A weary social worker writes: You Know Who We Really Hate?

[kpete]

You Know Who We Really Hate?

-By Jake T. Snake

I have had a ringside seat to the economic downturn this year. It is not an abstraction to me. The folks at the bottom are always the first to feel the pinch, when it comes. Clients of the agency I work at come through our doors every day requesting assistance with basic necessities like food, clothing, shelter and medications. As the year has progressed and New York State has chosen to repeatedly victimize its most vulnerable citizens, it has become more difficult to help people meet these needs. I have visited food banks with empty shelves, been told clients were ineligible for help when I knew they were and had to challenge these decisions. I have sat with clients while their applications for public assistance were reviewed by fraud investigators at social services. Our local social services department actually hired fraud investigators at the same time that it was laying off child protective workers demonstrating conclusively where our values lie and how genuinely mean spirited we are as a people. At the federal level Social Security routinely denies people eligible for benefits in the hopes that they will not reapply. Many people who receive benefits must hire a lawyer before social security will concede that they are indeed eligible. As the resources have become more limited, the level of scrutiny and inhumanity has risen accordingly.

I have, of course read about the rising unemployment numbers and the ensuing uptick in applicants for public assistance and food stamps nationwide like everyone else. It seems the chickens of Bill Clinton's (Best moderate Republican president ever)welfare reform are finally coming home to roost. We always knew that the flaw of his plan was an economy without jobs and here we are. The reform has no provision for an unemployment rate like we are experiencing now. Once again, our policy in practice serves to punish most harshly children and the elderly. Perhaps, it is time to repeal the child labor laws and begin allowing them to work 12 hour days again.

For nearly 30 years we have done our best to dismantle the safety net for the poor and struggling among us. I keep praying that we have reached the end of this folly. At 42, these policies are what I have known my entire work life. I dream about social service programs and rules that would treat people like human beings, rather than as an undesirable applicant to be culled out. I want so badly for us as a nation to stop punishing people for being poor, or elderly or a child of poor people. This holiday season was hellish as I watched scores of our clients navigate the realities of a holiday with nothing but further grinding poverty. Some days I am just weary from the strain of witnessing the suffering that goes on around me. It takes a toll that is more than physical, it eats away at the soul to see people ask for so little and receive far less.

As I contemplate how to pry a few dollars from these systems designed to humiliate and degrade my clients, already struggling with being social outcasts, chronic illness, drug addiction and mental illness I sigh audibly. I read of billion dollar bailouts and disappearing pallettes of cash as I ponder how to help a family with $400.00 so they will not be homeless in three days. I am so very tired.

http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com/whiskey_fire/2008/12/you-know-who-we-really-hate.html

[MichiganVote]

1. I know exactly what the writer is saying. Its my work life everyday too.

[lovuian]

109. What you find out is that we are not a Christian nation

we are a mean harsh greedy government
and children are the ones least loved

[MichiganVote]

124. Actually...we are animals...in the evolutionary sense, we move forward and we move backward.

If you study nature's best mammals, the elephants, the whales, the wolf...these are all tightly woven societies of animals that routinely regard one another with rituals of care, of nurturing, of peace and sometimes of battle.

We are a poor species...Christian or otherwise.

[pacalo]

130. We most certainly are NOT a Christian nation.

[RC]

145. We most certainly are a "Christian" nation. A sectarian Christian nation

And that is the problem. We need to be much more of a humanist socialist nation.

[Naturyl]

148. I'm not religious, but don't blame the Christians alone.

There is also a LARGE contingent of non-religious right-wing "libertarians" who are bent on eradicating progressive economic values, and they are doing tons of damage. Far from being Christians, they are in fact social Darwinists, and of the two groups, I'd say they are by far the more dangerous.

[pacalo]

159. Hey, babe, it matters not what you choose to call it...

but I certainly agree that our actual priorities don't reflect what we've claimed to be in the past 8 years.

