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Obama villainization toward small business and the American people is wrong. Did you jump on board?
Obama did not go after the big bankers, big corporations. They are able to move money, hire lawyers and legally avoid Obama's higher taxes and Obama knew this. Obama understands you do not know the difference between the high income earners and the truly wealthy so he used you to go after higher taxes on hard working American people. Obama effectively pit low income workers and welfare recipients against the high income, tax paying people of this country.
You would not believe what small business owners have to do when they start a business, yes eating ramon noodles, doing without, borrowing out the azz, working constantly, constantly worrying it will fail. So after they become successful in providing a product or service people want don't you think they deserve more respect.
If you truly believe they did it with government help why doesn't the government help you start a business.
You don't like it, but you think it is fine when Obama goes after others. You reap what you sow I guess.
I agree with your statements about big bankers and corporations. Obama has used the discontent and the fear felt by those who are struggling every day just to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads, to pit low and middle income people against high income people. Because a divided nation of people is easier to control. Because it's better to deflect anger away from politicians and towards those bastard rich people with their fancy cars and their fancy meals.
We live in America for God's sakes - people here are supposed to have hope, aspirations, the belief that they can build themselves and their families a good life. But the system has been rigged so badly, and the relationship between big corporations and big government is so incestuous that the people we elected have no desire to change the system for the betterment of all citizens. It is all about favors and quid-pro-quo and keeping their jobs. It's about money and power in the hands of the few, and none of them (either in big business or big government) want to give up either of those things. So we take the scraps that the feds throw at us, and we say "Thank you Sir".
It's wrong that they can do it and it's wrong that we are expected to just accept it.
I also agree with you that starting a business is very tough. I started a business six months ago, and we paid as we went to set it up so that we wouldn't go into debt. It was very tough for a while - no money (I mean no money) for anything but basic foods, watching utilities, downsizing TV and internet and phone plans, planning trips to control gas usage in the truck etc. etc. The business was a money sucking black hole for the couple of months leading up to its start, and was a money sucking black hole for the first few months it ran. It's paying for itself now, but that also means I've been working for six months straight without a paycheck (eight months actually if you include the lead-up). We couldn't do it without my husband's retirement (and he worked hard for many years socking away as much as he could into his retirement plan as he went).
It's a scary thing for all the reasons you stated - working hard, worrying hard, worrying about the economy, always pushing to move the business forward, believing (hoping) that eventually it will all be worth it, still watching food and utility and gas and housing costs to try and keep them under control until you actually can breathe again. Always working and hoping that it's gonna work. It's tough.
I've been poor. The oldest of seven kids and there was never enough to eat and what you ate was crap because crap was cheap. I don't hate the poor. Again........I don't hate the poor. I don't begrudge anybody accepting social safety net entitlements if they truly need them because it could just as easily be me, and if I were in dire straights I'm thankful to live in a country where we do not turn our backs on the poor. I willingly have (throughout my entire working career) paid into the system, so that it could be there for me if I ever needed it and have willingly paid into the system because there are others who truly need it.
What I DO hate are people that have been described ad nauseum in multiple threads on this site, and which my husband (as a retired law enforcement officer) saw throughout his entire career. There are healthy people who deliberately make bad lifestyle decisions, who are capable of working, who are capable of fending for themselves, and who have absolutely no inclination to get out there and make their own way.
How many welfare recipients are legit and how many are low-life system-suckers? I don't know and don't care. The point is that our country is broke and it's broken. We SHOULD be doing everything we can to fix it (and that includes addressing individual and corporate welfare abuse). Our politicians won't fix the system because they don't want to fix the system.
And so we hate on the rich because they're rich. And we hate on the poor because they're poor. And the scum sucking low life politicians laugh all the way to their cushy offices confident in the knowledge that the American people can be so easily controlled.
Last edited by juneaubound; 05-05-2013 at 03:05 PM..
I would have agreed with you under the old system when people were punished for being married and the system broke up families, could be on welfare forever, etc.--that we had institutional welfare then--but since the rules were changed under the Clinton Administration, you can't be on welfare forever anymore if you're receiving benefits because you're poor. Social security disability is the exception to that, and people pay into the system for it, just like they do with regular social security. My understanding is the the time limits for welfare range from 2 years in your LIFETIME in some states to 5 years in others, and unless you're caring for a very young child or a child with disabilities, you are required to either work or take full time vocational training during that time period. You can receive foodstamps longer term, but they're meant to supplement your income to help you purchase three modest meals a day--not replace it. The more you earn, the less you get in foodstamps.
Until we have enough jobs that will actually bring people out of poverty, welfare is not the problem.
Availability of jobs is ALWAYS overlooked by the anti-welfare crowd. Additionally, they are just repeating OLD BS reasons when they trash people who need assistance. They seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that this is 2013 and a different economy in the U.S.
Isn't there a saying or something about "pride goeth before the fall"?
Oh look. A lie. Something you just totally fabricated.
