The Daily Caller:
During an hour-long deep dive into the growing use of food stamps in America, Fox News highlighted “the new face of food stamps.”
That new face is a pina colada-sipping, lobster-loving lothario named Jason Greenslate.
Greenslate, a 29-year-old La Jolla California surfer and musician who sings that he does not want a “motherfucking job” and has “fuck no” guilt about living on $200 of what he calls “free money ” — or what the government called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Benefits — while he avoids a job to hang out on the beach, sing and chase women.
“Wake up, go down to the beach, hang out with my friends, hit on some chicks, start drinking,” Greenslate said, describing his day to Fox News’ John Roberts in an interview for the channel’s “The Great Food Stamp Binge” hosted by Bret Baier.
“I surf everyday. It’s wonderful, man. Just get away from everything, clear your head. Get out with the boys. Have a good time.” Greenslate said.
Roberts reports that Greenslate has no fixed address, instead choosing the life of a beach bum staying with family, friends and girlfriends, living off them and $200 a month in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which he uses to buy gourmet items at the grocery store.
“I don’t got a paycheck coming in so I qualify,” Greenslate told Roberts.
Fox News’ cameras joined Greenslate on one of his grocery shopping expeditions. With his Electronic Benefit Transfer card (EBT), the vehicle for food stamp benefits, Greenslate purchases sushi, lobster and coconut water.
“All paid for by our wonderful tax dollars,” he said with a smirk, leaving the store with his purchases.
Isn’t that exactly what Pelosi said?
IF you want to just quit school and play an instrument, we’ve got your back.
You’ll get housing, health, food, and all sorts of other assistance so, just do it….the old Nike slogan.
I had read that food stamp applications must be approved or disapproved in less than 1 minute of review.
So, if you lie, the chances of getting caught are slim.
I suppose that since the right wing Trayvon bash fest has slowed down and August is always a slow news month, why not stand behind Fox News on their latest deadbeat SNAP recipient snake oil sales pitch.
Yeah, people are indeed greedy and regardless of how well you fine tune or even police a program, there will always be those that can figure out how to game the system (albeit in this case U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service, SNAP fraud and waste is around 1%). It’s within the realm of reasonable intellect to look at the program, justify the need, consider the abuse, and then conclude if the program needs to be corrected or eliminated.
The arguments coming from the corporate loyalist, right wing hack sites, and Fox News seems to follow the norm of being fraudulent and ignorant (or hopefully to sway the ignorant) while pretending that the abuse is overwhelming and that the need of the program doesn’t exist.
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) is crying “100% wide spread abuse” because he saw a couple using SNAP that he deemed “physically fit” and wonders why aren’t they out working. The Daily Caller chastises a guy because he “avoids a job to hang out on the beach, sing and chase women”. And there seems to be an orchestrated effort from the right to portray SNAP users as willfully dependent, intentionally dishonest, and down right lazy in order get free money to party with.
As always with today’s GOP leaders, when you take a closer look, the motive’s always the same. This snake oil push comes at a time when they want to take billions from SNAP in order to divide it out among wealthy farming businessmen. Look a little deeper and you find that many of those GOP leaders will be (and have been for years) the very wealthy farming businessmen recipients of those funds as they’ve invested in farms that these $billions from SNAP will go to. Nice little rig they got going!
But what Fox, the GOP, right wing hack sites, and corporate loyalist don’t want to include in their argument is that USDA 1% abuse findngs. Again, it’s hard to fine tune a program to make it fool proof . They also don’t like to mention that 76% of SNAP recipients are children in poverty, the elderly, and the disabled. 41% have jobs.
It should also be noted that the big SNAP increase is a direct result of the 2008 great recession, brought to us by the very GOP that’s now wanting to line their own pockets and their fellow contributors with that very money. And it’s that GOP that has sabotaged the economy with an admission of attempting to unseat Obama. It is that GOP that refused a meager minimum wage increase which leaves workers like me actually paying for food for WalMart worker’s families because they live in poverty. It is that GOP that denied the American Jobs Act which would have created around 2 million jobs.
The SNAP deadbeat argument becomes more specious as it seems based on a perception of the recipient. It’s as if they’re groomed and well dressed, they shouldn’t qualify. If they’re buying food that some consider too expensive, they shouldn’t qualify. If they have a nice car or live in a nice home, unqualified. If they appear healthy, not qualified. Of course, it’s nothing new for t Fox, the GOP, and hack sites to base their arguments and sheer prejudice and ignorant selling points.
It’s always interesting to see the Obama haters wanting both sides of the argument. On one hand, they bash Obama for the poor employment numbers and low wages (which is a direct result of GOP policy) while claiming that those in need “should just get a job”. It reminds me of Newt who constantly bashed Obama on his job performance yet his answer of solving the Occupier’s issue was to ” ‘Go get a job right after you take a bath”. You can attack Obama because there are no jobs yet your answer to those in poverty is to “go get a job”. But then, a coherent and constructive argument from today’s so called conservatives has indeed become a tall order.
@Ronald J. Ward:
You spent a lot of time writing pretty much nothing. Just the usual liberal pabulum.
To clarify the 2008 housing bust was not a product solely of GWB’s doing. Do some homework outside of your liberal haunts. The genesis of that was years in the making going back into the 1990’s. However during the run up to the crash Obama was in the senate and I don’t recall a peep out of him warning us of any impending problems. In fact he was on the side of groups like ACORN trying to get more unqualified people loans for homes they would not be paying off. Anyone who tried to warn of the impending problem was shut down and told they were either racist or against the poor getting a decent place to live. There are still plenty of video on this on you tube from the congressional hearings.
As for food stamps the gist of the story is how it went from the idea of helping people with a hand up to a way of life. The story in question showed jobs going not filled because we are now seeing people losing the desire to work because they don’t have to. The government will take care of them and they feel no guilt or shame about it. We have people doing their best to break down the last walls of shame or guilt to get everyone they can on food stamps and any other government program they can. Which makes them more and more dependent on government. It’s the ultimate vote buying scheme. In 2012, Fox News reported that 30,000 college students in Wisconsin and Michigan were enrolled in SNAP and people were selling their benefits on Facebook. Additionally, a 2010 Government Accountability Office report noted that “the amount of SNAP benefits paid in error is substantial, totaling about $2.2 billion in 2009.” Immigrant food stamp recipients were recently caught sending food back to underprivileged family members in other countries as well. I guess for you there’s nothing to see here, just move along.
In case you wonder where Obama is today on housing…
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/votes_for_mortgages.html