If our priorities were influenced by Christian ideals, there wouldn't be a need to vote on whether or not one sector of Americans should be granted human rights.

[Crunchy Frog]

197. We're not a nation that follows the teachings attributed to Jesus. n/t

[kestrel91316]

180. Well, the Puritans had the attitude that poverty was a sign that you were

OUT of God's favor (for some presumable moral lapse) and that wealth was a sign that God thought you were wonderful. And I seem to recall they FOUNDED this country.

[kdmorris]

224. The Puritans didn't "found" this country

They may have "founded" Massachusetts, but there were already colonies further to the south (which were, in fact, where they were headed, but went off course). There were only 102 settlers that landed in November, 1620, and half of them died that winter (November is not exactly a good time to try to establish a colony. Had they landed in Virginia, where they were headed, they would have been OK, since they colonies there were already established).

Nor did they believe that "poverty was a sign that you were out of God's favor". They believed that wealth was a gift from God, but since it was a gift, they could not earn it.

"What About Poverty?

If riches are a blessing from God, then poverty must be a curse and a sign of God’s disfavor—right? Wrong, said the Puritans, who disagreed with a whole tissue of assumptions often attributed to them in the twentieth century.

In the first place, the Puritans disagreed that godliness is a guarantee of success. Thomas Watson went so far as to say that “true godliness is usually attended with persecution .… The saints have no charter of exemption from trials.… Their piety will not shield them from sufferings.”

If godliness is not a guarantee of success, then the converse is also true: success is not a sign of godliness. This is how the Puritans understood the matter. John Cotton stated that a Christian “equally bears good and evil successes as God shall dispense them to him.” Samuel Willard wrote, “As riches are not evidences of God’s love, so neither is poverty of his anger or hatred.” " - from here: http://www.apuritansmind.com/Stewardship/RykenLelandPuritansAndMoney.htm

[L0oniX]

2. Social terrorism for the children, the poor and the elderly. Americans are assholes.

For fucks sake ...health care and food are human rights!

[lildreamer316]

11. NO, we are not. It is our government, paid for by the CORPORATIONS, that are the assholes.

I am so tired of people calling me an asshole because I am American. I am liberal, American, 1/8 NATIVE, and proud. But not proud of what my country is doing to our people.

Please stop generalizing.

[Doremus]

15. Government does what it does because *WE* allow it.

It will work for us again when *WE* get off our asses, take to the streets and DEMAND it.

That's a collective *WE*. Mobs of one aren't very effective.

[shellgame26]

125. What is the first thing "WE" do

when someone proposes unversal healthcare or affordable housing..."WE" brand them a communist. I really hate to say it but the American electorate is its own worst enemy.

[ejpoeta]

225. i see it when i hear my family talking about 'those people'

you know, all those black folks in nyc that are all living on welfare. as if anyone wants to be on welfare. then i have to remind them that i myself have been on assistance. we had food stamps. we have had cash assistance. i was on medicaid, and so was my daughter when she was born. i just went and signed my two girls up for child health plus because our health insurance went up another $100 a month and bob didn't get a raise to even help cover that. i remind them that i, a white woman, have gone and felt like a piece of crap for even trying to get any help.

in fact, getting heap a few years back, i was told by the worker that my boyfriend would never marry me and that he was using me. i was devastated by that. i left the place in tears! my boyfriend was not too happy when i called him and told them about it. and he let them have it. we had a daughter together. we had been together, living together for years. but i digress. when i remind my family that I fit into that 'those people' category, they seem to have to mentally shift something in their brain. because they know me. and so, for them, it's 'different'. it's amazing to me the hoops they jump through to navigate how it's different for me having done it. everyone else is lazy and wants to live off the system, except me.

