Someone again mentioned Republicans trying to end WIC, a federal nutritional program for Women, Infants, and Children. If you're not familiar with WIC, you can read more about it here.
While looking for articles, I ran across this Yahoo Answers question. The answers are enlightening.
The question:
Why are Republicans trying to take away my WIC?
I have an 6 month old son, and I have relied on WIC before I gave birth and now. Without WIC, I am not sure how we both would survive. I don't work, and my boyfriend works a part-time job and barely pay child support. Why are people trying to take away our ability to feed our children?
The first 'answer' I saw, which to me is the best answer, was this one:
This is the exact reason why welfare imprisons people. When the government finally runs out of our money to support you, you don't have a clue what you should do. You say you don't work, why not? WIC is not the ability for you to feed your children. WIC is someone else feeding your children.
I chose to post this answer as it contains links relevant to the issue of welfare abuse. If you read nothing else, read about the man that won the Michigan lottery.
Republicans trying to take away your WIC because fraudulent people sell their government enfamil on Craigslist for cigarettes and drug money.
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/search/…
Why are you having children you cannot afford?
Because you can and you know the tax payers will pay for your iresponsible actions.
Republicans like the concept of personal responsibilities.
See by making it easier for people to have illegimate children the more illegimate children we will have.So by putting back the responsibilities of children on the parents, the parents will be more responsible and responsible parents are always better for the children.
Michigan Welfare Allows Multi-Million Dollar Lottey Winner to Use Food Stamps
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/2m-michig…
More Working Families Getting Food Stamps
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101022/ap_o…
Welfare Money Spent on Cruise Ships and Vegas
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-…1 in 2 Household Receive Government Assistance
http://www.gilroydispatch.com/opinion/26…
Food Stamp Recipients Up 28% in 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticN…
Boost in Welfare Rolls Sees New Voters
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/22/…
Welfare Check and Voting Card
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinio…
Welfare Agencies See Wave of Voters
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20100…
Welfare Agency Out to Register New Voters
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Welfare+ag…
According to ABC News:
Leroy Fick hit the jackpot.
The Michigan man won $2 million in the state lottery's "Make Me Rich" contest last June.
With the $850,000 he took home after taxes, Fick, 59, used his winnings to purchase a new home and a used Audi convertible. But to buy groceries, this lottery winner is still using his Bridge Card, Michigan's version of food stamps.
How many more children could we afford to feed by stopping this type of abuse? No one wants children to go hungry. If the money is taken only by those who truly need it, there would be enough to go around.
So if you must blame someone for government cuts, blame yourself for being a party to welfare abuse.
More Working Families Getting Food Stamps
ReplyDeleteYou link to an article about more working families being on food stamps, and you think that's a demonstration of their 'abuse' of the system?
Thanks for demonstrating yet again that that the pro-forced-birth movement is full of entitled people who had everything handed to them and therefore cannot understand the fact, known by members of the working poor all too well, that minimum wage has not kept up with inflation and the cost of living.
Simultaneously, you managed to demonstrate your complete lack of logic by linking to a bunch of news articles as if anecdotes were evidence of a pattern. The media loves chasing down stories of welfare abuse because they serve the corporate interests of their owners, plus they're rare enough to attract attention. You will never see headlines like "WELFARE RECIPIENTS ARE POOR PEOPLE GETTING MUCH-NEEDED ASSISTANCE" because that is common sense.
And lastly, you've demonstrated the complete indifference of the pro-forced-birth crowd to the eventual standard of living of the fetuses that they demand be pushed through the birth canal. If you can't exit the womb prepared to vote Republican and take on a 9-5 job, they don't give a hoot about you, which tells you a lot about their priorities. Abortion isn't a cause for them, but rather a social wedge issue they can use in the service of getting Republican plutocrats elected. I'm sure they're looking at you and saying "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"... then laughing.
Null - I linked the articles that the poster on yahoo linked. I didn't pick and choose, I posted all of them. Don't like it, don't read it.
ReplyDelete"...who had everything handed to them and therefore cannot understand..."
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of pseudo-intellectual moron are you?
I make a lot of money. I didn't come from a wealthy home. I worked my ass off to pay for my school, and pay back my student loans. I took personal responsibility for my future and my career. I did it without aborting any of my children. I utilized help that was available, but I did not make it my way of life, and I've more than paid it back. I stopped using it when I could pay my own way. What kind of privilege do YOU claim that gives you the right to tell me I DON'T UNDERSTAND????? And what intrinsic logic tells you that anyone who is succsessful "had everything handed to them"? Back out of my face with that crap.
"... you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can't give to anybody antything that the government does not first take from somebody.And when half of the people get the idea they don't have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody's going to get what I work for, that dear friend, is about the end of any nation"
That about sums it up. Your ship is sinking, genius.
I make a lot of money. I didn't come from a wealthy home.
ReplyDeleteYeah, nobody does. Everybody is "middle class" in America, even if you ask them while they're on the country club green, because we don't talk sensibly about class in the U.S.
I did it without aborting any of my children.
Then you either had no children to abort while you were out making your money, or you were capable of making ends meet while raising children, both of which put you well outside the group we're talking about: those who cannot afford to raise children on what they earn.
So you ask what gives me the right to tell you that you don't understand? Well, that (and the first amendment, of course). You think that your life full of easily overcome hurdles entitles you to speak to the conditions that women generally find themselves in. People who are genuinely struggling are usually too focused on survival to be lecturing other people about their morality. That's a thoroughly bourgeois bit of posturing.
And what intrinsic logic tells you that anyone who is succsessful "had everything handed to them"?
