Yes, there are. Athletic scholarships, academic scholarships, other types of talent scholarships (besides athletic: dance, art, writing, etc.), children of (fill-in-the-blank) scholarships (blank could be veterans, nurses, employees in company X or profession Y, etc.) scholarships, etc., etc.
I had over $4000 a year in non-need-based scholarships.
I think a lot of us are missing the point.
Government assistance is fine, for those who don’t want to be on it. AuntiePam, OpalCat, it sounds like both of you hit a difficult time in your lives, and needed a temporary hand. And it also sounds like both of you pulled yourself up. To me, that is what these programs are for. Help people who are in a temporary bind, for whatever the reason.
What frustrates me is the lifelong abusers of the system. And we all know they’re out there.
Case in point- my brother-in-law’s sister, 18 years old, got pregnant. She was going to have an abortion. The ONLY reason she had the baby was after she found out about all of the various programs. Overheard at a recent family get together- "I really love her, she’s bringing us all kinds of money!"True story. Am I glad she had the baby? Absolutely. Am I glad the government is giving her a hand? Absolutely. But- she only sees a lifelong gravytrain, with no intention of bettering herself, or her child. THESE are the people that make me see red.
Lucky said:
As a matter, of fact, I wouldn’t. But the government isn’t giving me a goddamn dime. But if my taxes are going toward your shiftless lifestyle, then yes, I do think some accountability is in order
Still trying to think of something witty to say here
Well, as with the other threads here in The Pit, I think we are focusing myopically on the individual aspects of…
What?
Oh, right. Somehow, this is in MPSIMS. My mistake.
FWIW, I see valid points all around. I agree that the basic purpose of these programs should be to assist those who need temporary help, not to subsidize a lifestyle.
“Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll be gone the whole weekend.” Or something like that. Rather than simply subsidizing food, I have long felt that any long-term program should condition receipt of benefits on some sort of vocational training.
Thus, OpalCat, AuntiePam, and others similarly situated were in the system for what I could suggest were the right reasons – not looking for lifelong subsidy… rather, trying to keep family fed through a bump in the road. If I had mouths to feed, and I had no income… you can bet your bottom dollar I’d take food stamps and be happy before I’d let wife or kids go hungry.
But for those that turn to these programs to subsidize a lifetime of indolence… I would favor conditioning benefits on current enrollment in a government-subsidized training program of some kind. This is not just additional expense – it’s an investment. If people can learn an occupation, they can eventually work at it, make money, and pay some taxes. They will become creators of wealth.
In the final analysis, though, perhaps we will always have those who, despite dint of massive effort on the part of the government… refuse to work, have babies, and expect society to feed them.
And when I weigh feeding those babies against letting them starve… I must come down on the side of feeding them. I am generally considered a conservative, but I can’t support letting children starve, even if their parents are slothful to the point of immobility.
At no point in any of my posts did I condemn everyone who has ever used food stamps.
I believe it is beneficial for those who need it for a short time, as has been said by others.
I was ranting about those that live on the system.
I know that there are people who get education and are not able to use it. But by in large those who choose to live on the system are not educated and not motivated.
And I can and will rant on this matter.
I am a young white male who is married and has a child and another on the way. I have my Masters (which I gained while working). My wife has her BS degree. I work hard for my money and I can indeed rant about the Gov’t spending it. It may not be PC, but I can ride all day long on my high horse, because I have taken what America has to offer and have used it wisely to achieve and get something in this life.
And Handy, what are you talking about on Corporate welfare? Corporate tax breaks maybe? Did you know that Companies do not pay taxes? We do. Or is there something else you are talking about?
End of current rant.
Jeffery
I also have a question on the phrase “corporate welfare.”
But I take issue with te fact that corporations don’t pay taxes. Of course they do. Now, you can claim that they pass those taxes on, in the form of expenses. This is also true; taxes are an expense of doing business. But by that analysis, no one pays taxes. Employers would pay less salary if taxes weren’t as high. In any event, employees’ salaries (to include withheld taxes) are also a business expense, and also get “passed on to us.”
No government worker pays taxes… because, after all, they are paid with tax money! So the fact that they have to give back some of it in the form of taxes is not “paying,” right?
Only by the most tortured reasoning. In the ordinary meaning of the word, both corporations and individuals pay taxes.
I still would like to know what ‘corporate welfare’ is, though.
Look at Sam Donaldson. He gets from us, $60,000 a year to not grow anything on his farmland.