i remember one time when my brother in law went off on all these women having babies and not being married and they are trailer trash. i very calmly told him, 'I have a child and am not married. and i live in a trailer. are you calling me trailer trash?' i could see him stunned as he stuttered his response. i got a smile on my face, partly because i enjoy needling him like that, and partly because I could see that I had made a good point. But it was different. Because I didn't have a bunch of kids with different fathers. that is true. but i was not married to my boyfriend. And I kept hoping that somewhere they knew that what they were saying was bullshit.

what annoys me the most about all of this, is that I watch the prejudice so openly displayed in members of my own family. It's like they have to construct this other world that makes these people collecting welfare something other than normal people like themselves. It's like they think they are better off than they actually are. But any one of us is teetering on the precipice of homelessness, and complete economic disaster.

My brother in law.... the one talking about these welfare people. he and my sister work for the IRS. their jobs are pretty secure. they may not be the happiest in them, but they aren't in danger of getting a pink slip. their daughter has had all kinds of help with speech and other things as she was born with problems. who pays for this stuff? the physical therapy in their home and at daycare? the state does. I don't think they understand that. I am so glad that they have the help available to them to ensure my nieces continued progress. and she has done wonders. but the same programs that help the poor folks that my family decries, are the same programs that help krystie to succeed. it boggles the mind.

[proud progressive]

212. bravo! someone who finally makes sense

i admire those or you who really do 'work' for the people. there are far too few of you and far too many of 'them'.
but, yes! WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT! we americans sit on our spoiled, fat asses and whine about what 'our gov' does, what the 'right-wingers' do, what the 'darwinists' do, what everyone else does.
by the way, if i hear one more person who thinks that one must be 'christian' to care, i'm gonna fuckin puke! and, one more thing. wtf is a 'darwinist'? someone who, god forbid, believes in EVOLUTION?

[L0oniX]

16. Talk to some homeless people and get to know some. We shit on our poor and elderly...

and I see it every weekend when I help at a food line. We are cowards to do anything about our governments crimes. Voting will not work. Only civil disobedience works and we are way to self absorbed and scared to do anything about it, unlike the French.

[Greyhound]

20. Say it again, brother(?)!

It's truly astonishing to hear these people go on and on about how wonderful the American sheeple are while ignoring all they've failed to do for almost three generations, now.

BTW, No, I don't consider myself American anymore, though I'm stuck with the stigma due to an accident of birth.

[rucognizant]

74. I wonder if the internet is siphoning off energy that WE might use...

to take to the streets? SOmehow we think we are doing something by signing petitions online, and alerting each other? ?????????

[RC]

147. You are wise beyond your years

Don't forget the new digital wide screen tv's. Look shiny.

[Naturyl]

119. Can't disagree with you there.

Nobody is willing to do the HARD things that need to be done. Progress doesn't happen without struggle.

[shellgame26]

131. not only the French

just about everywhere else in the world the people don't put up with this sort of crap from their government. In Thailand the people took over their airport to demand the resignation of the prime minister for appearing on a cooking show! They got a new prime minister and now their pissed again, blocking their parliament demanding the new one's resignation too.
Last year in S. Korea 80,000 people marched in the streets to protest the reimportation of US beef because (here's a secret) US beef has long been known to be notoriously unsafe. But we don't dare protest here! There are even laws against talking about it, it's ridiculous!
Countries that for years we thought had less freedom than us turns out we are the ones less free!

[Greyhound]

19. Just who do you think "the government" is?

Let me guess, you are among the unquestioning "Team Democrat" cheerleaders.
:eyes:

[WinkyDink]

35. We get the government we vote for.

[Obamanaut]

96. And we vote for the same government every two years. There

is only about a 10% turnover rate in both houses, with most incumbents being reelected if they decide to run. Most of the vacancies come through retirement or death. Considering the regularity with which we reelect the people who currently have a very low approval rating, one wonders why we even bother to complain.


We buys the tickets, we takes the rides.

