I have been accused of being full of envy because I harp on the government programs our country has to benefit those in need. You know, like free lunches, free cell phones, help with heating bills, free books in the schools, free medical card for all your children, free rent or at least subsidized rentals being Section 8, and on and on.
Well no I am not envious at all and in fact I would be horrified if I ever had to use any of those programs including getting a Link Card. In fact I believe our government should be there to help it’s people and really have no problem with many of the programs that are out there. After all, what should the government be doing with our money? Paying themselves? Buying bombs? I’d rather see it come back in the form of jobs and aid to those who need the aid. Besides, with the recent crash of our economy, many people who have had jobs found out they didn’t and I hope they get the help. I am blessed with a job, so I don’t need the programs but there is always that fine line.
I do however work and like many many Americans that do work, we pay for these programs with our taxes. I do mind when people make a career out of welfare and when people cheat the system. You know, like having kids to get an increase in your aid and then hiding your live in boyfriend when the case worker shows up? And no matter what anyone says, many people live off the tit of government their whole lives and many are raised to believe that the government will pay the bills, hence we have girls, as young as 15 (even younger) getting pregnant while in school and they don’t give a rat’s ass about who is going to pay for the hospital, the doctor, and the meds for that baby. In fact, it may qualify them for public housing under the Section 8 program.
No, I like working people all over have a vested interest in how my tax money is spent, be it on bombers, garbage fees, or Link Cards. So, please, stop calling me envious of the public aid system. I think the system should be shut down, completely revamped and strict limits added to it. I think no one should have a career on public aid and raise a family that also lives on public aid. I thank my lucky stars everyday I don’t have to deal with all that but if I ever had to, it is a nice safety net there for people to survive and get back on their feet.
What chaps my ass is we have a group or generation of people who think they are owed these benefits. Those are the people that need to be slapped awake. I would hate to think that these programs are cut and slashed to the point that if I or someone else really needed them, they wouldn’t be there because a few abuse the entire system.
It’s NOT ENVY EMERGE. It’s tired of paying the bill for sloths.
19 comments:
When in trouble, cue a Republican politician's favorite political villain, the welfare queen. You know the stereotype. The single African American mother whose full-time job is having more babies to increase her welfare benefits. The illegal Mexican immigrant that steals an American's job and uses the public emergency room as his primary care provider. (Insert anyone else who speaks a different tongue, has a slightly darker skin tone and wears funny clothing) who collects food stamps because they are too lazy to get a real job.
But, before my conservative friends criticize me for playing the race card, let me be clear: I don't think it's racist to oppose handouts. I agree. Handouts and entitlements are destructive to America's innovation, personal success and individual happiness. However, the worst welfare queens aren't the petty offenders that collect $133 per month in food stamps.
The real welfare queens are the upper-class college students, who take out federally subsidized student loans for a Master's degree in art history. The investment banker that collects a seven figure salary just after depositing TARP funds. The middle-class homeowner who maxed out her home equity line of credit and now needs a government-backed loan modification. The union auto worker whose "Cadillac" healthcare plan is subsidized by government bailouts of the Chevy Volt. The agribusiness that collects billions of dollars every year in direct and indirect farm subsidies.
And the "historian" who received $1.6 million in taxpayer funds to consult for Freddie Mac. No, I'm sorry, that would be $1.6 million in government handouts to tell a government agency that handouts are bad. I'm sure plenty of food stamp recipients would love to trade their handout for Gingrich's.
It would take the average recipient of food stamps more than 1,000 years to match Newt Gingrich's Freddie Mac contract.
Let me put that in terms even a historian would understand. If you wanted to match Newt's Freddie Mac handout, you'd have to go back to the first millennium, sign up the Viking explorer Leif Ericson for food stamps, and continue paying him benefits today.
The minority welfare queen stereotype is a myth. The government doesn't keep ethnic or racial information about food stamp recipients, but as many as 70 percent of food stamp recipients are white. And the revisionist history about who receives food stamps isn't the only misleading claim about welfare.
