Oh, Rev. I am not mad. I am simply showing that you, me ... we all are on the dole and that you will not admit it. You want it, I bet, for yourself, but not for others.
We
Americans like to think of ourselves as 'makers' and not 'takers'. We Americans are proud of our 'making' but for most part blind to our 'taking'.
Ridiculous. My wife and I earn so little in our jobs (I work three, she works one - all part-time, thanks to Obamacare) that we could qualify for a lot of government help. But instead of that, we choose to work and when we need food assistance we get it from the church- there are plenty of ministries in our little town that provide food.
There in NO NEED for the government to be involved in the "poverty eradication" "health insurance" OR "social security" business whatsoever- NONE.
I didn't call you dung, just what you spout off. And yes, you want a large government.
Just face it. If you say I hate the poor, then what is coming out of your mouth is dung. Chicken dung.
It is hard to consider anyone on this forum as in the poor category, as we all have internet, and internet is one of those utilities that would go by the wayside if we were financially strapped, like cable and cell phones.
The basic utilities for needs remain electricity, gas, phone, water, sewage, and maybe a newspaper.
The government has a program for free cell phones and internet in some cases.
That is unnecessary.
It does not affect the quality of life.
Besides the utilities, shelter, food, and health care, come before the internet.
I applaud your work ethic. It sounds like the type of work ethic that my wife and I grew up with. We never took money from our parents, the church or the government ... and we were poor when we were young.
I remember the phrase, "We may be poor, but we are proud" spoken by many poor folk where I grew up. There is truth in this is an ethic that has been lost by large parts of our society and that is not good.
I applaud the churches in your area that run one or more than one food bank. I believe that is great. I have worked at one and I know that some people come who are obviously in real need of help. There are others I am not sure ... but here all have to be approved by Social Services. Several years ago there was a young man who came for food, well dressed, well spoken. After seeing him and hearing him I realized he was a person who was down on his luck and needed help. After a few months I did not see him again. Apparently he had gotten a job and no longer needed help with food.
Not all people on welfare are lazy. I have high school classmates who have worked all their life and are really poor. I do not feel it is through their own fault, they have worked and worked hard.
Obviously we do not agree on this as there are people who have no one to help and churches do not have the will or resources to provide.
If, as you say, there is no need for the services you listed why not do away with the following government programs and let private industry take over:
Road construction
Road maintenance
Bridge construction
Bridge maintenance
Water purification in towns and cities
Do away with aid to utilities when they build new generation plants
Garbage pickup
Income tax collection
Postal services
Subsidies to agriculture
Subsidies to the sugar industry
Soil Bank program
Blind rehabilitation programs
Subsidies to lending industrial and business loans
The list could go on and on. But your living expenses and mine are much lower because of the government funds designated to the list of services above.
As I have said before in other threads, I would rather my tax dollars go to help someone than to kill someone.
I am used to people who run out of intelligent arguments, and have to assign motive. You are quite hateful. But you remind me more of chicken dung, and yes, I am familiar with that.
So there's that
You don't know what I want or what I would change in current policies. I think there are lots of improvements that should be made, but I don't think everything should be jettisoned.
Food stamps cover luxury items like lobster and filet mignon. An
image circulated a few days ago of a recipt in which someone had $200+
worth of lobster tail and Mountain Dew and paid for it with a food stamp
card. The grocery store confirmed it was true. When I was poor, I ate rice and beans and worried about paying my bills on time.
If you support welfare existing to stop starvation from being possible,
then that’s one thing. I get it. Babies dying of malnutrition isn’t
exactly what the goal is. But there’s no way around the fact that
welfare should be reformed, cut, and that we should focus on giving tax
cuts to the middle class to make it easier to leave poverty in the first
place.
Not at all Rev. But if you are going to complain about someone else getting a perk then perhaps we all should look at the perks we get and decide which we are willing to give up.
It is easy to pick out perks that we do not get and complain about them.
How about giving up your housing allowance perk? I don't have that one. Only clergy has this 'food stamp'. [you recognize this as a metaphor ... right?] .... is that fair or right?
I somehow don't feel the need to defend what I said to you, go2church. Accusing someone of hating the poor without knowing how they live, or exhibiting any desire to find out, is a lazy coward's way out. You have good company in that regard. If you're going to accuse people of hate you better wear yer big boy pants.
No. Being against seven or eight generations of the same family on welfare does not mean you hate the poor. Being accused of hating the poor by a bunch of ill informed chicken dung self pious Pharisees also does not mean you hate the poor.
Curtis, I prefer to call the "bed wetters." They wet their beds at night worrying about global warming, why many conservative Christians don't just love the president, and how just a few more dollars in taxes from hard working people will solve all the country's problems. They are so much for gun control yet have no problem with the government using force to
make it's citizens cough up more and more money to support generations of moochers.