Maine now requires 6 hours of volunteer time for for food st

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Found this on Facebook:

http://www.youngcons.com/governor-requi ... ely-after/

I can hear my brothers right now: you deserve nothing, you lazy slimeball, and this article confirms it for us!

Excuse me? Now that I'm on SSDI (which you tell me I don't deserve either, since mental illness does not exist, nor does autism), do you know how much I actually collect in SNAP benefits each month? $16.00! that doesn't even buy a gallon of milk, a pound of hamburger and a loaf of oat bran bread, let alone 1 dozen eggs. I collected more while I was waiting for my SSDI appeal to be heard.

Then get a job, you lazy sonofab!tch. You ever try to find a job at the ripe old age of 58? Get this clue: I've been working since I was 15. Before you call me an uneducated slob, remember, I worked my ass off to get both the bachelor's as well as the Master's. Even after I got my Master's, and got my first full time job, I was doing a 60-hour + week, bringing work home with me, in addition to working 2 part-time jobs.

Oh, you still consider me to be a lazy-assed slob after being fired and/or laid off from all my subsequent jobs? You think I should take a sh!t job that pays next-to-nothing, with no benefits, and shell out almost $700.00 for my insulin? Yeah, Right. Buster, I've worked those sh!t jobs. It wouldn't have been so bad if someone would have said thank you, rather than go f!ck yourself.

So, OK Guv'ner. Take away my paltry $16.00 a month SNAP benefits, since, you, my brothers, my so-called friends, and society in general consider me to a lazy, no good piece of f!cking sh!t who doesn't deserve to eat, let alone live. Never mind that I have AS, General Anxiety disorder, Bipolar I, type Ii diabetes which is getting harder to control, hypertension, high cholesterol, SAD, carpal tunnel in both wrists, and colitis, as well as kidney disease.

...I have thought of going to maine , becaue Stephen King lives th~ - eh , hee hee hee , because I have (pretty dang faded) roots there , the paternal grandfather I am named after (and died whilst me Mum was preggers with me ) was from there , born either in/around Portland or Bangor (I once knew where , I have forgotten ) , I saw that as a possible springboard ~ Um , perhaps NOT ! !! !! !! (I have yet to read the article itself yet .)

If you're on disability, I don't think this applies.

I don't think they should be forcing people to perform community service, but it is beyond me why people wouldn't want to volunteer.

Most people receiving snap benefits have a child to take care of. That 6 hours could be very expensive for them.

...If the people doing it are being told " Do this , you bum ! !! !! "...which is certainly how the post that was linked to presents it , gleefully...it is hardly " volunteer work " .


e="glebel"]I don't think they should be forcing people to perform community service, but it is beyond me why people wouldn't want to volunteer.[/quote]

The article clearly says "able-bodied", and thus wouldn't apply to you, if you lived there, cuz you're on Disability----even if you're not on it, for a physical thing, like MS.

it also says "Without dependents".

I was going to say that i don't even know who these people are, because the benefits available to me as a person with a long work resume that documents an ability to independently keep up a middle-class lifestyle are approximately nothing at all, despite diagnosed conditions.

But around WP we have an idea how hard it can be to get a disability recognized.

There are hundreds of thousands of people who have Issues that prevent them from being able to hold down a job. Often emotional or cognitive issues that fall into a fuzzy area where the effort and resources required to actually get SSDI out of them is tremendous.

...7&1/2 toes (One quarter off ! !! !! !! !!) makes me a " gimp " , I suppose , permanently .

From the article :

This is one of the things about Tories that always annoys me, they're always using little expressions like this.

I mean think about it for just a fraction of a second, if you have to work for it, it's not *free* .

For example :
"Oh, that guy at the Coal mine, moves sixteen tonne a day to get his free money from the boss."

Problem is the welfare queens who have children with more than one man who are allowed to live scot free but those who are disabled suffer because well they are loud and boisterous we might not be into confrontation

What a bunch of bull most people on food stamps are either already working and not making enough to entirely support themselves, homeless and having to live day by day as far as finding shelter and not getting all their belongings taken away or stolen, or are on disability and have a disabling condition preventing them from work.


Expecting mandatory unpaid labor just to provide minimal EBT benefits is asinine, glad I don't live in Maine.

Problem is government officials/politicians using that as an excuse to cut benefits for people who need them. Whilst there are likely frauds they aren't even a significant majority...its just an image some like to perpetuate to excuse making things harder on the people who really need the programs.

You're already working full time and still struggling to make ends meet so you don't have energy left over to go volunteer every month to receive EBT to help pay for food, that could be it for some.


Or you're homeless, wearing gritty clothes unable to regularly shower or clean yourself up...you're under constant stress, probably haven't had adequate sleep in days, have to walk around with all your belongings wandering during the day and hope you don't get mugged by criminals/or thugish homeless people or get harassed by the police. Also you don't have adequate transportation...that may put a damper on that person volunteering.

Just a couple senerios I can think of.

I live in Maine.

I'm 23, I make possibly around 800 usd a month. I get food stamps, I get enough to supply myself with almost a month of food. I do not take the max amount but I do get enough.
There is no '3 month limit' and there are not 'requirements' of volunteer work if you're already working, that article is just fuel for those who want to be angry.

The requirements state either you work at least 20 hours a week at a job OR you take at least 6 to 10 hours of volunteer work a week, this is only for abled bodied people. You CAN apply for food stamps in the state of maine and get them without trouble if you are disabled.

Articles like that, they really do no justice to the actual deal that is the state of maine. The SNAP program is there to help those that do not make enough money to supply yourself with food, I'm not saying that some people don't get less than they should.. but seriously.. our current governor might suck a lot.. but food stamps have been abused by a lot of people and I think a lot of this helps stop the abuse.

One of the problems that Maine has is an etrenched Social Services beaurocracy that accomplishes little more than teaching people that it is okay to say 'gimme'. --It keeps a bunch of social workers employed, but does little in the way of actually helping people to better themselves. LePages' solution is correct in spirit, but misses the mark in the fact that requiring welfare recipients to work for their stuff results in those welfare reciepients doing menial labor.

What should be done is require all able bodied welfare recipients to recieve work training and seek employment. --This isn't happening, so what exists will continue to exist basically unchages, with a social services beaurocracy that expands it's manpower with increased tax dollars, but produces no tangible results for those who genuinely need help.