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I have a problem when a gang robs a group of people, takes its cut and then gives what's left to a more favored group....oh and calls it charitable.
Funny how many victims buy into it too.
Excellent point and the thing that is often not discussed. I wonder what proportion of working age people on assistance are there through zero fault of their own? My guess is not many.
How many are on assistance because they squandered their 13 years of free education? Or got involved with drugs/alcohol? Or had a kid without the means to provide? Or dated a toxic loser? Or poorly manage their money?
To leftists, misfortune just falls out of the sky and little thought is given to a history of choices and decisions.
But you dont get approved for being a druggie or not managing your money. You get approved based off family size and income. You can be on SSI/SSDI and get $1000 and make all your ends meet. You can work a crappy waitress job and make $1000 and make all your ends meet, its about HOW you do that.
@Biker53 - My circumstances are just we make too much to be on any assistance except Medicaid. We can pay all of our bills and have savings building. We are paying debts ( as i said in my post about a past electric bill). We had been on and off foodstamps/medicaid since 2004.
It does bother me when people take advantage. I know people who do it and it sucks for the rest of us. There should be a better system in place. They have added a work requirement but im sure that still doesnt stop stupid people.
Its not just Food Stamps or Cash Assistance that need reworked- SSI/SSDI ( people take advantage of that too), Child Support, low income housing, etc.
They are all good programs but its a bogged down system. We went from only a handful of groceries taking foodstamps to now you can walk into a gas station like UDF and get an ice cream sundae!
People on public assistance don't all fall into a simple classification.
I live in West Virginia where our local economy has been devastated by the war on coal which has led to a lot of formerly hardworking people who used to have decent incomes on food stamps now out of no fault of their own. I also used to live in suburban Baltimore which has lost many industrial jobs because of the free trade agreement signed by liberals and Democrats in order to assist Mexico and other Third World nations. Many steelworkers and autoworkers lost their jobs in the region. These people are not proud to be on public assistance and would rather have their jobs back, but our government policies are not friendly to their industries.
The ones I despise are the people in the ghetto and the illegal aliens who have a culture of entitlement. They believe that food stamps, welfare, and Obamacare are just reparations over slavery and Jim Crow which happened decades and centuries ago. The illegal aliens also feel extremely entitled to take from our country (though they have no interest in becoming American, adopting any part of American culture or even learning English) and that truly sickens me.
OP I don't think you give good options. There different levels of people on welfare.
Good people / Catastrophic incident:
I know a family (hard working) who fell on hard times because he became blind. He went from doing well to being on welfare. His wife also a hard worker would not be able to make enough to be near enough to pay for the needs of their family like they were once able to. They would have to go from 0 to 60 to make it off welfare. These are the people that want to work but need some kind of tier to allow them to grow out of the system but there isn't so they are trapped in the system.
Good People / Gave Up:
These people were just like above but at some point realized they were trapped and just gave into it.
Bad Attitudes / Never Tried
These people have bad attitudes many grew up being taught by their elders they were entitled to government handouts, typically very angry people. They were also trapped but they didn't bother trying in the first place. These are the people that give welfare a bad name and make people who are paying their bills feel taken advantage of.
Good People / Gave Up:
These people were just like above but at some point realized they were trapped and just gave into it.
That's me but I still feel bad. If I hadn't gone to college and just tried for a job right out of high school I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be in this predicament.
Corporate and banking welfare in the form of bailouts, incentives, subsidies and tax loopholes cost the average American taxpayer far, far more than social programs such as food stamps (SNAP.)
I worked in human services for years in multiple states.
The one issue where I think there is a problem is SSI, mentioned in the OP.
SSI, or Supplemental Security Income is disability payments (capped at an average of $740 per month per recipient) that people who've been declared disabled by the Social Security Administration receive if they have not worked enough to have paid enough into the system to receive SSD (Social Security Disability.)
When working in human services I saw an awful lot of people who received SSI who didn't seem incaoable of working, but it was not my job to judge those things.
Regardless, the biggest welfare drain on us is subsidizing already rich corporations. Yet the "enemy" is painted as the working poor (the majority of families receiving food stamps have at least one adult in the workforce) or the single mother who needs some assistance.
The ones that are able to work , and just don't want too...absolutely. The ones that take advantage of the system, like a 23 year old woman with 5 kids from 5 different fathers that uses her children as paychecks ...absolutely.
My wife has 2 cousins that are on programs. They both are pretty worthless and do nothing to help their cause. Their families constantly help them out but they just keep making 1 terrible decision after another. Neither can hold a job for more than 6 months, they have 5 kids between the 2 of them and 3 different dads, the 1 dad that is around is in and out of jail all the time and that cousin decided that having another baby would make their marriage better. I watch my wife aunt who is a mom to neither of them do what she can to support them, buy a condo for them to rent out give them a car etc.....it always backfires. She quits a job won't pay rent and the aunt is on the hook for the mortgage. The cousin actually complains about the aunt to everyone and says she doesn't do enough when she dumps the kids on her and parties all night.
I know some people truly need help and I support that. Watching this the best thing for them would be cut off from the govt and family, kids in foster care and forced to be on their own and responsible for their own actions. Their kids will just follow their path and it will be an endless cycle.
People on public assistance don't all fall into a simple classification.
I live in West Virginia where our local economy has been devastated by the war on coal which has led to a lot of formerly hardworking people who used to have decent incomes on food stamps now out of no fault of their own. I also used to live in suburban Baltimore which has lost many industrial jobs because of the free trade agreement signed by liberals and Democrats in order to assist Mexico and other Third World nations. Many steelworkers and autoworkers lost their jobs in the region. These people are not proud to be on public assistance and would rather have their jobs back, but our government policies are not friendly to their industries.
The ones I despise are the people in the ghetto and the illegal aliens who have a culture of entitlement. They believe that food stamps, welfare, and Obamacare are just reparations over slavery and Jim Crow which happened decades and centuries ago. The illegal aliens also feel extremely entitled to take from our country (though they have no interest in becoming American, adopting any part of American culture or even learning English) and that truly sickens me.
Employment in mines peaked in the 1920's.
The Republican Party has consistently been advocates of free trade. Pence never saw a trade bill he did not like, including TPP. Mexico has more free trade agreements with the rest of the world than any other country. It is one of the primary reasons why European and US companies have chosen to build and operate plants there.
Illegal immigration became a tidal wave in the 80's. In response, many were given amnesty. And promises were made to control the borders and get tough on employers. 30 years of kicking the can leads to right now.
Resettlement of refugees peaked in the 80's. Current levels are a fraction of what they once were.
The US is bursting with people who feel entitled. Some of them are beneficiaries of welfare programs. Some want big government to protect their jobs and force employers to forego productivity in exchange for jobs and increased costs and while they are at it regulate CEO compensation.
The rest of the developed world embraced Universal Healthcare. Germany has been at it for well more than 100 years. No two countries do it the same. Some chose a Single Payer model. Some chose an entirely private insurance model. Most are a mixed bag. Most achieve equal or better outcomes than the US and do it for less.
Those countries tweak their healthcare progs every year and periodically reform them. All are dealing with more people, more older people and more ways to treat people.
In contrast, in the 2000's, Congress twice denied Medicare the ability to significantly lower cost through regulating the price of prescription medications. Then Congress turned around and approved a spiff new benefit- covering prescription drug. Big Pharma was pleased that their lobbying efforts paid off so well. How's that for entitlement.
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