Posted on 04/02/2015 5:37:09 PM PDT by dynachrome
The US govt is very busy crowding out non govt orgs of all flavors. Its insideous.
Since takers are contributing none of their time for the public good, tbey should spend that time waiting in line.
And this isn’t intended to trash everyone. What the article addressed was people looking down on EBT card users. There are some pretty good reasons to, where we like them or not.
Did you by any chance see the long lines at alternate post offices after the 1992 riots? There on the street for the first time in plain sight were the Welfare Recipients.
Oh my, these 300+ pound women lurching down the street... many of them.
Think they aren’t getting food stamps. Think they need them?
If they would clean up welfare and the EBT and the free lunches and the..., and on and on it goes... most of us wouldn’t complain.
There are clearly many abuses going on.
Do I object to people down on their luck getting some help? No. Is that what is taking place most of the time? I don’t think so.
Those that aren’t abusing the system, I support getting some form of assistance temporarily.
With all of those hats and suits, how could those guys be truly poor?
They probably could do all the work, and more efficiently than government, if it weren't for the fact that government already takes so much of the workers' substance that they have very little or nothing left over with which to practice any charity.
Government, by and large, is in the way...
It is their right to buy whatever they want with your money, so they think.
And it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. How convenient!
I agree that in many ways the Church has wrongly abdicated the responsibility to Caesar. I came from impoverished childhood and have been truly blessed in my life. But, I also watched my father work even harder when times got harder.
There's also a difference from, as you describe your situation, where someone temporarily needs assistance from others - uses it, is done and was grateful......than the individuals that are 3rd generation welfare recipient and views it as the world owes them something.
I added up all of the federal taxes, state taxes, personal property taxes, social security deductions, etc, etc, and it is to the point that I give up more than $1 for every $3 I earn.......even God Almighty only asked for 10 percent.
At some point, we have to say, "enough." Theologically, I don't know if Job would've used EBT. The way I read Job in short - The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. Though he was tempted to take the easy way - he didn't sin (not saying that receiving assistance is a sin). For his perseverance in the face of extreme adversity, he was rewarded. The very reason Satan chose to tempt Job was because Job was righteous.
I would more compare this story to Jonah. After he preached in Nineveh, he went to watch the city and the sun bore down on him. God grew a vine to shield Jonah from the heat of the sun. Then God sent a worm to eat the plant and Jonah was cross. He wasn't grateful for the time God had given him the plant......and God even asks Jonah, why he (Jonah) was cross when he had done nothing to make the plant grow.
At this point, we're not even talking about killing the plant (SNAP, EBT) buy culling back the excess growth so the money isn't wasted and abused.
It seems an ever increasing segment of our population has done nothing productive and yet make demands from those who are. And we are supposed to watch what is supposed to be benevolence for sustenance get abused and used at strip clubs, Disney Land, to buy alcohol, drugs, and the latest pair of Air Jordans.
Even in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 - Any man who will not work, neither shall he eat.
Instead of helping those in need, the system is burdened with grifters who only ever demand more.
At what point of confiscation of one's labor are we no longer free, but a slave? Is it when 10% is confiscated, 25%, 30% 50%?
Tragically, when it comes to this point the trajectory is a full out nose dive.....and it is easy to justify responses like, "Why should I donate to the poor when there's so many social programs in the U.S.?" "Why should I donate to the poor overseas when we spend more than $30 Billion in tax money to support people overseas?"
You both have good comments.
Divide the united. Divided is what we’ve become and the divide will grow.
BTW, a big part of the reason for them being treated so bad is the middle class itself have been economically gang raped. Those still in middle America have been squeezed. Lots of them also went from middle class to the poor class. They’re not a happy group. This grew the poor class dramatically. More on food stamps etc...
Then throw in the never ending conga-line of tens of million of foreigners and illegals being piped in. They’re choking off all social services.
And those near the top are complaining about less profits and complain what’s left of the middle want raises all the time. But they don’t mention wages have been stagnant for 15+ years while the cost of everything/taxes etc., have gone through the roof. Dollar devalued.
I’d say most Americans are PO’d except maybe the very wealthy. They can take huge hits and still go on Learjet vacations.
