Welfare cheaters

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'm not sure how we got from welfare cheaters to the iraqi war and mexican immigrants, but I'll point out again that I still havent heard anyone say what problem they're trying to solve with this new immigration push or how they're going to successfully close the borders of a country this large, evict the existing immigrant population, and then deal with the economic problems that result. No fruit/veggie pickers, construction jobs, cleaning jobs, child care.

We've got people that wont stand in an air conditioned building at a cash register to get $8 an hour to ask "would you like fries with that?". But they're going to stand out in 100 degree heat around my area picking peaches, plums and walnuts? They're going to work 9pm to 5am cleaning a walmart? They're going to watch 4 small kids? They're going to haul 60lb packs of asphalt shingles up a ladder?

Get real.

I guess its a lot easier for rich people to blame the immigrants than to admit that a good size chunk of the population would rather cheat, steal or "work the system" than work an 8-5 job.

You've all got one. The little brother, niece, cousin, friends kid...that wont work at a job. Lays around all day. Now you know the middle class version. Take away half their education, and slap a corn dog and a budweiser in their hands at 10am and you've got a good idea of who you're expecting to climb a ladder next to a tree or scrub a floor. :

 

[youbet]

We don't have enough enough money to secure our borders, because we are squandering it in Iraq!  - Make sense now? - It is simple ! 5th grade math!

No, sorry.  While I agree we can't afford to squander money in Iraq, or any other place, I don't agree that we therefore can do nothing to bring some relief to the suffering, the down and out.

You sound just like GWB!  "Here's some simple 5th grade math that says people should suffer needlessly, so let 'em suffer."

 

[Nords]

We've got people that wont stand in an air conditioned building at a cash register to get $8 an hour to ask "would you like fries with that?".  But they're going to stand out in 100 degree heat around my area picking peaches, plums and walnuts?  They're going to work 9pm to 5am cleaning a walmart?  They're going to watch 4 small kids?  They're going to haul 60lb packs of asphalt shingles up a ladder?

Nah-- we're gonna use all the Halliburton contractors & military currently wasting the taxpayer dollars on Iraq.

Geez, I wish we'd spent the last five decades of foreign aid & defense budgets building a better border fence!  We could call it... oh, I dunno... the "Maginot Line" or the "Great Wall".

I think the implication behind the "5th grade math" comment is that we're unable to comprehend the issues or the mathematics required to correct the problems, so further debate isn't worth the effort. There's just no way to pick a hole in that argument!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I've seen the 5th grade math.

$100-200B to build "walls" (fences, people, electronics, etc) that would keep out 70-85% of current illegal inflow.
$10-15B in agricultural loss
$12-20B in construction cost
$15-75B to find and "evict" the current illegal immigrants

People leaving the workforce because they cant get cheap quality child and home care. Businesses raising prices because cleaning and product handling costs rise. Inflation going through the roof.

So selma ray and billy bob no longer have an excuse to not get a job.

I guess that might be 8th or 9th grade math, where you actually think out the implications of your actions.

 

[Nords]

I guess that might be 8th or 9th grade math, where you actually think out the implications of your actions.

Sorry, I can attest from personal parenting experience that it doesn't happen at the middle-school level either. You can do the math but you'd never realize that it could actually apply to you!

Possibly college. Maybe graduate school.

Or else whenever you can stop working and spend your time interrupting people's discussions with insults pleas for their attention to what you consider to be the really important problems.

 

[youbet]

So selma ray and "billy bob" no longer have an excuse to not get a job.

Hey, leave our beloved ex-pres out of this!  A little respect is very much in order here.

Growing up in a single parent home in some hot and dusty little Arkansas town, there was every reason to need a little welfare and a help getting a job.

Let's maintain a little dignity here!  And who is selma ray?

 

[Texas Proud]

I've known a few people who tried cheating the system in the past.  Usually it was a situation where a boyfriend gets his girlfriend pregnant.  She has the baby, but then says she has no idea where the father is.  That way she gets help from welfare, and I guess the father just goes ahead and plays hide-and-seek with the authorities, working cash/under the table jobs and such.  You'd think though, that by the time the 4th kid was born, by the same man, they would've caught on!  :

The problem is that they are by different men!!! My mom taught school at a disadvantaged school... 5 years in a row she had a child from this one mother... all 5 had different fathers... she made out like a bandit with free food, free clothes, free rent... worth over $20K per year...

 

[Michael Moore]

I haven't seen too many middle class people saying "dang, I'm going to quit my job, give up most of my belongings, and move into the slums so I can get welfare!".

Instead, most of the people in that strata seem to be born into it, and that isn't quite the same head start for a kid as being born into the Rockefeller family.

If you want easy answers, then sure, Soylent Green time for everyone deemed (by whomever it is that deems that kind of stuff) as an "undesireable" would sure go a long way towards breaking that "cycle of poverty".

Coming up with an answer that is actually acceptable to most people as well as efficacious appears to be quite a bit more difficult.

My somewhat hazy recollection of dealing face to face with SSI recipients is that the vast majority of them sure seemed like "good" people, who just happened to also be pretty much dirt poor. But I suppose they still might make a reasonably tasty Soylent Green.

cheers,
Michael

 

[farmerEd]

The problem is that they are by different men!!!  My mom taught school at a disadvantaged school... 5 years in a row she had a child from this one mother... all 5 had different fathers... she made out like a bandit with free food, free clothes, free rent...  worth over $20K per year...

Bet she was "living large" on that 20K with a family of 6.....

 

[LRS]

>>We've got people that wont stand in an air conditioned building at a cash register to get $8 an hour to ask "would you like fries with that?".  <<

I remember my nephew getting really excited when he got promoted to $8 at his job at the ping-pong ball factory (or whatever it was.) WOW! A buck over minimum in our state!! You stilll can't live on it.

