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While i agree that many unemployed want to work, I also believe that it will be tough going for some time.
How easy will it be to get someone off of assistance, once they get a taste is my question.
A taste of what? Have you ever been on public assistance? I've been on UI, its no picnic. I have to fill out forms, and stand in lines, and waste hours that I could have been using to look for work to get a measly check that is 50% of what I used to earn. My UI payments pay my rent and my car insurance AND THAT IS ALL. Not a dime more. They keep a roof over my head and they keep Anaheim PD and CHP from towing my car for not having insurance.
Food stamps was a complete headache. It took me one month of pawning some of my possessions before I'd even call them, as I was proud and did not want to go on food stamps, but my family and friends aren't doing much better, so it was either food stamps or starving to death. I had to wait a month to get the card that would enable me to buy food, and and the food stamp line is out the door here. They wanted documentation and info on my bank accounts.
Up until this recession hit I'd never been on public assistance at all. I hate being on it now. But the alternative is homelessness and starving to death. There are no jobs. Not in Utah, not here, and not where my family lives in Texas. I've had one friend who got lucky and after a month of looking got hired on a McDonald's for 10 hours a week at minimum wage, and she used to make $12 an hour in a call center.
I want a job. I don't like being on public assistance. If anything, its a "taste" of poverty. And most of the people I know don't like to be on public assistance more than I do.
The Democrats aren't going to get voters because they offer entitlements, they are going to get more votes because Republicans have nothing better to do than point at people like me and call us "parasites" while they claim that those of us down on our luck would solve all or problems if we just took a job picking fruit or flipping burgers or mowing lawns, not realizing that even those jobs are tough pickings.
If I have to read blather about how I am a welfare queen too much more, I'll just vote straight ticket democrat...for the first time in my life. I'm tired of being called a parasite, and if that's all the Republicans have to offer me is homelessness, hopelessness, starvation, and worse, then better the devil I know than the one who calls me worthless!
Many of the people on entitlements today are on them because they lost their job. They need a job to survive. If I found a job tomorrow, I'd be off the entitlements. All I'm seeing from Republicans is a whole lot of hate and vitriol. Something tells me that if we elect them as a country, they'll make this country worse not better by making more people homeless, all the while throwing more money at Libya.
Farmers support food stamps, b/c the intent of the program is to prop up prices for them and make a market for foodstuffs. I would guess landlords and contractors who build apartment buildings support Section 8 for the same reasons. It helps keep rent prices up, and makes work for them.
That is one of the most idiotic and convoluted comparisons I've ever heard of. People DIRECTLY pay into SS, and when they turn 65 they directly take money back out of SS. You pay in, you get benefits at the eligible age. It's that simple.
I thought the intent of food stamps was to feed the poor hungry?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
I support SS myself. But a lot of RWs don't; they call it a "ponzi scheme" (which it most certainly is NOT), keep talking about eliminating it in favor of private savings, etc. And do keep in mind that one does not get out what one pays in, dollar for dollar. Some get back MUCH more.
It IS a ponzi scheme. The people receiving benefits today are reliant on the the current workforce. The original recipients of SS never paid a dime into it. I also support SS, but it's unsustainable in its current form for exactly the reason you state: "And do keep in mind that one does not get out what one pays in, dollar for dollar. Some get back MUCH more." Several times more, actually. Oh, and the fact that the gov't raided the SS trustfund for years didn't help either.
A lot of the people on welfare don't need it. It helps them buy stuff they don't need like beer, cigs, expensive entertainment sets. The way you solve this? By having an efficient and competent government, neither of which the government is now and never will be with the current leaders.
I don't know where you learned that, but what exactly is a "livable wage"?
One that pays enough for a person or family to be able to support themselves.
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