Octuplet’s mom on food stamps, publicist says

*I have not really commented on this thus far…now, I must say, WTF??? The clinic needs to be closed down, this woman needs to be investigated by CFS. There are people right now being persecuted for refusing to allow their children to get vaccinated…and this woman is allowed to breed. COME ON. What is her major malfunction??*

Nadya Suleman, the mother of the octuplets born last month, gets $490 a month in food stamps, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday evening. Three of her first children also get federal supplemental security income because they are disabled, the Times reported.

Suleman’s publicist, Michael Furtney, confirmed the information.

During an interview with Ann Curry on the TODAY show, Suleman denied being on welfare. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft.)

Suleman told NBC News correspondent Ann Curry in an interview that she was not receiving welfare. Furtney said Suleman didn’t consider the food stamps and SSI to be welfare.

“In Nadya’s view, the money that she gets from the food stamp program … and the resources disabilities payments she gets for her three children are not welfare,” he said. “They are part of programs designed to help people with need, and she does not see that as welfare.”

Furtney declined to say what kinds of disabilities the three children have, the Times reported.

During the interview with Curry, Suleman said, “I’m not receiving help from the government. I’m not trying to expect anything from anybody. [I] just wanted to do it on my own. Any resources that someone would really, really want to help us, I will accept, I would embrace.”

Curry told Suleman that many people think she had the octuplets in the hope of making money off her story.

“That’s funny how untrue that is,” Suleman said. “Money? Money is necessary to raise children. But it’s — it’s paper. It is paper. To me, it is superfluous in contrast to the importance of my kids.”

NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman has estimated the cost of delivering the infants and caring for them until they are healthy enough to leave the hospital at $1.5 million to $3 million.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29110391

California controller to suspend tax refunds, welfare checks

*IF YOU ARE IN CALIFORNIA, GET READY…*

Reporting from Sacramento — State Controller John Chiang announced today that his office would suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants and other payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1, as a result of the state’s cash crisis.

Chiang said he had no choice but to stop making some $3.7 billion in payments in the absence of action by the governor and lawmakers to close the state’s nearly $42-billion budget deficit. More than half of those payments are tax refunds.

The controller said the suspended payments could be rolled into IOUs if California still lacked sufficient cash to pay its bills come March or April.

“I take this action with great reluctance,” Chiang said at a news conference in his office. But he said that without action to close the deficit, “there is no way to make it through February unscathed.”

The payments to be frozen include nearly $2 billion in tax refunds; $300 million in cash grants for needy families and the aged, blind and disabled; and $13 million in grants for college students.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget17-2009jan17,0,4472460.story