Advertising For Welfare Recipients

Re: "Food stamp aid OK’d with 2 dissents" (Thursday Page B1), it's distressing that Pols like Mayor Parker and Councilman Ed Gonzalez actually believe that any and every expansion of welfare spending is not only virtuous, but that it actually promotes economic growth.  Clearly, there has to come a point when even they would agree that some level of welfare dependency is bad for the soul and kills the economy. 

 

But I might be giving them too much credit.  I say this because - despite the berserk expansion of food stamp and other welfare benefits in the past three years - they still intend to go after another $142 million per year that the Food Research and Action Center says is due to Houston residents, assuming they can sign up all the people that the study shows theoretically qualify for benefits.  They don't even pay lip service to the notion that poor folks might benefit more from a job so as to lift themselves up.  There's "money on the table", as Gonzalez put it, and Houston needs to pick it up.

 

Kudos to Councilpersons Pennington and Brown for being voices of reason on this matter, and shame on Parker and the rest not only for the latest tiresomely predictable money grab, but their failure to even think about the consequences.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress