The Indian Act under section 87. exempting status on-reserve Indians from paying tax on a variety of things like tobacco tax, motor gas, provincial sales tax., etc,. My stating this has nothing to do with proclaiming the truth based on my experience of trumping the experience of others. It's a legal fact.

Karmagirl, I hope things are different here in Ontario, Canada, especially concerning the courses in our education system. I've been taught to respect both cultures: one is regarded no higher or deserving than the other, just that we are different cultures which have different viewpoints. Like any other school course, there are good and bad, I guess.

Personally, I went to University in order to learn the cultural aspect of Anishnabes in Ontario. The courses in law, Native rights, and history came after. These courses were taught by highly respected professors who studied at fine institutions like University of Toronto, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia, Western, and Harvard. Some Aboriginal, others, not. The history regarding non-Native and Native relations have always been fraught with opposition and misunderstanding. On a much smaller scale: this is no different.

We all seem to agree, however, that no one can agree on the issues surrounding welfare dependency. But it was an interesting discussion, nonetheless.

dharmagrl

on Mar 16, 2004

When I came to SD I came with the same impression of Native Peoples that Jill had..I had the strong, proud spiritual warrior image in my head.

I've seen what life 'on the rez' is like. I've seen homes with no running water, and living conditions worse than any I have seen anywhere, ever. I simply couldn't understand why people didn't want to leave, they were complaining about how bad things were, but yet they stayed there! (yesterday's revelation about the TANF explained a lot) I heard a lot of tribal peoples complaining that they wanted to run their nation as they saw fit...but then they ran out of money and couldn't pay their police force a couple of months because they hadn't budgeted properly, and came to the government for help.
I've seen the sterotypical drunk indians staggering into local bars and casinos to cash their welfare checks, I've seen the ones with diabetes (genetically common in Native Americans) who don't have the resources or the knowledge to take care of themselves properly lose limbs because of their disease, and I've seen the blatant and rampant racisim among local business owners and the population in general.
I've also had my misconceptions shattered a few times. Once by a man who bought some stuff at yard sale I held and who drove almost an entire mile back to return the $1 too much I had given him in change. The people who had a relative in the bed next to me when I was recovering from surgery in the hospital who fetched me sodas and entertained me with their stories, who held my hand when I was throwing up and who didn't mind that i kept them awake watching TV..and the people, the van load of people, who pulled over and came to my aid after I had slammed my jeep head on into a semi. They took off their own coats in 15 degree weather, covered me with them, and prayed for me because they thought I would die before the EMS ever got there.

I didn't write this article specifically with Native people in mind. I wrote it because I was pissed off, and I still am pissed off, about the crap I learned about the welfare system.

Draginol

on Mar 16, 2004

NickyG: You were the one who started their response telling JillUser that she's mistaken on a great many things about Native American history as if your personal experience somehow is more legitimate than hers.

crimson

on Mar 16, 2004

Brad: Jilluser said that "the government provides them with cars", my response in return was to say that I think that she was mistaken in that belief. Later posts show that she was told so by a group on a bus, a group that lived on the reserve. That's a bit of a different statement than the first, wouldn't you think?

There were some things that she later said in regards to money that weren't entirely correct, that have a correlation to happenings in history. I didn't back it up with cites (which is your issue, not mine) but rather tried to show how I know this from a personal viewpoint. I 'could' go do some research and find the exact documentation to show how Casino revenue is allocated, but in many other blogging exchanges with both JillUser and DharmaGrl, we've never tended to do so. Mind you, we rarely get involved in political debates either. Having said that, we have exchanged information about our lives at home and our family life. I didn't feel like I 'started' anything nor assumed a position where my experience is more legitimate, rather, was simply adding in on a conversation.

It really isn't a big deal. Just something interesting to discuss. Coming from someone who has been at home with a six year old during a 2 week spring break... it's saying a lot.

Dharma and Jill, excuse my exuberance regarding this topic... I'm sorry if you think I did imply that I was better than you for holding these opinions.

dharmagrl

on Mar 16, 2004

No need to apologize, I didn't take it that you were holding yourself in higher esteem.

I didn't, as I said, write this article with a specific ethnic group in my mind...however, I think that this, this discussion, is some what constructive...at least we know each others point of view now!

brokedownprincess

on Mar 16, 2004

all i am going to say is that i agree.
its good to help those in need-only if they are trying to help themselves. we all must admit that with all the people who truly need welfare there are just as many using it as an easy out. theres always some of each. but as long as there is a system, someone will screw it...so we have to take the bad with the good...or the good with the bad....however you want to see it....

crazy lady

on Mar 17, 2004

Thank you for your clarity. Reading back on it now, I may have been a little bit more bothered than I thought. It wasn't your comment, it was me thinking about the government not paying its enlisted military members enough money to support their families. So, forgive me...I started thinking a little off the subject....

I'm really sorry about you losing the swing set. (just lightening the mood a little)

And thank you for serving.

JillUser

on Mar 17, 2004

NickyG, I think it is good for people to hear the way other people see things. I think everyone has an issue or two that they hold dear to their hearts and get defensive about. I think perception needs to be taken into account whether it is accurate or not.

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