Difficult Choices Are Ahead......Or Not?

Difficult to read this article on family's mult-generational reliance on government funds. Wrong choices made, encouraging sub-standard school performance in the interest of getting a check and many other conscious choices.
Makes it hard to argue convincingly with the more hard core of right leaning posters. I consider myself compassionate, but at some point some hard choices have to be made or things will continue. Never mind the "discretionary income" expenditures. How does a mobile home generate $ 600 in electric bills? Rant over.....

One family. Four generations of disability benefits. Will it continue? - The Washington Post

Rexedgar said:

Difficult to read this article on family's mult-generational reliance on government funds. Wrong choices made, encouraging sub-standard school performance in the interest of getting a check and many other conscious choices.
Makes it hard to argue convincingly with the more hard core of right leaning posters. I consider myself compassionate, but at some point some hard choices have to be made or things will continue. Never mind the "discretionary income" expenditures. How does a mobile home generate $ 600 in electric bills? Rant over.....

One family. Four generations of disability benefits. Will it continue? - The Washington Post

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Pretty much impossible, all I can think of is they have a ton of electric appliances, TV's, computers, besides the normal stoves and the like. Or else they are using electricity for something else or perhaps farming it out. That can be done fairly easy. What I find surprising having grown up an old country boy on a farm back in the 1950's is that rural areas have about double the dependency on the federal government for their funds.

But thinking back, perhaps it is not so surprising. Rural folks used to be the most self reliant of all Americans. But I guess that was back in the day of the family farm. 100 acres and you made a good living. Add a few hogs and cows, chickens whatever, it was a good life. Today the family farm is a thing of the past, replaced by corporate farming where one family or corporation owns thousands of acres. When I drive out in the country nowadays, I see nothing but subdivisions along with houses with fields around them. But those who own the house, don't own the fields or their crops. They just own the land the house sits on, someone else or a corporation owns all the farm land.

Now there is something to think about. Our food supply that is no longer in the hands of the family farmer, but in the hands of corporations. Hmm.

Rexedgar said:

Difficult to read this article on family's mult-generational reliance on government funds. Wrong choices made, encouraging sub-standard school performance in the interest of getting a check and many other conscious choices.
Makes it hard to argue convincingly with the more hard core of right leaning posters. I consider myself compassionate, but at some point some hard choices have to be made or things will continue. Never mind the "discretionary income" expenditures. How does a mobile home generate $ 600 in electric bills? Rant over.....

One family. Four generations of disability benefits. Will it continue? - The Washington Post

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Our "benevolent" government is responsible for the plight of generational reliance on disability benefits. Its failure to police disability fraud and its standing in the way of businesses who would create jobs in these wastelands has crippled this segment of our population in flyover areas all over this country.

Here in the Chicago area, we see multiple daily tv ads by law firms touting, "Been denied disability benefits??? Call us!! We'll get them for you!!" We put our children on psychotropic drugs because the school system gets extra funding for them. We label them for LIFE for the money. We alter their developing brains with these medications and destroy their normal incentives to do more and better.

Welfare is hush money...destroying generation after generation. Robbing them of their natural desire to be self-sufficient and see their children succeed.

It is a crime. And we will pay.

Rexedgar said:

Difficult to read this article on family's mult-generational reliance on government funds. Wrong choices made, encouraging sub-standard school performance in the interest of getting a check and many other conscious choices.
Makes it hard to argue convincingly with the more hard core of right leaning posters. I consider myself compassionate, but at some point some hard choices have to be made or things will continue. Never mind the "discretionary income" expenditures. How does a mobile home generate $ 600 in electric bills? Rant over.....

One family. Four generations of disability benefits. Will it continue? - The Washington Post

Click to expand...

Oh, re the $600 electric bill? It included late payment fees and undoubtedly past due amounts. Mobile homes often use electricity to fuel their heat. That's probably what's going on here. Electric heat is awfully expensive. Miss a few months? A $600 electric bill is easy.

