In what form of payment does SNAP come in? Debit card? Stamps? Direct Deposit into an account? Can cash be withdrawn?

I don't know how most of the systems work in actually giving money to the individuals since I've never needed it, but it seems to me that if ANY of them allow cash to be withdrawn then there is no way for them to track or enforce any laws banning certain purchases with those funds.

What I do know is that a friend of mine recently had a child and OF HER OWN FREE WILL decided to terminate the relationship with the guy because she "didn't want to marry him." I have nothing wrong with this decision, but now she freely collects child support and some form of welfare (not sure which). She lives with her parents and has basically 0 expenses other than food and clothes which her parents provide or help with. Child support pays for all the food/clothing of the kid. This friend even has a degree and a part-time job. What does she do with the welfare? Buy an audio system for her car. Why doesn't she just go get a dental hygenist job like her degree is for? Because she is lazy. She would rather soak up the free money than get a full time job and pay for childcare. She relies on her parents and friends to watch her kid while she still goes out drinking/partying. She is 25 years old and the child is about 1 year old.

I'm sure that there have to be better ways to distribute this kind of help so that the money can't be used on wasteful spending like a car audio system or beer/alcohol/partying.

You sir get. You've seen what I've seen. Too bad that people who defend the current system refuse to accept that abusers take advantage of the kindness of others. That blind kindness isn't something we can afford anymore.

The same goes for foreign aid. We need to stop send billings to other countries and barrowing to do it. Some foreign aid saves lives, other foreign makes no sense at all. Why do we send weapons to Saudi Arabia? Why do we send money to Russia? Paying Egype not to attack Isreal made sense when it's governement wasn't bat shit crazy, now they'll take the money and do it anyway.

We can't afford to send money in every direction.

Food stamps run on "special" debit cards.  You can't get money off them and they need to be run through special debit card machines that are seperate from regular ATMS.   Stores get in big trouble if they sell you non food items with foodsnaps.

Generally what someone will do who wants to get money from foodstamps is they will find a friend who has a job (or better welfare/unemploymment) and offer them a  2-1, 3-1 deal.   The two of them will then go Grocery shopping.  The Foodstamps woman will buy her friend the foods she wants, and then the friend will give her 1/2 or 1/3rd or whatever the deal was money wise.

Happens at my work fairly often.  Usually among the homeless trying to buy someone 2-3 dollars worth of candy bars, 20 ounces or chips for a dollar to gamble with. (I work in a convience store.

I agree that food stamps should be limited to healthy food. I've seen plenty of times people load up on sodas, chips, and anything else unhealthy at the 7/11 and swipe their WIC card. Papa Murphy's (take home pizza to cook in oven) shouldn't be allowed to accept food stamps either.  Fruits, veggies, and meat is all you should be allowed to buy with a WIC card at a grocery store (convenience store/gas stations shouldn't be allowed to accept WIC).  Buy everything else with your own money.

Care to explain how you end up cutting out fraud, without hiring people to administer the programs?  You hire people to cut out fraud and then you have to pay their salaries and whatnot.

Also, the above mentality is why there never will be a negative income tax to replace the welfare system.  People get irate thinking that tax dollars would go to individuals without oversight, so that you can have less government and more freedom.  he reality is YES people you see don't want to pay for ANYONE.  The 47% comment lives and a belief that those who are disadvantaged, and poor, need to be  babysat, because they can't be trusted wth welfare money.  Nope, these people are seen as different, thus there is all this bureaucratic overhead that creeps in.

We already have the people working at the agencies, all we need are cold hard rules with no way around them.

It's all suposed to be a safety net, but people have used it as a comfy hammock that they just want to lie in forever.

If there's a rule that says you have to work/volunteer 40 hours a week to be eligable for welfare and someone can't prove they did it then they don't get the help. This would enourage people to just get the closest thing to a full time job they can becuase even minimum wage would pay better than welfare with mandatory volunteer work. If your going to do 40 hours of work you might as well get paid for it and if you can't find a full time job and still need help you'll get that help so long as you volunteer the rest of the time you would be working.

If there's a rule that says you can't do drugs and you test positive then they don't get help without entering a sobriety program. This would get a lot of drug abusers into real programs and people off the street.

Thats just to examples of ways to make welfare a hand up rather than a hand out. It was never meant to be a way for people to get away with being lazy or addicted. It was supposed to be a way to get people on their feet so they can keep going long enough to pull themselves back up by their own bootstraps.

The rules are too lax and the system has too many cracks. You don't need more people to fill in thoe cracks, you just have to make the rules water tight.

Do you understand how welfare works in America, post-Clinton era?  You apparently don't it seems.  About the only ones that may "get the hammock" would end up beng single mothers.  And if you want to crack down on that, answer what you want done with their children.  The reason why you "get the hammock" is because of the children.   

Anything you advocate about a "hand up" is going to require even more money going out, to hire staff to monitor people, make sure they don't cheat and so on.  Gut the welfare system and you don't have the resources to be able to get an effective program.  End of welfare means NO program, not one demanding more responsibility.  Each level of insuring "no cheating" is even more bureaucratic overhead, inefficiencies, and lack of responsiveness.  Do you want government bureaucrats determining who is actually doning things or not?

On a personal level, I have seen how bad the welfare system is, as far as being fairly useless and a pain for everyone, plus lacking humanity.  Currently in NY, you have to account for about every single minute during you day, spending 40+ hours a week looking for work, and not factoring in commute time.  They want a time sheet, and they want to see you were keeping busy looking.