I just posted three times about how the benefits are not “explicitly known or stated.” I agree with you about the risks, of course, and I have minimal sympathy for people who sign up in the expectation that they won’t have to go to war.
Yeah, that one really floors me. I’ve seen stories on the news where some guy and his wife are whining about his being sent into a combat zone, and how they “never signed up for that”. WTF? Military: def: A place where you volunteer to get killed.
He signed up for the travel and the water skiing. He even stated on his form: “No killing.” 
Internet points to those who recognize the source.
For the record: Food stamp use at military commissaries up sharply in four years:
Hey, Jim DeMint! Koch Brothers! Heritage Foundation! Tea Party! GOP at large! I’m talking directly to you: fuck you, assholes.
No “Cross Fingers” , but proper dead!
You voted for the people who didn’t entirely expire the Bush tax cuts, and certainly not as scheduled, so what exactly is your problem?
Then all the people getting by with the help of food stamps are still receiving the same amount of food stamp aid that they were in September? (I’d say ‘October’ but I want to leave any possible effects of the shutdown out of it.)
Because if they’re not, then it’s a cut, out there in the real world where it matters.
Heh. I guess I bought into a campaign promise, which would make my problem ‘excess credulity’ or ‘undue lack of cynicism about the American political system’.
Bummer.
Maybe there’s a mandatory provision in the ACA guaranteeing a cure for that? Isn’t mental health covered?
I don’t have a problem with the wars. I gladly voted for them and I am looking forward to voting for the war with Iran.
This is a very strange thread. Dopers are struggling to find a comfortable position from which they can be pro-food-stamps and still anti-veteran/military. You want to hand outs for the poor, unless they “signed up to kill some brown people,” and then it’s “fuck 'em.”
Let me know when you’ve figured out a way to keep your world view intact.
To be clear, I’m not attacking the voting public, but rather the congresscritters who approved the wars and then pulled the rug out from under the vets. More specifically it is the people for whom these critters shill, which turns out to be guys like Jim DeMint, the Koch Brothers, Grover Norquist, the Heritage Foundation and so on. The usual suspects.
But what the hell- you’re a dingbat for seeking war with Iran. It’d cause way more chaos than the Iraq war did, probably more than Vietnam did.
Just curious, what income amount do most of you think qualifies for middle class today?
To be clear: I hope we all agree, middle class means a person who can retire at about 55-60 and travel/have fun, owns a home, is able to buy the new car every 4 years, can send kids to college without debt, can save money for a rainy day, can take vacations every year, can have disposable income to spend on luxuries, etc…
So, if we agree that is middle class (please note I am not saying middle income), what is the amount you think, you need for a family of 4 to be middle class?
So as to not be obtuse or unclear about my reasons for these questions.
I think we overuse the term middle class. Politicians use it to “appeal” to the “center”. But i posit that the idea of a middle class is waning, and that we have substituted middle income, or even median income, for middle class.
To me, middle class has meant something else. A family above living pay check to pay check. a family who had some luxury.
So, with my reason exposed, I am very curious what hourly wage constitutes middle class in the view of the people who have used the term?
Jesus fuck, is that what “middle class” means? Apparently I’ve been “workingclass” my entire fucking life, then.
I think you’ve been whooshed. Most of the apparently anti-veteran posts were sarcasm intended to portray right-wing hypocrisy.
When I was very young, “middle class” referred not to “middle” (median) income, but to the group between the majority (lower class) and the rich (upper class). (Let’s ignore that these class distinctions encompassed more than just income levels.)
Although the income (in)equality gap continued, there was a huge rise in economic prosperity in U.S. during the 1950’s and 60’s. This meant that an increasingly large portion of the population could “enjoy a middle-class lifestyle”, so some definitions of “middle class” broadened.
Although U.S. production continued to increase, beginning with the 1980’s income inequality has grown rapidly. The broad division of income levels into rich, intermediate, and lower may have been applicable all along, but lower-income people can no longer hope for a “middle-class lifestyle.”