StrTrkr777, I don’t know if you know this, but welfare doesn’t give people very much money. In California, a mother & one child in '98 got $477.00 per month & maybe $75.00 per month in food stamps & usually the wonderful loving father doesn’t pay child support. How can anyone pay for everything for $477.00 a month? Im listening to you now StrTrkr777, so Im waiting for your answer.
Well let’s see, since the gov’t gives me no money, how do I survive off $0 per month?
I guess it is the job that I work each day and the company that pays me for the work I do. Now why does that company pay me. Well, maybe it is because I have made good decisions and learned the skills that they are in need of. I went to High school and studied and got a good education, but I did not stop there. I then went to college and got even more education, but I did not stop there. I co-oped so that I was not just relying on my college education, but also on real world experience. Then I took a job in a small company that was paying less than my skills were worth because I had bills to pay. My wife and I chose not to have our first child until we had spent time together and knew each other to build a strong relationship and were in a better financial position. I then gained skills to get a better job with a bigger company. But I did not stop there. I worked my way to management. So I get stock for my future retirement. But did I stop there? No, I went back to school and got my MBA. Have I stopped there? Nope, I will continue working to try to build a better life for my family.
I bought the house my family lives in when I was 19 and working as a co-op. It is a modest starter home. I have worked to make wise decisions and not sat around waiting for something good to happen to me.
I am not saying that there are not people who have had something bad happen to them, but I believe they are the exception not the rule.
Back to your original question, I do not know about California, but around here, you can get a job at McDonalds making around $10 an hour, that is about $20,000 a year, plus the $5,724 of welfare and $900 of food stamps, I think this family could do ok. If not maybe she should have and should continue to make better choices.
Does that answer your question Handy?
Jeffery
Bricker, taxes get paid when we spend money. A portion of the money we spend goes to the gov’t as taxes. We also get taxed in our paychecks.
Companies make money. They either give that money to the employees, or to the owners, or to grow their business. When they pay taxes on themselves, they raise the price of goods so that they can still make the profit they require. That is more money coming out of the consumer’s pocket and more money coming out of the stockholder’s pocket and more money coming out of the employee’s pocket.
Without taxes, companies would be making 20%+ (whatever the corporate tax rate is) and that money would go to the owners and the employees. If the company does not pay its employees more, then they should become owners in the company to reap the benefits.
This is in no way tortured logic, this is reality.
Jeffery
If, by some miracle, every needy soul suddenly found themselves with the means to support themselves independent of government aid, does anyone actually think the big G will discontinue said aid and let us keep the extra money? Hell no. They’ll just call it something else. You certainly wouldn’t see any tax relief.
If you get educated and work hard, you’ll enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.
If you ignore education and avoid work, relying on the tax dollars of others for your needs, your comfort level will reflect that.
If you get educated, work hard, rise to a comfortable status and then are faced with sudden tradegy (loss of job and/or health problems etc), you will be good and godamned glad these programs are in place.
In my opinion, the government is gonna take my dollars no matter what and they could take more if they wanted. That would mean I’d just have to get smarter and work harder, but that’s me.
For those of you who said that we (the taxpayers) should have asay in how those on food stamps spend their benefits, I say (again) “we do”. There are many restictions on food stamps and what one can and can’t buy with them. What we (taxpayers) do not and should not have a say in is how people on assistance spend the rest of their money. Let’s say you have some sort of governemnt grant to pay for your college tuition. Do you think that the government then has the right to monitor all your finances and tell you what you can and cannot spend the money you earn at your part time job on?
Refining the welfare system and tackling abuses is not the same thing as complaining that someone who was using food stamps to buy food also bought cigarretts with their own money. You may not approve, but too bad. I don’t approve of you buying Twinkies with your money. Do you care?
Last time: It is none of your freakin’ business what people buy with their own money. You seem to imply that they obviously don’t need the food stamps because they have cash for smokes. This is not your call. The gov. has already determined that these people are of sufficiently low income to require assistance in the form of food stamps. With that money, they can buy food. If they chose to live in a flop house so they have an extra $40 a month for smokes, it’s none of your business.
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
Americans have a problem with being cruel to other human beings. Look at some of the pictures coming from India and Africa and you’ll see plenty of REAL starving children that nobody over there seems to care about. I’m sure that nobody on this board would deny their tax dollars for food to feed a kid with glassy eyes and a swollen belly. That’s, unfortunately, what you’d have if you cut off the welfare system in this country. We’re stuck with it and all that can be done is regulate it to prevent abuse, and that’s what you see with the card based systems. Anytime you give away “free stuff” it’s going to get abused, period.
