Personally, I'd rather people game the system by collecting more food stamps than they are legally allowed, rather then having them just straight up try to blow my brains out and take all my stuff. While I wish we could deal with them on a case by case basis, under the current system I think that would cost more than the money saved by catching fraud.
I'll bite on this one. I had a friend who is Norwegian. Norway has one of the "best" welfare systems in Europe. If you can't get a job then you are entitled to get more on welfare than most people in Europe make by working.
He managed to get a doctor in Sweden to write a statement saying that working causes mental pain for him. This Swedish doctor did not care what he wrote when he was told flat out that he was going to use this doctors statement to abuse the Norwegian welfare system. The Norwegian welfare office NAV accepted this piece of paper.
He told me flat out that he prefers doing nothing over working. "Why would I get a job when I can live like a king doing nothing?" he asked me.
This guy later moved to Czechoslovakia and lived like a king. The Norwegian welfare check he receives is way more than well-educated people in that country earn.
This is what happens in socialist / fascist countries with "good" welfare systems: People stop looking for jobs. They prefer to stay on welfare, they choose it because they can.
Sounds kind of like that welfare queen story Ronald Reagan used to feed Americans, which turned out to be complete bullshit. I'm sorry, but I need a little more than "my one friend one time," especially when I find it hard to believe that your friend would have a plan to game the system, but simultaneously would admit it to the very doctor he was relying on for the ability to do so. If that was his plan, he could have simply said he needed assistance for mental retardation and he wouldn't have been lying. I imagine doctor's aren't supposed to be giving out statements that they know are false, anyway, so the doctor and your friend are to blame, assuming the story is even true. And if you live in America, this is certainly never happening. I'm not saying nobody games the system, I'm just saying that nobody is living like a king by gaming the welfare system. Nobody.
The story just doesn't really add up in my mind, and reads like homespun propaganda. Even if it is true, why should the legitimately needy suffer because of some bad seeds? Would you amputate your leg to fix a broken toe?
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