Tag: Welfare

Or at least it could be if Michigan State Representative Tom McMillin has his way.  McMillin has proposed legislation that ties any money taken from taxpayers for economic development or grants to a requirement of drug testing for principle recipients. Adding and amending this language:

Sec. 15. Beginning October 1, 2013, the fund shall establish requirements to ensure that any recipient of funds, including a loan, a grant, or funding or other assistance for a project,submits to and tests negative for substance abuse under a substance abuse testing program prescribed by the fund. As used in this section, any recipient who is not an individual includes all of the following:

• (a) For a corporation, the president and the chief executive officer, and each managerial employee who directly reports to the president or chief executive officer.
  
• (b) For a partnership, all partners and each managerial employee who directly reports to a partner.
  
• (c) For a limited partnership, the general and limited partners and each managerial employee who directly reports to a general or limited partner.
  
• (d) For a limited liability company, all members and each managerial employee who directly reports to a member.

Certainly no hotel room baked concoctions for these connoisseurs of the finest taxpayer largess.  We aren't talking of a few misplaced bags of medicinal scratch, or toilet bowl punch either. But the good stuff that can only be bought with the type of green that is doled out by the news conference.

Nearly everyone knows SOMEONE who is on the public dole. Whether it is food stamps or corporate thievery, (not covered in this essay) shouldn't the taxpayer have the right to know where his resources are channeled by government? Especially given the "Sobering Data" published in the DHS sanctioned Michigan lottery report in 2012

"Nearly 14 percent of all lottery winners are either welfare recipients themselves or reside in a household with welfare recipients."

After revelations that at least two major lottery winners were STILL collecting assistance, the report was commissioned and legislative action has been sought to address such abuse.  At the same time Democrat legislators like Rashida Tlaib take the typical progressive route and wish to encourage more abuse through inaction. By attempting to assign shame, that might be more appropriately placed on those who beg for assistance and abuse our generosity by gambling with it, to the DHS director Corrigan (God Bless Her) who sees a problem.

"Though DHS found 19 people with lottery winners of more than $100,000, 83 percent of lottery winners on welfare rolls won less than $5,000. Democratic state Rep. Fashida Tlaib accused the agency of being too harsh on people with small lottery winnings.

"I just think Director [Maura] Corrigan is more passionate about kicking people off the system than preventing fraud," Tlaib told the Detroit News.

Corrigan advocated for a law to "intercept" lottery winnings from those on welfare.

LANSING, - Legislation was introduced today, to help ensure public assistance recipients are giving back to their communities, said sponsor Sen. Joe Hune. Senate Bills 275 and 276, both introduced by Hune, were originally SBs 904 and 905, introduced last fall, which failed to pass. (curious, is it not?)

SB 276 would require cash assistance recipients who are not exempt from the Jobs, Education and Training program to participate in community service. Joe Hune, R-Hamburg says:

"People benefiting from public assistance should do something to give back to the community that is providing them with a helping hand, and that is exactly what my bill does. I am glad that these common sense reforms are moving forward."

We are all for it here.

Hune's other measure, SB 275, would require public assistance applicants to submit to a drug test if their caseworker has a reasonable suspicion they may be abusing drugs.

"When it comes to drug testing, individuals using taxpayer money for assistance need to be held accountable for abusing it - period"

SBs 275 and 276 were referred to the Senate Families, Seniors, and Human Services Committee for further consideration.

In about 11 months, I celebrate my 20th anniversary of being tobacco free. In the first 5 years of that, it was a fight to stay off the nicotine, and the body and mind played tricks to try and get me puffing again. Stress, the after dinner reach for a pack, drive time, all of those things I thought of as pleasurable for so long, reached up from the depths often, in order to regain its hold over me.  Its hold from a time when I was its slave, and it was my benevolent master.

As long as I fed it, the habit made me relax for a time, and I was allowed to live in my skin.

Some folks have compared tobacco addiction to that of heroin, or other narcotics.  Others, to its oft used partner, alcohol.  Though I have never experienced the withdrawal effects of those, I believe I understand them as a result of having had been a smoker for well over a decade.  The 'habit' was more than that.  It was an unchangeable lifestyle; a daily thing that demanded my attention, or the consequences would be hellish.

There is a drug that is worse however.

And it won't be your body or mind reminding you how bad its going to be without it.  It will be active little monsters who also get a high from it, and want you hooked for as long as it takes for THEM to live THEIR lives.

Apparently bridge card holders with accounts ending in a "0" have been 'inconvenienced'.  The money didn't appear as it was supposed to:

"It has come to the attention of the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget (DTMB) that as of 8 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 3, the Bridge Cards providing food assistance for clients with account numbers ending in "0" were not filled as expected.

DTMB understands the extreme inconvenience that this situation has caused Michigan families and those businesses that serve them. We are working to correct the problem as quickly as possible and we will determine why it occurred."

This had better be right!

DTMB regrets that this problem has occurred and will be working to ensure that safeguards are put in place to prevent a similar error in the future.

A Lincoln Park woman who collected welfare benefits despite winning a big lottery prize pleaded no contest to fraud Thursday and likely will be sentenced to probation.

Lawyers for Amanda Clayton, a 25-year-old mother of two, were disappointed that state prosecutors would not settle the case without a felony charge.

"Ambitions often get in the way of good justice," Todd Flood told The Associated Press outside court.

There is no dispute that Clayton collected about $5,500 in food aid and medical benefits after winning a $735,000 lottery prize, before taxes, last year. After Clayton was confronted by TV station WDIV, the state charged her with fraud and said she should have informed the Department of Human Services about her windfall.

Clayton, who bought a new home and a car with her winnings, has said she felt entitled to the welfare handout.

More here

via The News-Herald

A Lincoln Park resident charged with two counts of welfare fraud-failure to inform stood mute today at her arraignment in Wayne County Circuit Court.

Judge Margie Braxton entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of Amanda Clayton, 25.

Paul Cusick, a state prosecutor, said he had no plea deal offers for Clayton. One of her attorneys, John Dakmak, said in May that they are not ruling out the possibility of a plea deal.

Clayton is due back in court for a conference at 9 a.m. June 28.

Rest here