Xerox "Routine Backup Test" Leave 17 States Without Food Stamps

An anonymous reader writes "People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure. Xerox announced late in the evening that access has been restored for users in the 17 states affected by the outage, hours after the first problems were reported. 'Restarting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality,' spokeswoman Jennifer Wasmer said in an email. An emergency voucher process was available in some of the areas while the problems were occurring, she said. U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Courtney Rowe underscored that the outage was not related to the government shutdown."

Comments

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

It might help if the Dems quit importing competition for all those unemployed.

Re:Yes, it does

[Nemyst]

Actually, yes, yes we do. You are benefiting from society's services (police, firemen, infrastructure, courts of law, whatever else) and hence are due a certain portion of your income as compensation for these services. The ratio asked differs by country but is irrelevant to the principle. If you don't want to pay the rate, move somewhere else. I'm sure you'll enjoy your money in a country with 0% tax rate and no law enforcement to speak of: there'll be plenty of people who will love getting in your house and stealing your shit or just killing you outright, and that's if you can even make money at all in the context of a society like that.

It's not theirs

[rsilvergun]

Despite what your third grade communist fearin' teacher might have told you. After $9 million a _year_ you can't honestly say that the person in question is generating enough raw wealth to be 'worth' it. They're just able to obtain it through a combination manipulation of the political system, military power and indoctrination of the working class. The Koch brothers are a prime example. Their money comes from gov't contracts to run hospitals and gov't granted mineral rights. They add no value to either process. They're just good at manipulating the gov't and the populace to increase their wealth.

The super rich didn't 'earn' their wealth. They the gov't to obtain and maintain it. You can argue they shouldn't be allowed to do this, but you can't stop them from doing it. Their wealth makes them too powerful. To ignore that fact not only plays right into their hands, but it's pointless too. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Gov't is a tool. The rich are going to use it to their advantage. The only question is, are you?

Re:Yes, it does

[lgw]

police, firemen, infrastructure, courts of law, whatever else

These are mostly local services provided by local government for usually quite modest taxes. The legitimate business of the government, stuff like this, simply doesn't take much in the way of taxes to fund, and at the federal level is about 20% of spending.

Our federal government is a pension plan with a military. Infrastructure and science funding and so on is a small sideline business.

I'm sure you'll enjoy your money in a country with 0% tax rate and no law enforcemen

Do you honestly think that adds anything to the discussion? We have serious financial difficulties coming our way in the US, and partisan hyperbole won't help solve these problems.