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I think too many of these government programs are not well designed enough to help people become more independent, but rather foster more dependency. Free school lunches are fine, I want kids well fed, but what is being done to get these parents become more self sufficient to feed their own kids? Now we have free breakfast as well. More dependency. There was some welfare reform in the 90s that addressed this but it has been altered in recent years to go back to more dependency.
I think the OP is suffering a bit from what people call compassion fatigue. I think many people get that at times.
Compassion fatigue is an excellent way to describe how I personally feel. It isn't necessarily the poor that I am sick of hearing about. Ironically, the poor aren't the ones asking me for money. Know who is though? People and organizations that have the funds to not only help the poor, but to be able to benefit from writing off those donations to reduce their tax liability to where it actually makes a difference.
I can't speak for other people - but maybe I am - when I say that, when I am dealing with my own health issues, a parent that needs help because of an injury, a hot water heater that decides to take a crap...my point being, is that many of us have our own challenges that we are trying to deal with (and is it just me, or doesn't it seem like it all happens at once?) and the last thing that we need is some celebrity telling us it's "only fifty cents!" to feed a child in some underdeveloped country for a day. Every time I see that commercial where Alyssa Milano is trying to guilt people into sending money to "Save The Children!" I want to throw something. I'm just throwing a random number out there, but let's just suppose that her breast implants cost, oh, $7000. The money that she spent on those fake boobs could feed that underpriviledged child for the next 38 years!
On top of that, then there are the annual corporate United Way beg-a thons, where employees are strong-armed into donating. Fortunately, my company isn't that bad with it, but there are many companies that badger their employees to where it can be considered harassment. I have conversations like this with a friend of mine that always seems a hair's breadth away from snapping because of this stuff. There are always blood drives, backpack drives at the start of the school year, Angel Trees and Salvation Army bell-ringers around the holidays. Can't the company just cut a check and write it off? We don't go to work at these companies because we have nothing else better to do. It's because we need the money.
Then, if that weren't enough, there's a donation canister at the bank and several other businesses asking me if I want to donate to the March of Dimes, or help build a school in Ethiopia, or help kids with cancer. At the cash register at the grocery store (where I've pared down what I buy to save money), the cashier asks if I want to donate to some other cause. Does this ever freaking end? There are the billboards that implore us to "Donate your boat!" (what boat?" or "Donate your car!" (you mean the one with the check engine light that stays on, and is also a part of three different manufacturer recalls?) Just because "we" aren't poor because we aren't living in mud huts and slapping our clothes against the rocks in some dirty river doesn't mean that "we" are flush with cash to dispense to whoever comes knocking. "We" are stretched thin enough.
And, if you ever check out the compensation that the executives at some of these non-profits are paid (presumably for their superior and elusive skilll sets), and how much of your dollar actually goes to the people that they are supposed to be helping, it really does make you want to vomit sometimes.
I didn't really intend to turn this into a rant, but I guess I did. Is that a fair encapsulation of compassion fatigue?
The only thing we owe the poor is a JOB offer. Nothing more. Turn down the job, you get nothing. Can't pass a drug test you get nothing.
Would you say that to a war veteran physically and/or psychologically unable to work (ya know, cuz those young men and women are the ones who leave their families, friends and homes to go fight the dirty, messy business of war that all the other pro-war types back at home somehow dodges?).
You're not one of those, are ya Nevar?
Last edited by newdixiegirl; 07-07-2014 at 04:32 PM..
The only thing we owe the poor is a JOB offer. Nothing more. Turn down the job, you get nothing. Can't pass a drug test you get nothing.
Totally disagree. Drug tests are absolutely wrong, unless there's some crucial element of safety, as with an airline pilot. Otherwise it's discriminatory, intrusive, and irrelevant.
I would MUCH rather my tax dollars go to help those less fortunate than I am for whatever reason than to have them go to tax breaks and other corporate welfare that only benefits the rich old white men in charge....
or to unwinnable wars in countries where we have no business being, again to benefit the rich old white men who perpetuate the myth of the welfare queen in an effort to deflect attention from their own cheating, lying ways.....
