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[thaskalos]

I operate a grocery store in a predominently Russian, and to a lesser extent Polish, neighborhood. Over the past several months, an unusually large number of Ukranian people come to my store looking for a job. I have them fill out an application...and have hired several of them. Yesterday I happened to be in the store, and a Ukranian couple walks in and asks me for a job. The lady spoke adequate English, and she told me that they had migrated to this country 6 weeks ago. I gave them two job applications, and afterwards they took a shopping cart and started shopping in the store.

To my surprise, I soon discovered that they were filling the shopping cart to the brim, with little regard to the prices of some of the items that they were buying. When they brought the overloaded shopping cart to the register, I followed them out of curiosity...and I saw that the lady took a link (food stamp) card out of her wallet. With my curiosity piqued, I secretly asked my cashier at the register to check the Ukranian couple's link card balance after their order was rung up (the register systems allow that).

A short while later, my cashier comes to me and tells me that after paying for a $269 grocery purchase...the Ukranian couple still had about $3,000 left as a balance on their food stamp account. This was no great surprise to me, having seen such things several times in the past...but it amazed me that this immigrant couple had secured such a food stamp line of credit after being in this country for such a short period of time. And I wondered how many American citizens are in a position to shop in such an "extravagant" manner...during these turbulant times that we currently find ourselves in.

We truly are the most "generous" country in the world, in our treatment of our immigrant visitors...but I wonder aloud if this "generosity" is extended to our citizens, as well.