When you compare food stamps to other government handouts, it's far from the worst government welfare program. Fannie Mae's $112 billion bailout could fund 70 million people on food stamps for a year. Newt's former bosses at Freddie Mac have received $71 billion in government welfare, enough to annually support more than 44 million people on food stamps. According to ProPublica's bailout report, the $647 billion in recent financial and auto bailouts of 926 institutions could have supported 405 million food stamp recipients.
45.8 million people, one in seven Americans, or 15 percent of the country are on food stamps, by no means, a figure to celebrate. Opponents of bailouts, handouts and welfare should remember their history, and who really benefits from entitlements. The real welfare queens are college students, investment bankers, union workers and farmers, not single mothers.
Follow John Hrabe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnhrabe
... In other words.... Your anger is misplaced.
Emerge: I agree with about 90% of everything you posted and I am damn sorry I made you go out and look up all those facts and numbers on such a fine afternoon. You did forget about the fat rich white mostly, but not all, Republicans who are doctors, lawyers, and whatever that own the biggest section 8 properties and collect off the government dole. That is why Section 8 will never disappear because they can rake in cash, have a property management company run the place and never see a poor person ever. Example? Manual Manor is one, Pierson Hills is another, and oh Lexington Hills still another.
I have never ever said that welfare is a total black problem nor have I ever claimed it was breaking this country. I have said that there are people who do live off it and do it for life.
That said I dispute your numbers so here are some to chew on.
Among the poorest of the poor--single mothers, living below the poverty line with minor children to support 39.7 percent of AFDC clients are Black single mothers and 38.1 percent are White women with children. Food stamp recipients are 37.2 percent Black and 46.2 percent White. Medicaid benefits are paid to 27.5 percent Black recipients compared to 48.5 percent White clients. Now this. Although the numbers show that Whites get the biggest chunk of public aid dollars, welfare critics still charge that Blacks shouldn't collect 33 percent of welfare benefits when they only make up 12 percent of the general population. They say the imbalance proves their case that Blacks are too busy complaining and blaming racism for their plight to look for a job.
Again, preception. People see more blacks with Link Cards so they think it's a black thing People see young blacks shooting young blacks so people think it's a black thing. All those numbers don't mean shit when people have the wrong perception and that is what the black community, among other things, should be dispelling.
It's hard to believe that while blacks make up for a small portion of the overall recipients of aid programs, they sure do suck down a bigger percentage of use.
Accusing PAP of envy for the "parasitic programs" is so far inappropriate that it defies logic! Those who abuse it (who are many), deplete the resources for those who truly need it. It is easily evident who is fraudulent by simply being observant in any grocery store, emergency room, almost anywhere. The system is so flawed, has generated people who refuse to work and expect everything free, the source being anyone but them. Reporting these facts is not envy! It is simply stating observations and statistics!
It can be stopped if there is a limit of say 2 years put on those collecting welfare. And if they have more than 2 children, then they get the same amount of money as they would for two. If their kids don't stay in school, then they lose thier public aid. By putting a limit of two years on welfare, this will let all former workers who have lost their jobs be able to get welfare until they can find a job. After all we and the former workers are the ones that really paid for all the people who have never worked that are on welfare today.
PAP--it's called word twisting to promote her personal agenda. Your words ring true and it makes some people angry and defensive.
"The real welfare queens are the upper-class college students, who take out federally subsidized student loans for a Master's degree in art history."
I'm sorry to say I disagree with this statement. First, with Federally subsidized student loans, the only subsidy is the interest that is deferred until your repayment hence the term LOAN. It is paid back while entitlement programs are not.
Secondly, what upper-class student do you know getting Federal student loans? My family was lower middle class (well under $100K/year) when I applied for my undergrad loans and I only qualified for about 30% of my loans Federally subsidized. I have quite the substantial loan payment for private, unsubsidized loans through private banks to prove it.
Not to be hateful, just an observation.
-Tank101-
Oh great. The race card queen has went from welfare queen to now a copy-n-paste queen. This article was swiped from (of all places) the very left-wing Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-hrabe/newt-gingrich-welfare_b_1209898.html
Not exactly a convincing source. I thought it was funny that this copy-n-paste proselytizer was too lazy to completely correct the word-wrap in her swiped proselytize-o-gram.
