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ORIGINAL: Frumious
Some auto-bio of my own. My mother raised us after divorcing my father who was an alcoholic, the last 20 years of his life unemployed, cared for by his mother, neither of whom was on Food Stamps or Welfare of any kind except for my grandmother’s SS checks – does that qualify? My mother was a factory worker & she died of cancer in my early adulthood, she also never was on the dole. My wife’s family also worked and was never on the dole except for SS after retirement, their sole income. She had an uncle who was an alcoholic & lived in SRO’s but he didn’t exactly have people over for dinners at the holidays and was distant.
I don’t know anyone who smoked crack, is lazy and unwilling to work and/or sleeps with prostitutes. Even the local hard-luck kids – young adults – I know who are unlucky in their parental “choices’ want to and do work, hard, don’t smoke crack or hang with prostitutes. Their incomes however are substantially below the national average & many are not quite advanced degree material but they try & are not irresponsible. They have no insurance or benefits of any kind worth noting so they save up cash for a trip to the dentist or a local GP for instance.
First, sorry to hear about your mother.
I always find it interesting how people can experience similar things and see them differently. I am all for helping people who are trying and think that is a very sound investment for tax dollars. What started us down this discussion was you saying that people who engauge in risky lifestyles should not pay more ie assume more responsibiliy and that led to this part of the discussion. This does not include people who behave responsibly but just not making enough to make it out. Your expereince tells you this is a small minority…mine tells me that it is a significant portion and diverts the money and resources away from the people who are trying. My perspective is that it was hard to see my mother work 10-12 hr days and pay taxes while people who could work had been unemployed for months lived in the same building collecting gov checks from tax money paid by her.
How to potect those who are trying to make it out of poverty while not setting up a system for people to abuse is a tough question. I think everyone, including me, would like to see the healthcare system change but how to do it where the absolute quality does not suffer or one where the people making the choices are bureaucrats instead of the Drs. and pts. I saw too much waste while working for the Fed gov to have any faith in it running healthcare.
ORIGINAL: Frumious
What I disagree most with your postings and many other like-minded posters is the grouping together in a refuse category & hang assumptions about them generally being lay-abouts who just want to suck the cash from hard working affluent people and are not willing to work and provide for their own families. Times have also changed. My 1st job was working in a shipyard with a pay – and benefits – that would allow me to rent a nice apartment & I could go to college & pay for tuition and borrow the rest in student loans. Not too many of those around anymore. Most of the new jobs have no bennies and pay minimum wage and apartments cost a bit more than minimum wages even for 2.\
It is not the affluent people who get screwed by the system, it is the low middle to middle class or upper lower class that get screwed. Many of these are small buisness owners whose personal assets and income is the buisness it self. Their buisness income is counted as personal but really is the money they have to reinvest into the buisness. As to the number of unmotivated people, I have to say my experience this year working for a county hospital tells me there is more than enough around to be a signficant burden on the system.
