How Many Of America’s “Poor” Are Like This Lady And Her Husband?

Stolen from Observations

The way that many welfare recipients think was revealed in a call to a radio talk show on KLBJ-AM in Austin, Texas. Lucy, a 32 year-old married mother of three, whose parents also had been on welfare, said this about her situation:

“I just wanted to say while workers out there and people like you that are preaching morality at people like me that are living on welfare, can you really blame us? I mean, I get to sit home, I get to go visit my friends all day, I even get to smoke weed, and people that I know that are illegal immigrants, that don’t contribute to society, we still going to get paid. Our check’s going to come in the mail every month and it’s going to be on time. And we get subsidized housing, we even get presents delivered for our kids at Christmas. Why should I work?”

“So you know what? You all get the benefit of saying, ‘Oh, look at me. I’m a better person,’ because you all are going to work. We’re the ones getting paid. So can you really blame us?”

Asked if her husband works, she said he does sometimes, but “he doesn’t really see the need for it.” Has she ever worked? “A couple of times.” Does she ever feel guilty about gaming the system and taking money other people have earned? “But you know, if someone offers you a million dollars, would you walk away from it? It’s easy to preach morality, and that’s the only reason why I called. It’s easy to say, ‘Well, yeah, you know, you’re making your living off of other people’s backs.’ But, you know, if somebody gave you a million dollars, and said that, here, you don’t got to work for it, no strings attached. Here, just take it, you can do whatever you want to do with it. You would take it, too.”

The host asked if she was calling in on an “Obamaphone” (a cell phone provided by the federal government) and she answered that she was. Then, when asked how much she received each month, she said she only pays $50 a month for rent that should be $600, so that’s $550, $425 in food stamps, $150 for her electric bill, and $100 on her water bill from the City of Austin. That comes to $1,225 a month, $14,700 a year, just less than the current federal minimum wage. Plus the cell phone.

She also said that when you are in government programs, “they are always coming to you and offering more programs,” and will even pay you to go to find out about where you can get more money. “They encourage you to stay on the programs.”

Asked if her money was cut off, would she get up every day and go to work, she said, “yes, I’d have to.”

This situation makes perfect sense to people like Lucy and her husband, who never learned the lesson that mature, responsible human beings make their own way in life, and who now live a relatively comfortable life without having to do anything to help themselves. They are a product of the failed War on Poverty for which we can thank President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), the namesake of the radio station Lucy called. They are among a large and growing number of Americans being taught that the government will take care of them, and they don’t have to do well in school, or learn a trade, or look for a job, or do much more than draw breath.

Last year the Census Bureau reported that 46 million Americans were in “poverty.” But how many of those are really poor and need some help, and how many are like Lucy and her hubby; playing a system that allows those eager for a free ride to get one?

Census Bureau data reveals the following about people classified as “poor”: eighty percent of poor households enjoy air conditioning; nearly three-fourths own a car or truck, and 31 percent own two or more cars or trucks, nearly two-thirds subscribe to cable or satellite television, 50 percent own a personal computer, and one in seven owns two or more computers; 43 percent subscribe to Internet access; one-third own a wide-screen plasma or LCD television; one-fourth own a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo; more than half of poor families with children own a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.

Poverty ain’t what it used to be.

It isn’t government’s job to help individuals who are down on their luck, and as the War on Poverty has demonstrated, it does a lousy job of it. And it surely isn’t government’s job to give taxpayer’s money to people who don’t really need it, or to actively recruit people who don’t need welfare onto welfare roles. That is the epitome of government disservice, and elected official’s self-service.

George Bernard Shaw’s famous quote has been used a lot recently, but it has never been truer than today: “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

Your Tax Dollars At Work!

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs, created in 1930 to provide government services to Veterans from both peace-time and war-time.  It is the 2nd largest Department in the US Government after the Department of Defense.  With a budget of $87.6 Billion our Veterans should have the best in heath care and benefits.  But that is not the case.  Instead the VA has been wasting funds on fluff.  For instance this little ditty.





It only cost you, the taxpayers $52,000 to make.  A bargain!!!!  The average American family has a yearly salary of $51,000, yet the VA can spend more money than the average American makes on a film that was shown at 3 conferences.  Those 3 conferences cost you the taxpayer $5 million.  And compared to other agencies and their scandals, this is becoming a symptom of the spendthrift was of the Obama Regime.

I do hope that you enjoyed this parody of Patton.  After all we all are the Producers of this ditty.

Heaviest Element Known To Science

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv) , has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons , which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay,but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons,forming isodopes.