Americans used to be united and patriotic people. We were proud Americans, with a common trust and language. Unfortunately it seems it’s all coming to an end.
That's a pretty wide open rant.
How are you going to see what I do?
You want me to send you some videos of me writing letters to congressmen and senators?
would bar the state’s 930,000 food stamp recipients from using their benefits to buy cookies, chips, soda, energy drinks, steak and seafood.
That is not anger. Its common sense. You are giving someone “money: earned by someone else because they do not or can not acquire enough food to sustain themeleves with that assiatnce. To allow them to use that for junk food and energy drinks (expensive as hell) would be criminal!They need to buy fod that will provide the nourishment the need.
The anger comes in you you as a person that workd 40 plus hours a week or maybe a part time job besides a fulltime job see someone in line using foodstamps to buy crap and meanwhile they have 2 brand new tattooes, jewelry out the whazoo, a 50 dollar wide brim hat and brand name leather jacket... And we have every right to be angry....
Actually, I am not giving you a hard time. It appears to me that you needed the help, then moved on. I have no problem with that.
But, you do not realize that you are a minority.
The majority is a whole different ball of wax. They actually make it harder for people like you and me to get the help when we need it, because they abuse the system. Billions of dollars get paid to them, while we are ignored.
Unfortunately they are not really abusing the system...
Years ago, they received government surplus food and vouchers to pay for rent and utilities...Then the gov't decided it wasn't fair to them that we worker could buy the brand new tv dinners and they couldn't...Wasn't fair that we could buy ready made meals and they couldn't...It wasn't fair that we could buy candy bars and they couldn't...
Somewhere in there their kids started getting free school lunches...
Then the poor started getting food stamps to spend as tho it was money...And of course they were easy to sell and trade...The gov't made it easy for them to do...
It ended up that they got the EBT card to buy what they wanted and could even use the card to get cash...
We trash the people who abuse the system but their actually doing what the gov't allows them to do...
And while some complain that the poor of our country have it better than the well off in some other countries shows me how that God has blessed this country...
The string I would add is inability to vote if you are on the dole (or are not a citizen).
I don't doubt for a minute that there's an entitled class. The issue is the other poor - the working poor, the temporarily down on their luck poor, the elderly with no one, etc. I don't have a clue how we can cut off the entitled poor without harming everyone else.
I do agree that charity should take care of the poor (and I walk that walk) but we need to be incremental in our approach if we wish to gain the trust of the LIVs.
“Treated like criminals”
I have NEVER seen that. People rolling their eyes or getting irritated how long it takes someone with an EBT card to get through the shopping line.
Otherwise, it would not surprise me to learn that 9 out of 10 people on assistance do not need to be on it or they could get by with substantially less.
If you are one of the ten who truly need,or have needed, assistance than this does not apply to you.
HOwever, the other 9 out of 10, or whatever the actually number, are criminals. They are defrauding the government (taxpayers).
Juggling the numbers for GA (your state may differ, but point is made) and applying them nationally for a SWAG...
If we’re going to go with a “guaranteed basic income” as an alternative to welfare (dump the bureaucracy and just give everyone the same livable amount*):
- the goal is to ensure nobody lives below the “poverty line”
- in lieu of trying to enumerate who qualifies for what under what conditions as interpreted & executed by a bureaucracy, likely leaving cracks which the intended recipients fall thru
- just route welfare revenue equally to everyone so nobody is missed
- everyone gets a check for $11,770, do with it as you will (your responsibility as you see fit, lest accusations of “telling others what to do with their money”* and again screwing up things for those actually in need)
- that’s a total national expenditure of $3.75T
- total government revenue for all jurisdictions is $5.8T; given that about $1.16T is debt service (miss that and the house of cards collapses), leaving $4.64T, in turn leaving post-GBI funds for government to run on at just $0.9T.
- “Ain’t happenin’” comes to mind.
(* - as a libertarian, I find this notion appalling (”wealth redistribution” is distasteful for reasons enumerated at length elsewhere). For sake of discussion, and vs the reality of an enormous & broken welfare system and the unlikelihood of actually eliminating it outright, this amounts to a grudgingly acceptable alternative.)
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