No intrinsic logic, just the data that shows it takes four generations for any significant social mobility and that social stratification is greater in the U.S. than in most of the industrialized world (save for Italy and the U.K., IIRC). Plus the perspective that comes with having grown up working poor.
That about sums it up.
What does? A simplistic, muddleheaded, I-don't-wanna-pay-taxes rant disguised as political principle? Why am I not surprised that you'd find that compelling. Of course, the claim "And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving" falls apart under the faintest scrutiny: how does one apply this claim to the highways, for example? Airports? Pharmaceutical safety and effectiveness? Food safety? Garbage disposal? He can't be working directly to guarantee all these things, can he? So at some point, he must be receiving benefits for which—gasp!—he didn't directly work, mustn't he? This lolbertarian trend of thinking that government spending represents a zero-sum game is ludicrous on its face, and shows exactly how impractical and ignorant those who advance lolbertarianism as a viable political philosophy really are.
Null - I linked the articles that the poster on yahoo linked. I didn't pick and choose, I posted all of them.
ReplyDeleteLMAO!
Perfect.
You just thoughtlessly copied and pasted a series of links from some other source, then characterized them (including the one about working families on food stamps) as "relevant to the issue of welfare abuse", and now you're whining because I'm challenging the validity of that characterization and you would rather be let off the hook because you find it too troublesome to think.
Yeah, you do remind me of the snowflakes in my classes.
Null - Did you read the article? Probably not, considering the link is broken. Here's one from ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11943951
ReplyDelete"States that have relaxed food stamp eligibility did so by moving to a system where applicants could qualify based on their income, and their other assets such as real estate, vehicles and savings accounts could be ignored."
So people like the lottery winner can have a lot of money in the bank, and still get money from me and you to feed him. So while I eat hamburger, they can eat steak. While I don't even have a savings account, they get to keep theirs. Sounds fair huh? Only in a liberal mind like yours.
All right, let's pull a few quotes that cast some more relevant light on the issue:
ReplyDelete"'We've seen a huge increase in participation due to the economic downturn,' said Jean Daniel, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service. 'That's the way this program was designed.'"
"Participants in the food stamp program, technically called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, receive a per person average of $133 per month to buy staples including milk, bread and vegetables."
Relevant to your pull quote:
"Basing food stamps on income alone allows the newly unemployed and the elderly to seek government food aid without having to first sell their property or exhaust every dollar they've earned, said Sue McGinn, director of the food stamp program in Colorado, which will expand eligibility beginning in March.
"'They won't have to wipe out their savings to apply for benefits,' McGinn said."
"Many of these states also raised income limits, although applicants still have to show they're essentially living at the poverty line after accounting for allowable deductions, including elder medical expenses and child support."
Wow! I can totally see your point. Those moochers should be forced to sell off everything they own before receiving a dime of support, and be left at the mercy of a single unforeseen calamity or election cycle between keeping their housing and sleeping on the streets!
You've also nicely elided the fact that these "assets" can be just as much of an hindrance as a help. Consider a car: a car requires car insurance, registration, and gas. For people living at the poverty line, as I was once, that chews up a major part of one's budget, especially when one needs a car to travel. I know my local bus service wasn't going to do anything for me when I needed to go to another town to work at 4 a.m. And the kind of housing people who get food stamps can afford is the kind that's been around for thirty years or more and needs far more fixing than a brand new, granite countertop-ed McMansion.
Sounds fair huh? Only in a liberal mind like yours.
No matter how many times I tell you I'm not a liberal, it's never going to sink in, is it?
But more than that, you've given a perfect demonstration of the kind of mindless emotionalism and resentment that passes for analysis. You take one exceptional case—and every rule-based system generates exceptional cases where circumstances seem "unfair" or "heavy-handed" or whatever—and then use that as your basis for critiquing the whole system. If you want to toss the whole system, then you had damn well better have the intellectual courage to look squarely at the majority of those receiving assistance, not just the few anecdotal situations that you inflame you and cause you to stop seeing sense.
Nullifidian:
ReplyDeleteWhy did you choose the username, "nullifidian"?
""'We've seen a huge increase in participation due to the economic downturn,' said Jean Daniel, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service. 'That's the way this program was designed.'"
ReplyDeleteNow add this quote: "With more than 1 in 8 Americans now on food stamps, participation in the program has jumped about 70 percent from 26 million in May 2007, while the nation's unemployment rate rose from 4.3 percent to 9.2 percent through September of this year."
Of COURSE people need help, there are no jobs! Deplete the job market, and you increase dependance on the government. The 'government' is BROKE. We have no more money.
""Participants in the food stamp program, technically called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, receive a per person average of $133 per month to buy staples including milk, bread and vegetables.""
Per person? So for a family of 4, they get $532 a month. That's a lot of milk, bread and veggies. And while they buy only what they are allowed to with food stamps, they buy steaks, beer, and cigarettes with their own money.
"Wow! I can totally see your point. Those moochers should be forced to sell off everything they own before receiving a dime of support, and be left at the mercy of a single unforeseen calamity or election cycle between keeping their housing and sleeping on the streets!"
'Savings' IS rainy-day money. If you lose your job, you have money in the bank to tide you over. That's the idea behind saving. But it's ok with you to use MY money to keep you from spending your savings? That's BS. As for the elderly, it is highly unlikely they will be able to return to the workforce. And why should they? The paid their dues! Get the young able-bodied moochers off their butts.
"No matter how many times I tell you I'm not a liberal, it's never going to sink in, is it?"
Then how would you classify yourself? Don't say 'I'm more of a moderate', because you have disagreed with me, a conservative, on every point. If you claim to be a moderate, you are only lying to yourself.