I started this thread because I have a feeling the nice middle-class people on this board haven't a clue who is actually getting welfare. Drawing on my personal experience, I conclude it is not the able-bodied or the mentally par. That's why I think people who say we can't have meaningful health care reform until we get rid of welfare bums are misguided. Blaming the poor is another way for conservatives to avoid addressing this and other problems.

We also blame the poor for our problems with illegal aliens. What about the corporations who are hiring those aliens? You can bet the Megacorps would love a guest worker program. I hear there is a provision in one of immigration bills for a sub-minimum wage for guest workers. Megacorp gets to exploit an inexhaustible supply of ultra cheap labor, American workers get shafted yet again.

Folks, not everyone can get a master's degree. There has to be something left for the Bubbas and Earlenes in this country to live on.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Tawny, my first hand experience is a little different. I live in one of the welfare capitals of the world. My wifes old neighborhood was predominantly folks who didnt work. What sort of assistance they were on is debatable although everyone fed off of each others 'discoveries'. All I can say is that nobody got in their car and went anywhere except to the grocery and liquor stores. They walked, they talked, they acted like reasonably intelligent people. No rhodes scholars, to be sure, but people who could work a cash register, stock a shelf, unload a truck, etc.

Yep, you cant live on $8 an hour. But two people making $8-10 each can get by. I'd think it'd beat sitting home in a lawn chair drinking bud at 10 in the morning. But I guess its easier to try and "work" the system or look for an "angle". *shrug*

 

[HFWR]

Probably a bit of both...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I guess the good thing is I never needed to take anything to the dump. All I had to do was leave it in my wifes front yard and it'd disappear. Probably got whatever it was all the way home before they realized it was broken. I put an old empty AT desktop case out there one cuz it wouldnt fit in the trash can. Took less than 10 minutes to disappear.

 

[youbet]

Bubbas and Earlenes in this country to live on.

What's with using these names to generalize about folks?  Who are you aiming at when you give these examples?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

People with funny names.

 

[HFWR]

Says the Cute Fuzzy Bunny...

Hey, my sister's name is Earlene...

What she meant was Rothschild and Eleanor...

I grew up in a town with a large population of folks on AFDC, food stamps, SSI, etc., and many were scamming the system...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Is it for the same reason that every guy they ever arrest on "Cops" isnt wearing a shirt?

 

[LRS]

Yeah, I was using gross generalizations to depict blue collar Americans. It's offensive. By the way, if I told you my real name, you'd snort beer out your nose. Let's just say it's close to "Earlene"

 

[haha]

Bet she was "living large" on that 20K with a family of 6.....

You are right of course. But don't forget, many people, including a large slug of those who frequent this board, really hate to work. Avoiding work is such a reinforcer for this sort of person, that he/he will meaningfully restrict his life as long as he doesn’t have to show up at work.

So I wouldn't rule out the possibility that $20,000 cash plus state supplied health benefits plus various other non- cash benefits this woman received might have been a pretty good motivator to stay on.

And, who can prove that some of those Daddies didn't come up with a bit of cash from time to time?

Early in our marriage my wife was a LA County social worker. Quite a few of her "clients" were turning tricks. And at least back then, the welfare bureaucracy had no interest in trimming their rolls- in fact they wanted more clients, not fewer, just like any other business.

Ha

 

[youbet]

People with funny names.

Oh, OK.  For a minute there I thought maybe it was a racist, cultural or geographical slam made by a bigot.  Don't need any of that going on.  Glad to hear that's it's not.

 

[samclem]

There already is a guest worker program.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-27-guest-cover_x.htm. In the portion of the program that covers agricultural workers (approx 200,000 folks last year) the individuals get paid somewhat less than minimum wage. They also are housed and fed acceptably, and can earn much, much more than they do at home. They get sent home every 9 months, I don't know how long they have to stay there.

About the "Bubbas and Earlines": Folks without high-level skills are in trouble, and things are going to get worse. I don't think it is the fault of any mega-corp kabal or the "conservatives." In the decades after WWII, our nation went through a period of unparalleled economic prosperity (something to do with being the only major big functiong economy left, and lots of folks who needed to buy things all over the world). During that one historical blink of an eye, 3-4 decades long, a large number of low-skilled workers who had the good fortune to live in America could get a very well paying job on an assembly line or elsewhere--and lift themselves and their families out of poverty. That time is now over. Our industries and our workers now compete against companies and workers worldwide, and the low-skilled jobs are not here for Bubba and Earline--they'll need to move to another country if they want to assemble toasters and get paid $4 (or gobs of Baht) per day.

If people want to be economicaly successful here, they need to learn a skill that is in demand. Otherwise, they will be poor (which, after all, has been the normal state of man throughout history).

I guess none of this has anything to do with welfare cheaters.

 

[youbet]

Yeah, I was using gross generalizations to depict blue collar Americans. It's offensive.

Yep, sure is. 

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'm offended by your offense.

 

[Andre1969]

Texas Proud, I've also known women who have had each child by a different man, but this particular one had FOUR by the same guy! In her defense though, she and her boyfriend did finally straighten themselves out, and they're both working now.

 

[LRS]

Youbet: I appologize. It was bigoted and offensive to characterize low-income workers as Bubbas and Earlenes. It perpetuates a stereotype that I dislike, actually.

Samclem, in our new world, why is it a good thing to build a huge underclass of people who can't make a living wage? I realize you are not necessessarily advocating this, and I agree it appears to be exactly what is happening. So our country is turning into Mexico now? Where will our undereducated unskilled poor migrate?