[mdmc]

57. either you benefit from, or fight the corporations

We are all in the "benefit" side of the isle... Democrats and GOP benefit from the corporations. Radicals fight the corporations...

[UrbScotty]

73. "Please stop generalizing." - Agreed 100%.

[Dukkha]

173. no, you are all equally guilty

[rhett o rick]

177. Aren't you also generalizing when you claim Americans are not assholes?

I am an American, I am responsible for what happens in this country. I would love to say I am guilt free, but I am not, and neither are you. As far as assholes, everyone that voted for bush and McStrange are assholes and that's many millions of Americans.

You say you are proud. Sounds good, but what does it really mean? what exactly are you proud about? In Vietnam we literally killed over 3 million and wounded many more. The effects of the chemicals we used (war crimes) still are effecting the population of Vietnam. Children are being born with birth defects. After Vietnam we continued to wage one war after another. Now bush has killed and maimed possibly over a million in the name of America and the Democrats not only didn't stop him, they cheered him on.

Can't you understand why the world might think we are assholes? We have work to do to earn being proud of America.

Wear your lapel pin and be proud, I can't.

[DutchLiberal]

204. WHO keeps electing those corporatists?

[PADemD]

170. Social terrorism for the children, the poor, the elderly, and the mentally ill.

[firedupdem]

3. How sad...but we tell other countries what they should be doing and

can't take care of our own here at home. Horrible

[bobbolink]

188. Yes, but more than sad. PLEASE, push Obama to change this!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4509397

We would thank you for your efforts!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. The Nazis hated the weak too

society in this country has been forced to hate the weak and helpless. The idea is to be successful and strong. Americans love successful people and celebrities.

[rhett o rick]

8. Sad that we are told that the "weak" are dragging us down, when actually the American

Aristocrats are bleeding us dry.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. I think people have finally realized!

[Naturyl]

121. Indeed. It's a game of projection and distraction.

The label "parasite" is affixed to the poor, while in reality the economic and spiritual lifeblood of the vast majority is being leeched dry by the "ownership class."

Pay no attention to the filthy rich CEO behind the curtain. Focus your anger instead on someone trying to spend a food stamp at Wal-Mart. Parasites!

[Naturyl]

120. You nailed it.

Except that you may be unconsciously accepting part of the Nazi social Darwinist programming by defining the poor as "the weak." In reality, a true democracy ought to afford poor people considerable political strength. Unfortunately, they (we) generally don't exercise our power because we are thoroughly demoralized from being told we are weak, powerless, and helpless.

This is how the Nazi-esque social Darwinists neutralize the poor and ensure a selfish paradise for themselves.

[donco6]

5. At school we used to get reimbursement for medical services.

But they're cutting it so drastically, it isn't worth the headache you have to go through to get it. Now you have to actually track, in 15-minute intervals - exactly what services you're delivering and to whom (they have to qualify for Medicaid). The services have to be delivered by either an RN, a psychologist (not Social Worker) or in some cases we can get away with a nurse para, but only for things like handing out meds. We get audited every single year, and if the paperwork isn't absolutely perfect, we get dinged.

But we can drive pallets of cash to Iraq and use them for footballs. We can give billions to banks and send them a note asking them if they won't, pretty please, let us know what they want to do with the money.

[lonestarnot]

50. And when I see what little hair I have left in the mirror, I don't have to even wonder why.

[Naturyl]

122. I hear you.

When I look in the mirror and see someone who looks like a disease victim, I don't wonder why, either.

Dark circles and premature gray at age 33. And I know exactly where it's coming from.

[G_j]

6. a must read, K&R

[rhett o rick]

7. I volunteer at a food bank and also see what families are struggling with. When Mr. Paulson

threatens that if not given trillions, the system will crash, I think about the many that wouldn't notice. For them the system already crashed. I say let the friggin "system" crash. It's going to anyway sooner or later. Paulson just wants us to keep it afloat a little longer. f&*%^ Paulson and the American Aristocrats.