“Hope is not a method”
I never claimed to know your situation. Oh, and I have the maturity and emotional control, but I chose to let you see the contempt I felt for you. You don’t know if that woman and man were married or not. He could be a boyfriend or even just a friend. You don’t know if the money was theirs or if someone asked them to buy the cigarettes. You don’t know if they are on foodstamps for a short time or if it is a lifestyle. You don’t know if this was a rare exception to their regular grocery shopping or not. Yet you felt you knew that they were uneducated, unemployed, and beneath contempt. To that, I say “fuck you”. If the phrase fits, you know.
Oh, and keep your little trinket, I don’t need any more little toys.
–
Teeming Millions: http://fathom.org/teemingmillions
“Meat flaps, yellow!” - DrainBead, naked co-ed Twister chat
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
Well, yes, except that the mom is probably also getting Section 8 rental assistance for housing, and don’t EVEN get me started on that!
I have a case right now, single mom and kid, living on welfare and paying $67 per month for an apartment wherein the fair market value is around $650. This woman (33 years old) is attempting to claim insurance benefits under her parents’ insurance policy, claiming that she really was a “resident” of her parents’ home at the relevant time. She testified, under oath, at her deposition, that she and her daughter really lived at home with mom and dad (dad’s a Beverly Hills CPA), but that she kept the apartment as some place to be able to “get away from it all” when she needed to be alone.
If this story is true, she’s committing fraud on the government, which required her to sign an acknowledgement, and a declaration under penalty of perjury, regarding household income and that the apartment was her sole residence. If it’s not true, she’s attempting to commit insurance fraud to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars.
We go to trial on Feb. 7.
-Melin
I’ve been away for too long…just a couple of points that have to address…
aha, just because you’re white & bourgeois doesn’t mean your kids can’t get scholarships. My parents are also white & bourgeois, & I got a full-tuition scholarship, as well as half of my room & board paid. This was called “merit-based aid”. You (or your kids) should look into it, it’s a way cool deal. (You DO, however, have to be smart to get it, & not all schools offer it.)
Also: I used to be an unwed welfare mom. I never received TCA (Temporary Cash Assistance, which is when the gov’t gives you an actual check) or food stamps, but I did receive WIC and my daughter’s health insurance was paid for by the state. I am not ashamed of this. It in no way makes me a bad person, just an unlucky one. I chafe at the attitude that people who receive welfare are lazy & shiftless. I worked 2 jobs, went to college full-time, and, eventually, got to a better place.
In fact, now I work for the Dept. of Social Services, so I have to put in my $0.02 on that score…we KNOW there are abuses of the system. We know people sell food stamps to buy crack while their kids starve to death. We do what we can, but we’re just humans, & there aren’t enough of us to follow our clients around & make sure they stay out of trouble. I also wanted to mention that, in Maryland, anyway, you ARE required to participate in a job training, job search, educational program, or work experience program if you receive TCA. The trouble is, some of these people, their families have been on welfare for five & six generations. There is no work ethic there, no sense that if a job interview is at 9, you have be there at 9, even if your child care arrangements fall through, even if the bus is late, whatever. There is no understanding that you have to get up & go to work every morning, even if you’re tired or you have something else you’d rather do. We try, but it is SO HARD to give that to a person.
I never said all or even most people who receive welfare type assistance are lazy or uneducated.
I never said anyone could do anything to stop all the abuses. About the best would be to have gov’t “stores” that only sold what would/should be allowed, but that would likely cost more than the abuses.
I never blamed those in social services or any other group for not being able to manage this stuff.
I never said these programs should be cut out entirely.
I did complain and rant about some of the abuses I have seen. It is my God given right as an American, to be able to rant about whatever. You do not have to agree with me and I do not have to agree with you. That is what makes this country so great.
Jeffery
Jeffrey sez “…maybe it is because I have made good decisions and learned the
skills that they are in need of. I went to High school and studied and
got a good education, but I did not stop there. I then went to college
and got even more education, but I did not stop there. I co-oped so
that I was not just relying on my college education, but also on real
world experience.”
Hey, plenty of people on welfare were just like that. There are plenty with college educations. However, they can’t take a job like you can, someone has to raise the kids. If they don’t stay & raise the kids, the kids become major criminals later in life.
Also, in California, welfare benefits are REPAID to the government thru collections of child support. That is what I have seen.
Also, check ‘The Dictionary of Misinfomation’ which has a section on welfare where they explain myths people have about people on welfare.
How did this thread start up in MPSIMS? It’s only a matter of time until it gets tossed to the Pit.
