Monday, May 21, 2007

Frumme Yidden in the (bad) news


(remember these?)

This is the second time in the past week that the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper published a story about frum people being busted for Medicaid/Section8 fraud. Last week was only half bad, with no mention of the busted couple's assets, only that that they collected federal assistance when they weren't entitled to it. But this week was terrible. They write of a couple who's 2003 annual income is in the mid-six figures, (working at a funeral chapel, that's what the bereaved pay for in their time of grief, frauds) and who has liquid assets (קע"ש בלע"ז) of well over a Million dollars. They still found it necessary to apply for Medicaid benefits, (I imagine free health care, including dental and vision, not a one-time emergency type of coverage) I guess to pay for the summer bungalow and new Yom Tov clothes. It's tough to live on a Hundred and Fifty Grand plus a million in cash these days!

I guess the time has come. There are no more free lunches. It seems like either all federal computer systems have been linked to one another, or some reporter/journalist is out to get the Jews. Either way things have got to change. From now on if you apply for Medicaid etc. please make sure that you haven't told another federal agency like the IRS of FDIC that you have ten times as much annual income, and have a thousand times more assets in the bank. No longer will the lifestyles of the frum and Chassidish be the same, it's crunch time people. New clothes once a year, not twice, and maybe not even that. Bungalow colonies will need to fold like a deck of cards, and Italian shoe stores, and French baby clothes shops will need to go the way of the horse and buggy. Either the Brooklyn housing market will crash, or we'll all have to move to Scranton. Either way, change is coming, the question is how we'll adapt to it.

Via Yiddish Wiki

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Further proof that GOvernment benefits "for the poor" may not be going to those who really need it. Those who are more skilled at hiding their income and assets will beat out the truly needy (and less able to advocate for themselves) at the public trough. And, yes, the porcine metaphor is intentional.

It is developments like this that changed me from bleeding-heart liberal to staunch fiscal conservative many years ago.

Anonymous said...

What was the guy thinking?
But we don't know the full story.They only had to pay half of what they got, so there could be something further to this story

Anonymous said...

Jewish ganovim used to be smart. I think another horo'oh of this is that the Jewish people is dumbing down.

For all snags: Not serious, of course.

Anonymous said...

Everything you say is correct, but EVEN IF govt. was not ctacking down its wrong.
Its a chilul hashem.
Its wrong to cheat our great Malchus shel Chesed which is not Rumania , Hungary or Poland.
Gezel Akum is not Muttar, no matter what the Uber chachomim write.
Because of these swindles we all including other Jews pay higher taxes and insurance rates.

Anonymous said...

Dear Tzig,

My wife is too proud to apply use foodstamps even though there are times that we would qualify for them. I like stories like this, because I can show her that, aderaba, the person NOT paying with food stamps is the one that really raises eyebrows at the grocery store.

wanderer said...

Things have been this way for a while now, and i'm afraid the government knows about it all too much, yet they don't do too much about it because of several reasons: just plain ol' lazy, the Yiddin will outsmart them anyway, at least in most cases......

Anonymous said...

Another Hungarian contribution to 'frumkeit'....'holy' ganovim....

Anonymous said...

non hung:

You are supposed to stay up on Shavous night, not Erev Shavous!

(look at the time the comment was posted)