I keep hearing all these complaints about the poor. And while some of you do know what you're talking about, those of you accusing all poor people of being lazy just don't know what it's like. Especially in areas that are doing really bad economically. Try putting out 50 applications in a month, get interviews for 7 of them, 2 of them aren't really even interviews as you find out when you get there because they actually have no spots open in the area you applied for and are unwilling to let you work in another area. Have the only job opportunities available to you be temp jobs that last a week or two and only show up once every 2 or 3 months. Have the only "permanent" position be a job at Dollar General working for 10 cents above minimum wage, where on a good week you get 26 hours, on a normal week you get 18, and on a bad week you get 5. And your manager has told you that due to "conflict of interest" there is almost no where else you can work at the same time. Then your only option is get the assistance available to you, or starve. And I hope you have someone you can move in with because you ain't renting **** on $600 a month.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevar242
The only thing we owe the poor is a JOB offer. Nothing more. Turn down the job, you get nothing. Can't pass a drug test you get nothing.
So OFFER me that job, make sure it's more than 18 hours a week while you're at it.
Yes, I have been tired of hearing about the poor since approximately 1965. That was the year President Johnson got Congress to pass the Medicare legislation.
I am not claiming that some people are not poor though no fault of their own, nor am I claiming there are no good arguments to made for Medicare.
But it is also true that the more we provide cradle-to-grave security, the more people will just seek to get on that bandwagon and the less motivated some (many?) of them will be to try to make it on their own.
My question about only being obligated to offer the poor a job opportunity is, who is going to mandate that employers offer them a position? Who is going to make sure that the wages and benefit package are going to be more advantageous than what said poor person already receives from the government? Who is going to make sure that the employee offers sufficient accommodations and hours to even get to and from the job?
OK, so that was several questions. But, I have more. Who are these employers that owe the poor a job offer? Is it the small business owner, who is already cash-strapped, or the corporation, who puts workers on the "liabilities" side of the balance sheet and whose main obligation is to the shareholders?
Oh, boy, I had just better stop here. More and more, I can see why the footage of people foraging for food each day seem happier than those of us who supposedly have a superior standard of living.
Yes, I have been tired of hearing about the poor since approximately 1965. That was the year President Johnson got Congress to pass the Medicare legislation.
I am not claiming that some people are not poor though no fault of their own, nor am I claiming there are no good arguments to made for Medicare.
But it is also true that the more we provide cradle-to-grave security, the more people will just seek to get on that bandwagon and the less motivated some (many?) of them will be to try to make it on their own.
Uhmmmm... I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but Medicare is for almost EVERYONE over 65 - not just the poor. Medicare is not means tested and you can have a retirement fund of hundreds of thousands/year and still draw Medicare. I notice that these better off seniors are quite happy to get and use their Medicare cards, too. Sounds to me like you've been hearing about the poor and not listening.
And if you think the US offers its citizens "cradle-to-grave security," I think you may wish to go lay down in a darkened room with a cool cloth over your eyes until the hallucinations pass. This always works for me.
The problem is the economy has evolved over the last few decades and not in a good way. People used to be able to graduate from HS and get a decent paying job, and support them selves. Thanks to economic policies that favor the wealthy, it is almost impossible to do that anymore. Minimum wage is a joke. Most starting salaries are. Good unions manufacturing jobs have gone overseas. Wages have been stagnant while COL has risen. In a nutshell, I blame Ronald Reagan and Wal Mart.
It doesn't matter that all the research on food stamp fraud and welfare fraud and disability fraud indicates that a VERY small percentage goes to fraud and waste, because humans prefer anecdotes over data.
Who does that research and why do so many of us see evidence to the contrary all around us? I don't buy those figures at all. I worked for the government and have hundreds of stories. With my clientele it was nearly a given that they were cheating on their assistance.
It's amazing that, right after talking about how anecdotes always beat data in people's minds, somebody claims that their extensive set of anecdotes constitutes a representative dataset! Like clockwork, I tells ya...
What part of the government did you work for? How many people did you serve total, in all of your years? Compared to that total, how many would "hundreds" be, as a percentage? Moreover, when you say hundreds, could you actually (under need for verification) recall or - given records - find these specific "hundreds? Were these "hundreds" based on mere suspicions or proof? Were the verified suspicions affecting all of a person's eligibility for benefits or only some small portion? Is your experience representative of the whole, or is there a reason to believe your demographic dataset mirrors the broadest dataset?
Finally, your last comment "with my clientele it was nearly a given" makes me very much question your objectivity. It's not naivete I'm opposing, but its tangents: willful ignorance and/or bias.
If the answer to any of these questions doesn't fully support your claim above (or shows it to be statistically misleading), then you'll excuse me for trusting carefully compiled data over many years from different departments and states over the anecdotal "proof" emanating from one person.
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