[Naturyl]

123. Thank you.

For many of us, the system doesn't work and never did.

Economic collapse? Sorry, I must have blinked and missed it while applying for food stamps.

[navarth]

9. amen. amen. amen.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

10. It's interesting.

I once wrote a comment here, on DU, on the degradation some have felt from the way they have been treated by the welfare system in NJ. I spoke to the readiness of some workers to sanction people for anything. In some cases, there are people who do data entry who take it upon themselves to not input recertifications or "OOPS!" input a sanction.

I was taken to task by someone who was apparently an NJ social worker. After all, they are just following orders, you know, and there are so many bad apples. Just sooooo many. :eyes:

This person who responded sounded like a prisoner of conscience, or a great lack thereof. Sieg Fuckin' Heil. I am only following orders.

While lives hang in the most terrible of balances.

More people should go through what I have gone through or seen what I have seen. They need that prideful, snotty, judgemental and self-satisfied taste slapped out of their mouths.

[Naturyl]

126. One wonders what a "bad apple" even is...

I *might* be willing to concede that the rare few who really do scam the system for large amounts might qualify as "bad apples." But for the most part, I don't consider it really possible to defraud welfare. Food, clothing, shelter, and medicine should be considered *human rights* - anyone without these necessities should be provided access to them *regardless* of qualification or circumstance.

When will we, as a nation, finally decide to take *human rights* seriously?

[bertman]

12. What is happening is horrible, as is our society's response to the needs of those who are

truly hurting. I have always felt and do now that we need to have better social safety nets in place for the elderly, the mentally and physically infirm, and the unemployed who are not employable.

But I would also like to respond to the comments about having fraud investigators on staff to look into the claims of individuals seeking public assistance.

Over the last twenty-some years I have met through various friends and associates and family members at least six individuals who I have been told are fraudulently obtaining public services for themselves. Of those six I can only verify that two of them are/were actually doing that, but the other four names came from reliable individuals who had no reason to lie about this.

Just two days ago in a discussion with family from Katrina-stricken Mississippi, I was told of more stories of individuals getting money from the government under the pretext of being unable to work when, in fact, they were able-bodied. Again, the folks relating this to me are honest people who have no reason to lie about it. They are also working class Democrats who voted for Obama and share our liberal values.

Just to be clear, I did not solicit information about any of these "cheats". I found out about them from personal contact and from people who were pissed off that relatives/friends were gaming the system.

People who are stealing from the public's safety nets are no less criminal than the Wall Street assholes who have gotten us into this mess. Bottom line is they all think it's okay to lie and cheat in order to get money from the government/other people. They all deserve to go to jail for what they have done.

As a 40-year Democrat I have heard the Republicans whine about welfare cheats and Ronnie Rayguns talk about welfare queens. And I always thought it was just mean-spirited, selfishness on their parts. That is, until I started seeing these things with my own eyes and hearing others who were seeing it.

So, my point here is that it may feel demeaning to have someone check out your story if you apply for public assistance, but I would much rather be sure that those who truly deserve it are getting it and those who are screwing the needy get what they deserve--which is jail time.

I'm all for having good social welfare measures in place and well-funded, but I think we need to be realistic and make sure that we also fund those who will prevent the fraud that is going on now.

[Hannah Bell]

14. six people in 20 years. stunning record of fraud. no doubt the reason for our present fix.

[L0oniX]

18. If ya want to look for fraud look to the Bush crime syndicate.

[bertman]

46. I agree totally, LOoniX. But not ONLY to the Bush crime syndicate. They are not the

only ones stealing from the taxpayers.

[bertman]

45. Ha ha Hannah. You're a true commodian. Perhaps you should go back and read my post.

[Two Americas]

17. people are always gossiping about that

Anecdotal evidence spread around as gossip is fodder for the right wing.