Lucky:
For the last time, it IS my business. You just don’t seem to understand. WE are paying for these people’s poor life decisions. Again, I refer not to people who need a temporary hand, but the worthless, shiftless, lifetime-on-the-dole recipients of government money.
The government has determined that these people are of sufficiently low income as to require assistance. There should be no such thing as discretionary income if that is indeed the case. Many of these people are not only receiving food stamps, but are receiving welfare money as well!! As in money. As in American Currency. Do I need to be more specific?
And forget cigarrettes, don’t even start on purchasing lottery tickets. The people who buy the most are the people who can afford it the least. Have you happened to notice this phenomenon? Do you think maybe a few of these people are on government assistance?
Yes, it is their decision to live in a flophouse. But when it’s my money spent to support their indolence, it is my business.
:mad:
Still trying to think of something witty to say here
I went on welfare after my divorce. It was a life saver. I’m not on it anymore. I worked my way off it.
I know a couple who had triplets. They got food stamps to help them out. They had a little system: they put a little aside from their paychecks and once a week the triplets would go to Grandma’s and they’d spend the evening alone. They would buy steaks and a bottle of wine and have a romantic dinner.
One day they did their grocery shopping and used the food stamps, but at the same time they bought the steaks and wine for their time alone. They used their own money for those (they rang it up as separate transactions), but someone in line yelled at them for spending their stamps on wine and filet mignon. They tried to explain that they were paying for it and why they were doing it but the man wouldn’t listen. So they decided the hell with him, THEY knew what the truth was. I liked their attitude. Did he think that because they had assistance that they couldn’t treat themselves once in a while?
MaryAnn
I’m sorry you didn’t win, mom, but I’ll give you a constellation prize! -Greg
You can quote specific instances at me all day long, and I’ll probably agree with you most of the time.
My only target in this discussion has been people who abuse the system, and have no thought of ever leaving it.
Still trying to think of something witty to say here
I have some disabled friends who used to be productive, hard workers until they were injured or got sick. After a year long battle with disability, which drained the few resources they had and required a lawyer, who’s fee was 1/4 of their back payments upon winning the cases, each managed to get a monthly income between $850 and $1000 a month.
Down in Florida, where they live, THAT barely pays the average housing bills. I KNOW I’m going to sound real racist here, but I don’t know any other way to present the case.
These people are WHITE. They are under treatment, which they have to fight for because of cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Services, ALL have had Medicaid suddenly stop paying for their expensive prescriptions because they make on Disability over $500 a month. They do NOT qualify for welfare, two COULD get food stamps but only $20 worth a month, ALL had to dispose of anything over $1000 in their bank accounts or loose payments until their accounts went down (That includes the back payment – a lump sum – they got when they won their disability cases. They had 90 days to dispose of approximately $5000 each OR their payments would be stopped until they did.)
They could not get onto housing or rent assistance because the federal government backed out and the State is running it now, with a long waiting list – and – besides if they don’t get rent help but get a rent controlled house, those places are ALWAYS in low rent, high crime areas.
I know Black people, especially Black women, who are disabled and they get A: Disability B: welfare C: Child support D: rent assistance E: Food stamps F: Full Medicaid G: SOME are getting child support from their children’s fathers H: A few also get workman’s compensation.
I figured it out once that one Black woman I know gets over $2,500 a month and doesn’t have to work!
Now, with my friends, not only can they NOT get the things I mentioned, but IF they make over $500 a month through working or other income, the overage is deducted from their monthly check.
Not with the minority folk I mentioned. The one gets $700 a month in disability and her workman’s comp check is $800!
I still have not figured out how the RULES can be so variable. She also gets $200 a month in food stamps. A couple of my friends are so-called minorities in that they are Mexican and Korean, but they don’t get all of the benefits this lady gets.
I don’t understand it and we tried real hard to find out why and TWO social service people flat told us, off of the record, that my friends were the wrong color. (One of these workers himself was Black.)
I did not believe that such stuff went on until I actually ran into it trying to help my friends out. Especially the food stamp stuff. In the course of our efforts, the amount varied tremendously among the recipients of ALL races with seemingly no rhyme or reason. I STILL don’t know what standards they use.
One person might get only $700 in assistance and get $200 in stamps. The next, might get the same in assistance but only $40 in stamps. Someone making $1000 a month in assistance might get $250 in stamps while the next one making the same amount gets none!
Our social assistance programs need MUCH overhauling. TOO much red tape and crap. Sometimes, I figure that the Government have people on the pay roll who spend all day long dreaming up new and complicated forms to justify their jobs which increases the red tape into a massive snarl!