I have a household income of less than 100,000 yearly. My son rec'd zip for college from the government. Didn't expect anything didn't get anything. And I am good with that. I will pay for my child. Equality is a myth to make non contributors think they are contributors. Make no mistake about it you non contributors are not equal and wont be until you man up get a job punch a clock and pay your own way and the way of the children you create. Welfare is a black persons worst enemy. It has handicapped the black community. It has labeled them as lazy.
I hate to pile on, but I also must object to the epithet "welfare queen" for "The union auto worker whose "Cadillac" healthcare plan is subsidized by government bailouts of the Chevy Volt."
The government bailout of the US auto industry was not to subsidize anyone's healthcare plan. It was to keep Americans working, paying taxes, buying consumer goods that in turn keep OTHER Americans working, paying taxes, buying consumer goods...
I'm glad the government provided a safety net for the auto industry so that it could survive, and keep those workers working and contributing. I call that an excellent use of my tax dollars.
A few things; First student loans aren't welfare nor subsidized. I have sons who drew loans to get their degrees and they were deferred until they graduated. Now they pay these loans and interest is added. It's a chunk of change out of their paychecks and if they didn't have jobs, well they still have to pay the loan. That is NOT a handout nor were the books free. In fact books for one semester for one of my sons was almost $800. No free textbooks for them.
Second, the auto industry needed the bailout because if it failed, not only those jobs would be gone but jobs of the suppliers to that industry like Delco and others putting tons of people out of work. Talk about soup lines in the depression, shit, we would have had huge soup lines. Bush, by the way, is the one who authorized the first bailout of GM and believe me, he comes from a party that isn't friendly to the eldery, the poor, or the jobless. The GOP wants to cut every single program that helps the disadvantaged and even Social Secruity.
Next, a woman with kids who gets $140 a month in food stamps isn't a queen on welfare. She is starving with children. How could any family live on $140 worth a food a month? The real queen of welfare is the woman, who doesn't give a rats ass where the money comes from nor does she even consider the people who work to provide her with money to eat, is the one that is at Alwan's Meats buying over $400 worth of prime beef, hams, and chicken and using a Link Card. I work and so does my wife and we are lucky to afford Alwan's meats in modest amounts once a month. Mostly we get it from the supermarket that was shipped in from Lord knows where. Why? Because we value the bucks we have to spend and we know how hard we worked for those dollars. And that is where the problem is today. Many people get on these welfare programs and after generation after generation, they don't learn to used what is given to them wisely, but instead think it is owed to them. It isn't.
More...the commenter "barack" made a point about copy/paste. This is the internet. You can find on the net something anywhere to support your side of the argument and vise a versa. You say it comes in only red, I can find it comes in only purple.
Also, I want to know what exactly those people at the MLK luncheon and their speaker, Mr. Dyson, and even Travis Smiley expect our President to do for the down and out in this country. He is not a King and we do have a Congress so what is it they don't think he's doing?
"emerge" plagiarized the entire post. I became suspicious because it sort of reads as if it was written by a grown up. kinda makes you wonder if her other rabid rants belong to someone else too...
Did you notice this at the bottom of the post:
Follow John Hrabe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnhrabe
That would be the source. You are about a day slow.
Of course. It was included with the copy process from the source. Apparently she overlooked that little last line prior to posting. Like most libs, she probably didn't even read past the first paragraph. Most people link to a source -- especially an article that long. Doing so removes any semblance of an act of plagiarism.
Bless yo lil ole' heart. Fini.
"First student loans aren't welfare nor subsidized."
There are unsubsidized student loans and federally subsidized student loans (depending on who pays the interest while in school). Further, student loan interest is deductible - that is a tax expenditure, or another form of subsidy. (Similarly, "Cadillac" health insurance plans are subsidized by tax deductions. As are mortgages on million dollar homes, or a home equity line of credit used to buy a Corvette.)
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