There is a paradox here - the more we obsess over catching the bad guys, the more suspicious we are, and the more we embrace the punishment model and make things difficult for people, the easier it is for criminals to negotiate the system.

It is tempting to get angry and start demanding draconian measures, tighter rules, more surveillance, more suspicion, more punishment. But that always leads to more crime, not less.

If the system were not demeaning, inadequately funded, stigmatized, and impersonal there would be much less of a problem with cheating. Suspicion and authoritarianism increases all of those problems, and creates a fertile field for the few who actually are criminals.

Also, when you treat people like criminals - and practically all working class people are now treated as though they were criminals one way or another - people lose respect for the rules and things break down.

[bertman]

48. It's not gossip, Two Americas. It's factual.

Who is demanding draconian measures?

Apparently you believe there is no crime in the world, the criminals who prey upon the weak, defenseless, ignorant are only misunderstood or had a bad childhood, or some other blather.

Based on your theory we should do away with our police forces and court systems so everyone can become honest citizens.

Please explain how practically all working class people are now treated as though they were criminals. That sounds like a wild generalization to me.

[Two Americas]

65. wow

"Please explain how practically all working class people are now treated as though they were criminals."

Homeland Security, ICE, the war on drugs, FISA, the Patriot Act...

Apparently you believe there is no crime in the world...

There are a lot of ground between promoting a police state climate and denying that crime exists.

...criminals who prey upon the weak, defenseless, ignorant are only misunderstood or had a bad childhood...

That is a vicious right wing theme.

Based on your theory we should do away with our police forces and court systems...

What nonsenses. I said no such thing.

[bertman]

87. It's news to me that FISA, the UnPatriotic Act, the war on drugs, Homeland Security

are all targeting working class people; although, I will admit that it's less likely that some elements of those are less likely to be used against the elites.

Your post insinuated that any additional crime-prevention methods invariably lead to more crime and an easier path for criminals. That is highly debatable. My feeling is that ordinary citizens who saw more enforcement and prosecution of white-collar crime and fraud committed by those on government paychecks would be encouraged that crime was not being rewarded, rather than the other way around as you suggest.

A vicious right-wing theme?? Far from it. That's a "bleeding heart" position if I ever heard one.

You said that ramping up enforcement only serves to make more people become criminals, or something to that effect.

[Two Americas]

138. I don't know what to say

If you don't think that FISA, the Patriot Act, the war on drugs, and Homeland Security are all targeting working class people, then we see reality very differently.

[whathappened]

114. just to add 1 more thing

to your list , even the working people are considered crook at there place of work , my sister works for home shopping network and they make her have a clear plastic purse to carry her id's in , they don't trust any 1

[Two Americas]

141. yes

Some people strongly identify with the authorities. I guess they are telling the truth when they say they don't "see" the problem. They are so obsessed with policing others, that they have no awareness or resentment at being policed.

One poster here talks about 6 cheaters.

In Detroit -

50,000 are homeless

80,000 abandoned homes

500,000 people are in desperate poverty in Southeast Michigan

Let's worry about those people, not the 6 we heard about.

[bertman]

154. You're so wrong about what I am saying that it is getting very frustrating trying to

explain it, but here goes one more time, Two Americas.

I referenced six individuals that I know personally or who have close ties with friends/family. My point was that I have no connection whatsoever with our government's public assistance programs, yet I know of six people who have chosen to game the system so they do not have to work like most of the rest of us who are lucky enough to be employed. Those six represent a miniscule snapshot of the system as a whole. Which leads me to believe that there is a major problem with people abusing the system and collecting taxpayers' dollars that SHOULD GO TO WORTHY and NEEDY people. (I do not consider a public assistance scammer to be a worthy or needy recipient of public dollars)

Perhaps you don't understand that the government's coffers are not bottomless and those 50,000 homeless and 500,000 who are in desperate poverty and need our government's help are being screwed by those who are cheating on the system. Not soley by them, of course, but certainly they are having a negative impact on our overall ability to help.