1) It wasn't food stamps that were being talked about.
2) It wasn't half of cards being used at casinos. It was half (a little more, actually) of casinos allowing cash withdrawals using EBT cards.
At making things up, apparently.
This is why we can't have a serious conversation about abuses of the system.
People lie about who is getting food stamps. They lie about what the money is being spent on. They lie about where the money is being spent.
Apparently he did not realize that child support are also on those cards as well, which is the money of the caretaker of the children and has nothing to do with the government. So I ask, how does he know where the money comes from?
Well I am throwing myself into the fire with this post, but I have seen about the last inaccurate and fabricated "Welfare Queen" post than I can handle.
This anti welfare attitude and villainization of the poor is WRONG.
I lived in poverty most of my childhood. My mother left my abusive father when I was one and worked two jobs to survive. Even with those two jobs, she would have qualified for welfare and food stamps. But she was too proud to do so. Thus, I lived on ramen noodles and hot dogs for most of my childhood. I was underweight and malnourished. There were more times than I care to remember that I went to bed hungry. The only decent meal I got was at school...when my mother could afford it. She also refused reduced or free lunches, which she would have qualified for. Usually, I got a PB&J and carrots and was starving by dinner time. Then I got a small serving of hamburger helper. I also didn't see doctors for most of my childhood because my mother refused to use medicaid. I am still dealing with health issues due to that.
My SO's parents were the same. They were poor and could not afford very much food, but refused food stamps. His father gardened and that was what they ate most of the time. At one point, his father made my SO eat his own vomit after he threw up a pepper because they were so desperate to not waste food.
And the reason for this and why so many children are currently going hungry (or without decent shelter or health care) in this country is because there are still tons of people who are too proud to take assistance when they need it. And it because of this prevalent attitude that people who use government assistance are worthless!!
And with this, there are people who would qualify for assistance, but choose not to do so simply because they are too proud and don't want to be "one of those people." Then they are resentful of the people who actually take advantage of the benefits they are LEGALLY entitled to and use that to push an agenda against welfare and spread myths about people who use welfare.
IT IS WRONG. You are helping to perpetuate suffering, including your own.
Also: don't give me the old, "poor people are fat in America!!" I would have been fat eating hot dogs, ramen noodles, PB&Js, and hamburger helper too if I had a different body type and metabolism. I would have still been undernourished.
If you are pleased with the welfare situation, donate 10% of your income (beyond regular taxes) to fund welfare. If not, you are a hypocrite.
I pay, with federal, state, local, property, medicare and social security, about 50% of my income in taxes. I am taxed to death and cannot afford to pay for issues that are important to other people, but unwilling to fund themselves.
Availability of jobs is ALWAYS overlooked by the anti-welfare crowd. Additionally, they are just repeating OLD BS reasons when they trash people who need assistance. They seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that this is 2013 and a different economy in the U.S.
Isn't there a saying or something about "pride goeth before the fall"?
temporary assistance. r u kidding? 4th and 5th generation? one thing that is made clear to a new welfare worker who is trying to "help" recipients get work.
u dear sweet confused man, i dont want to work, not looking for work, i am not going to do work, as a matter of principle i think most work is demeaning, exploitive, racist in nature and excessively stressful. i wont work and u cant make me. what part of that is so confusing to you?
Long live welfare!
Long live government dependence!
No.
How about we just support our assumptions with facts. And look at all the problems with our government, our economy, and spending instead of focusing almost solely on welfare abuse that is yet to be proved to be a problem with any real evidence.
Until we have enough jobs that will actually bring people out of poverty, welfare is not the problem.
And it comes out. Who promised you a job? Who promised you anything? Who said you were entitled to jack? Life is what YOU make it. Not a job, not welfare, not entitlements, nothing.
Before you go off on a long winded rant about "poverty," MANY people had it worse then you and have made it. My mother raised 4 children by herself. I grew up in one of the worst cities in California: Oakland. We are all black. I grew up eating all the same things you did and sometimes a helluva lot worse. I can remember weeks living in a local park, no roof over my head. Weeks without a hot meal. My mom DID use welfare and other government assisted programs.
Yet, not one single one of us kids are on welfare now. We all have jobs and are productive members of society. Ah, but the other kids I grew up with in Oakland? MANY are still on welfare and every other government assisted program out there. For the past 49 yrs, they have been raised by the state and federal government. Some are great grandparents already and the entire family live in the same place. ALL of them sucking up every single free government entitlement program given to them.
THESE are the people in which we are upset about. Someone who needs welfare, assisted housing, healthcare, etc to get by for a few years, NO ONE is complaining about. Its the group of persons out there which have absolutely no want or desire to improve themselves and want more for doing nothing which upsets people.
Its the group of people who are on welfare, who se the money to purchase cigarettes, beer, and sell their benefits to buy drugs. AND while on these benefits continue to have child, after child, after child they cannot afford; yet turn around and burden society with their errors. So we pay more. No one is against welfare, we are against the abusers of the system.
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