MaggieD said:

Our "benevolent" government is responsible for the plight of generational reliance on disability benefits. Its failure to police disability fraud and its standing in the way of businesses who would create jobs in these wastelands has crippled this segment of our population in flyover areas all over this country.

Here in the Chicago area, we see multiple daily tv ads by law firms touting, "Been denied disability benefits??? Call us!! We'll get them for you!!" We put our children on psychotropic drugs because the school system gets extra funding for them. We label them for LIFE for the money. We alter their developing brains with these medications and destroy their normal incentives to do more and better.

Welfare is hush money...destroying generation after generation. Robbing them of their natural desire to be self-sufficient and see their children succeed.

It is a crime. And we will pay.

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Hi MaggieD. Great post.

You touched on many truths, but one really hits home. Children and psychotropic drugs.

Thank god, I grew up when such "remedies" were not considered. I have no doubt I would have been subject to such treatment. I was the kid who couldn't sit still, always had something to say, and was always getting into one thing or another. Bless my parents, and a father who bought be a tool box when I was a little kid.

Today, we just drug kids who acted like I did 50+ years ago.

In my life there were times when my wife and I had no money, no jobs, and two kids. And we got real busy. Not filling out forms, but doing what was necessary to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. Necessity is quite the mother of all "inventions" under such circumstances.

I have mixed emotions about the government safety nets, for I can understand there could be moments during ones life where such a fall back could be a blessing. But making such "benevolence" a lifestyle, destroys incentive and effort.

This is certainly an extreme case but not surprising. Hardly unique to the US either.

For me it is a failure of society and government at local and state level. You cant prevent this, but you can lessen the problem.

Some European countries have had good results in changing things, but it is always difficult as you cant go against our democratic values to do it. In Denmark there has been similar families. Because of our upward mobility is so much easier in Denmark, it is also often easier to stop the cycle. Target the kids.. get them the education that the parents lack, and get them out of the hole. This sadly takes decades, but it does stop the cycle. Problem is of course, if the parents reject the attempts because they see the kids as cash cows... that is where the "forcing" comes into play and is difficult. In Denmark, partly because of xenophobia and racism sadly, they are implementing caps on how much you can get on benefits depending on how many kids you have. It was put in place to stop Muslim families with 10 kids getting tons of cash, which is why I got a bad taste over it.. but the idea in principle is a good one. To discourage families breeding kids for money, you cap how much you can get.. say 2 or 3 kids tops. You can have more kids, but you wont get paid extra benefits. Problem is, how big is the problem? Not that big, even with Muslim families.. so is it worth doing? Good question.. one that I dont know how to answer. Is it worth spending millions to stop 10 people abusing the system for a few hundred thousand a year?

Now this family in the article. I would remove the kids. They need an education and they certainly wont get it there. I would set demands on the parents to get the kids back and to continue to receive benefits. I would force them to cancel their cable bill, limit their cellphone usage, and send back the furniture they bought on credit. You can get used furniture. Also the dogs need to be removed... Since the state is paying all these bills, then the state can set conditions in my opinion. Money from the state should go to electricity, housing, education, clothing, food and in the modern world.. internet.. nothing else.. well the car insurance so they can get to work.

Rexedgar said:

Difficult to read this article on family's mult-generational reliance on government funds. Wrong choices made, encouraging sub-standard school performance in the interest of getting a check and many other conscious choices.
Makes it hard to argue convincingly with the more hard core of right leaning posters. I consider myself compassionate, but at some point some hard choices have to be made or things will continue. Never mind the "discretionary income" expenditures. How does a mobile home generate $ 600 in electric bills? Rant over.....

One family. Four generations of disability benefits. Will it continue? - The Washington Post

Click to expand...

Mobile homes (we live in one) are often electric only (heating, cooling and cooking) and have very poor insulation. Our electric bill is typically $100/month (for only the two of us) and we use very little heat (electric resistance heat is very expensive) here in south central Texas. It would not take many months (including late fees/penalties) to get that far behind in a colder climate.

