Welfare Cuts in USA

[Karlin]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080706P.shtml

To fund more war, Americans on welfare will be cut off, kicked out of their education programs, and more -

"They also must adjust to limits on the length of time people on welfare can devote to trying to shed drug addictions, recover from mental illnesses or get an education."

Welfare has been a favorite target of the wealthy Elites who complain that their taxes paid are going to lazy people looking for a handout. This group of Elites has had the ear of government in any "First World Nation".

Democracy is not well served whenever we see welfare cuts, it is evidence of catering to Elites. Its getting to be a tired old song.

 

[gopher]

But corporate welfare is WAY up. Nothing new.

 

[tamarin]

it's not the elites complaining about welfare. It's working stiffs, the broad lower middle class and their aspiring peers. They're sick of folk who can't get the basics: stay in flippin' school, have a child when you're married and stay away from friggin' drugs.

 

[Toro]

Welfare reform began 10 years ago.

The number of families on welfare has declined by 57.6 percent since 1996.

How welfare reform changed America
Updated 7/18/2006 9:25 AM ET

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Michelle Gordon was 30, a poor, single mother with four kids between 5 and 13, when the federal government decided in 1996 that parents on welfare should go to work.

Since then, Gordon's life has been "a little bit of a roller coaster." She has held about 10 jobs — at a call center, as a nurse's aide, as a janitorial supervisor, most recently at a grocery store. She lost that job on April 19, her 40th birthday. It took her two months to find another. For 25 hours a week, she cleans bathrooms and vacuums floors at a drug rehabilitation center.

Mary Bradford was 45 in 1996, with three children between 11 and 25, when she traded welfare for a job filling orders at Victorian Trading Co. Ten years later, her office has moved from Missouri to Kansas, and she's still with the company. She's a production supervisor, and her earnings have more than doubled from the $7 an hour she made in 1996. "Most likely, I'll retire from here," Bradford says.

"She's reliable as the sun coming up," says Randy Rolston, the company's co-founder. "I can't think of a day she's missed."

The paths that Gordon and Bradford have traveled illustrate the successes and frustrations in the decade since the nation's welfare system was overhauled to require work and limit benefits.

...continued

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-17-welfare-reform-cover_x.htm

 

[Said1]

Re: RE: Welfare Cuts in USA

it's not the elites complaining about welfare. It's working stiffs, the broad lower middle class and their aspiring peers. They're sick of folk who can't get the basics: stay in flippin' school, have a child when you're married and stay away from friggin' drugs.

Why? Drugs help you cope with your station in life and junk.

 

[tamarin]

Said, get those blinkers off. Drugs won't get you to school or keep you there. Or help you establish a work record. They will get you some equally muddled buddies and a welfare application.

 

[Said1]

Re: RE: Welfare Cuts in USA

Said, get those blinkers off. Drugs won't get you to school or keep you there. Or help you establish a work record. They will get you some equally muddled buddies and a welfare application.

Blinkers help too, when times are really bad.

 

[tamarin]

Said, what are you smokin'? But keep the blinkers. I kinda like 'em.

 

[Daz_Hockey]

I don't understand to be honest, maybe it's because I'm from a country who's government will PAY your rent if you havent the money, or give you free health care? (and yes, it is virtually free, don't listen to this nonsense about "oh but you pay it back in taxes" cus that's frankly rubbish).

Yep, Britain's a really bad place lol, I feel sorry for the working class people in the US, I really do, Britain has it's bad points but welfare certainly isn't one of them.

As Bill Bryson, the American author of "Notes from a big country" or "I'm a stranger here too" in the states, said "Britain should be commended, it did the right thing and disbanded it's empire, and then did the right thing again, and set about caring for it's down-trodden, and now they cant stop moaning about such a wonderful system" ...Britain desease I expect.

I just cant understand how the richest country in the world couldn't possibly do more for it's poor and downtrodden, I'm mean they've got the money and more to do what the UK did...but nope, that would be too socialistic.

 

[I think not]

Karlin you really need to broaden your resources. Out of a $2.7 Trillion budget, around $1.7 Trillion was spent on social programs.

 

[Daz_Hockey]

bleedin heck thats a lot....where does it go eh?

 

[I think not]

If you really want details I'll get the breakdown for you.

 

[Daz_Hockey]

well, I realise the population is HUGE compared to where I am and the per capita spending would make it seem more realistic, but thats still a vast amount.

If you could break it down, it would certainly help cheers, but I just come from a different world, you know what I mean.

 

[I think not]

I can tell you now off the top of my head that the largest recipient of federal funding has always been and continues to be the Department of Health & Human Services which received about $700 Billion this fiscal year.

It's because we don't care about our poor and uninsured. :roll:

 

[I think not]

Here you go Daz, a pretty little graph.

Social Security, Income Security, Medicare and Health account for 57% of our budget.

 

[Daz_Hockey]

had to slide that one in didn't ya!!!

just working it out, about £370 billion UK pounds, year seems proportionate to me. But as I said ITN, I am from "another world", my country, while saying that we believe people should be off welfare and into work, we make it VERY easy not to be.

For example, I had to attend a meeting with a council official the othert week, concerning council housing (which I actually had no intention of taking), and after telling them I'd have to have an operation at least once every 2 years and that it would keep me out of action at least a month each....well, strait away they suggested I claim "incapacity" benefit (about $800 a month), get my rent paid by the council, and then recieve something called "disability living allowence", which is about $470 a month (none of this is refundable or returnable I might add).

On top of that, (oh theres more), they gave me a free bus pass, and then told me if I wasnt earning enough they "top-up" my wages.

you see what I mean?, add the National Health system, that makes the UK's health care the reverse of the US's (in that nationalised healthcare is HUGE and private is soo tiny it cant provide much).

(and these are things I can claim, but do not, a large proportion of the population do)

(britain would be much more wealthy if it wernt for this)
As I say, I come from another world.

 

[I think not]

I had to put that in there because you will never hear about it outside the US, all you hear, and I have heard even you say this, and others, you can judge a country by how it treats its disadvantaged. Well 57% of the budget I would say has something to say about that.

You also have to realize we have a two tier health system in the US. The poor are covered, its the middle class that carries the pains, usually, as I would assume is the case anywhere.

We had a welfare program that didn't make any sense anybody getting out of it, it was better hanging around living life on the public buck. Bush restructered it, so it doesn't become a way of life, but rather a vehicle to be able to get back on your feet. That policy of his I support.

 

[#juan]

Homelessness also seems to be on the rise

I wonder if all the outsourcing of jobs had anything to do with it? Corporate profits are up though, so no worries.

link

link

 

[Said1]

I would say the cost of living in bigger cities today, especially housing might play a larger role in homelessness than outsourcing.

 

[#juan]

I just don't know said1

I've read that more people are being driven into crap jobs in the food service industry that just don't pay a living wage, in the U.S., or in Canada. Even two people together on minimum wage can't afford housing in the major cities. The fast food giants are making record profits and it seems to me that they should be paying their people more. Of course that makes me a communist