Monday, March 1, 2010

Food stamps in Texas!

Why is Texas handling distributing food stamps so poorly? If the government is saying that one of their main key goals is to help their Texans, than how come their neglecting those who really need the extra help. It's not like those misfortunate people are driving around in fancy brand new cars saying life is good! No what their saying is I hope I can pay my rent or car payment on time this month. It's sad that people would even think that the have it easy and just ignore them. Sometimes it's not even their fault. Such as if the place they work at burns down, or if they get laid off, that is out of their control. It's not like they expected that to happen, unfortunately it did and that person has to do whatever they can to try to make a living, even if that means having to apply for food stamps. I personally know of some families and single mother's who have to use food stamps, and for them it was humiliating. They didn't enjoy walking up the counter with their groceries and when they go to pay they pay with food stamps. It's not something to feel any sense of dignity about. But their doing what they can to get by, and that's something to be proud of. But their are also those people who abuse food stamps, and just use them so that they don't have to spend their own money. Which is totally wrong but so many people do it. Just another greedy and selfish thing people tend to do. But that's what sparked this argument about food stamps in Texas. Kevin Concannon who is the undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was stating that the state of Texas is failing to process applications within federal and state deadlines. The deadline for an application is 30 days for a regular application, and seven days for an emergency application. Sadly so many Texans have been waiting months for assistance. Kevin Cocannon also explained how Texas is one of the poorest-performing states on food stamps and that no other state has had such large or long-standing problems processing applications on time. The federal government pays for the food in the program, and the state and federal governments split administration costs. Stephanie Goodman of health and human services says he philosophy on it differs from how the federal governments is. She feels that our focus is not a participation rate. If their is a family that qualifies for assistance and they don't feel it's right to ask the government for help, we're not the ones to try to talk them out of it. It's up to them to make that decision. Kevin Cocannon on the other hand said that the participation rate is closely tied to the slow application process. Cocannon is urging the state to cease at finger-imaging applicants. "We fingerprint those who have committed crimes or have been accused or crimes, and that's an unfair attitude that may be reflected." Cocannon said. Maybe Texas just expects more out of their citizens than other states do. I still feel that if someone is qualified for food stamps they deserve the rights of the food stamps, if somebody else comes along and shows no evidence of deserving food stamps than he or she should not be qualified for them. Chances are if you grant someone who is undeserving of food stamps all their going to do is abuse them. I agree and then diagree with both Kevin Cocannon and Stephanie Goodman.

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