Rexedgar said:

Difficult to read this article on family's mult-generational reliance on government funds. Wrong choices made, encouraging sub-standard school performance in the interest of getting a check and many other conscious choices.
Makes it hard to argue convincingly with the more hard core of right leaning posters. I consider myself compassionate, but at some point some hard choices have to be made or things will continue. Never mind the "discretionary income" expenditures. How does a mobile home generate $ 600 in electric bills? Rant over.....

One family. Four generations of disability benefits. Will it continue? - The Washington Post

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I am sure that medical "experts" have a helping hand in declaring their "patients" as being permanently disabled - since that gets them paid handsomely by the state to dispense the massive amount of pills and "necessitates" regular and frequent follow up doctor visits for life. Schools also get extra federal aid for each "special needs" student and thus have a financial interest in upping the percentage of such "special needs" students. The $2K/month that these wards of the state get pales when compared to what the social workers, doctors, big pharma and public schools get for helping to diagnose and treat those with lifelong "disabilities".

Rexedgar said:

Difficult to read this article on family's mult-generational reliance on government funds. Wrong choices made, encouraging sub-standard school performance in the interest of getting a check and many other conscious choices.
Makes it hard to argue convincingly with the more hard core of right leaning posters. I consider myself compassionate, but at some point some hard choices have to be made or things will continue. Never mind the "discretionary income" expenditures. How does a mobile home generate $ 600 in electric bills? Rant over.....

One family. Four generations of disability benefits. Will it continue? - The Washington Post

Click to expand...

A struggling family with 2 tv's and a 300 a month cell phone bill. Sounds like poor choices adding to their misery.

Lots of times people who end up in these dire situations suffer from clinical depression. It is easy to say they are depressed because they are poor, but depression itself can lead to poor decision making and poor impulse control.

MaggieD said:

Our "benevolent" government is responsible for the plight of generational reliance on disability benefits. Its failure to police disability fraud and its standing in the way of businesses who would create jobs in these wastelands has crippled this segment of our population in flyover areas all over this country.

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SSDI fraud is extremely rare.

Former SSC Commissioner Michael J. Astrue (a George W. Bush appointee) says:

Commissioner Astrue pointed out that fraud constitutes less than 1% of the program’s outlays (and should have added that SSI is more likely to underpay than to overpay), and Vallas talked about how difficult it is to qualify for SSI, and that over 60% of applicants are turned down.

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Not only that but, the administrative costs of SSDI are extremely lean

The Social Security Administration operates on a tremendously lean administrative budget, equal to just 1.4 percent of benefits paid each year – and works hard to ensure program integrity.

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Here in the Chicago area, we see multiple daily tv ads by law firms touting, "Been denied disability benefits??? Call us!! We'll get them for you!!" We put our children on psychotropic drugs because the school system gets extra funding for them. We label them for LIFE for the money. We alter their developing brains with these medications and destroy their normal incentives to do more and better.

Welfare is hush money...destroying generation after generation. Robbing them of their natural desire to be self-sufficient and see their children succeed.

It is a crime. And we will pay.

Click to expand...

SSDI helps the disabled afford a minimum standard of living. It's not like you can go on SSDI for a broken pinky toe. This is money for people who need it. It helps millions of people out of poverty each year. I measure a society by how it treats its least not it's greatest.

Winston said:

SSDI fraud is extremely rare.

Former SSC Commissioner Michael J. Astrue (a George W. Bush appointee) says:



Not only that but, the administrative costs of SSDI are extremely lean






SSDI helps the disabled afford a minimum standard of living. It's not like you can go on SSDI for a broken pinky toe. This is money for people who need it. It helps millions of people out of poverty each year. I measure a society by how it treats its least not it's greatest.

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Keep on believin'.

The idea that the way to help poor people is to take away benefits that help them survive reminds me of Groucho Marx as Hammer in The Cocoanuts, faced with a rebellion by his unpaid bellhops:

Hammer: Wages? Do you want to be wage slaves? Answer me that!
Bellhops: No.
Hammer: No, of course not. But what makes wage slaves? Wages!


Similarly:


OP: Do you want to be dependent on government help to survive?
Poor: No.
OP: Of course not. But what makes people dependent on help? Help!