My Grinchy Wife

From The Liberty Ledger

I contribute to theLiberty Ledger and this was posted there yesterday.  A posting by Terry Bascom.  I hope you all enjoy.

I make $100,000 per year, and I have a net debt of $87,000. I’m worrying about making payments on my loans, in addition to keeping up my basic living expenses. I have to pay more this year for health insurance, food, utilities and gasoline. I own a business, but it looks like sales are going to be down again, which will cut into my revenue stream.

I budget July – June, and I had planned to increase my living budget by 8% for 2011-2012, based on anticipated income. Now that it looks like my income is going to be less than I’d hoped, I’ll have to make cuts instead. So I’m only going to increase my budget by 5%, which is a 37% reduction. It’s going to be hard to live with such a huge austerity measure, but I’ll just have to find a way to make it work.

Since my revenue stream is already taking a hit, and I’ve cut my budget all I can, I’m planning to borrow more money to make up the short-fall. I’m confident my earnings will increase next year when business picks up, which means I will be able to pay everything back over time. I think I’ll need to borrow about $7,000 to hit my scaled-back spending budget of $105,000.

My wife is arguing that we should reduce our spending even more. She thinks we should not count a reduction in proposed spending increases as a spending cut. She thinks our debt burden is getting too high and we should start spending less than we bring in.

I’ve pointed out how unsavory that would be. In a down year like this, we would have to make some pretty serious adjustments to our living standards. I don’t know where we would cut. Do we really want to reduce the kids’ allowances? Are we ready to forego our quarterly vacations? Should we scale back our Christmas lights display? Are we going to close the backyard swimming pool and throw fewer barbeques? Does she think we should stop replacing the living room furniture every 2 years, or the cars every 3? Would she like to spend her days growing vegetables where the roses are blooming, just to save a few dollars on food? What, exactly, can we cut?

She says ‘yes’ to all of the above. She even thinks it might be good for the kids to go mow lawns for their money, rather than getting it from us! She reminds me that when she was a kid her parents bought her 1 pair of shoes at a time, and she never owned more than a single pair of jeans until she went to work to buy them herself. They ate whatever was cheap – tuna fish this month, chicken next, hamburger when it was affordable. They ate ice milk rather than ice cream, and often mixed powdered milk rather than buy fresh. Her mom kept a vegetable garden and canned the extra to tide them over through the winter, and her dad never owed a penny except for his mortgage.

Yeah, okay. I’ve heard all of that before. But do we really want to live like that, I ask?

No, she says, she doesn’t. But she’s willing to do it for awhile, if the result will be a more stable household economy, the ability to get out of debt, and getting the risk of bankruptcy removed from over our heads. She’d even like to see us put some money in the bank.

I tell her that’s fine for her, if she wants to do it. But I don’t see why the kids and I should suffer because she’s afraid of a little debt. After all, we’ve never gone bankrupt yet, so why get gloomy about the future? All we need is for a little turn-around in the world economy and we’ll be flying high again in no time. In the meanwhile, we should just suck it up and borrow what we need. After all, I’ve already cut deeply into our 2011-2012 budget. She should just meet me half way by agreeing to increase our debt load a couple percentage points. What kind of difference is that going to make over the long haul?

For some reason, she refuses. She says she’s not willing to raise our debt ceiling any further. So I told the kids that half their parents think they deserve all the good things we can provide them, but half their parents think they should unnecessarily and unfairly suffer just because we’re going through a temporary rough patch.

It’s obvious to me that if we borrow more, we can keep to our inflation-adjusted budget, modestly improve our lifestyle and, if we borrow enough, I can even invest more in my company than I did last year. Surely more spending on my business will turn this year’s reduction in revenue into next year’s surplus. It’s clear to me that I just didn’t spend enough on employee wages, fringe benefits and improving the phone system. This year, if I put money into new toilet seats, upgraded computers, and softer mood lighting – heck, I should probably rewire the whole plant, and upgrade the entire sewer system, not just the toilet seats – oh, and pave the parking lot – I could even bring back a couple of the guys I had to furlough last year to help – if I make those infrastructure improvements, productivity will surely increase! We’ll turn the corner and make a profit next year, and from that profit I can pay down the debt I’m accruing.

The kids get it. They like it. They even voted for it when I put it to them. But for some reason, my Grinchy wife won’t get on board. She just can’t see that if we do it her way, we’ll be in for a hard time. And hard times are not fun. The kids don’t like it. I don’t like it. And I venture to say that even my wife won’t like it when she’s in the midst of it.

She has such a negative outlook, and won’t budge. So it looks like I’ll have to go around her, somehow, to get the money I need to keep this family solvent.