Apparently some people feel that the government cannot offer assistance to those who are in need while at the same time providing safeguards against fraud by unscrupulous cheaters. I happen to disagree with that position just as I disagree with those who feel that we cannot provide regulators to oversee our financial institutions while allowing them to operate smoothly, or those who think that we cannot police meat-packing plants to insure that our food is safe, while at the same time allowing production to continue. it's all about providing capable individuals to oversee the work of abuse prevention and then backing them up when they investigate and prosecute those who are offenders.

Just because it's our public safety net does not mean it should get a pass from reasonable oversight.

[Two Americas]

155. OK

Maybe I have misunderstood you. I have always thought your posts were good, thought of you as a friend to the working class, and was surprised to see your posts here.

Can we start over here and reach an understanding?

[bertman]

160. Yes. Thank you for making the effort. And likewise, I have always found you to be a

thoughtful and intelligent poster. Until now. JUST KIDDING!! (I hope you think that was funny. It was meant to be)

Among my friends and family I am known as THE OFFICIAL bleeding-heart liberal because I advocate so strongly for those who I consider to be the underdogs in this world. But I am not a lockstep do-gooder who cannot see that there really are some bad folks who don't give a happy damn about the welfare of others. I've explained myself so many times in this thread that I am weary of defending my position, so I'll just say Thank You, Two Americas, for your thoughtfulness. Even if we don't agree on everything.

And yes, I am working class. Even though I am a business owner, I am not wealthy. Except in those things that matter most--friends, family, a rich life full of diverse experiences. I've been working since I was twelve (part-time for my Mom and Dad), and I've done everything from shoveling shit (LITERALLY, not figuratively), to hard manual labor, to administrative work. But I've always tried to be fair to others.

Anyway, enough of that. Peace.

[Two Americas]

164. very funny

"Until now" ha ha.

Sounds pretty similar to my life story. Thanks for that.

I don't think I have quite fully understood what you are saying. Perhaps we can come back to it another time.

[RobinA]

76. Another Social Worker

The thing about the so-called "cheats," is that welfare fraud isn't even worth the trouble. The amount of money is so little, that this whole nonsense about welfare/SS cheats living the high life is just so ridiculous. Any welfare cheat who is living anywhere near well is also a bank robber. The people I've run into on my job who are "gaming" (very few) are mostly doing it to survive on a very subsistence level. Frankly, if you have to "game" to pay the electric bill, there is a problem.

[Naturyl]

129. Amen. SSI just got raised to a whole $674 a month.

If anyone can live the "high life" on that, more power to them.

The smartest (and most evil) thing the GOP ever did was to perpetuate the "welfare queen" myth.

[Bette Noir]

23. Those "reports" of fraud are coming from unreliable sources.

I have 5 disks in my lower back that are torn, and cartilage in one knee that never healed after having been broken in a dog attack. On good days, I walk with a cane, and twirl it jauntily. On bad days I can't walk at all. On those days I usually stay home, since I don't have a job.

I have blue plates for my car, allowing me a good parking space. Some of my best friends think I'm "gaming the system" for a parking space. They've never seen the photographs of my knee, taken during surgery, or the MRIs of my back, so they can't know that I'm not faking. Similarly, your honest, well-meaning friends and relatives who gossip about "welfare cheats" don't know.

[Scully]

27. Anecdotal evidence on both sides isn't good for much but stories....

"Similarly, your honest, well-meaning friends and relatives who gossip about "welfare cheats" don't know."

I've encountered evidence of this cutting both ways. I have heard with my own ears a family friend say that the amount she gets from the government isn't enough to buy the things she wants so she is going to have another child to be eligible for more money. Not fraud per se but definitely abhorrant and gaming the system. On the flip side, my father-in-law is as disabled as it gets, and the doctors he was sent to by the state of GA (in addition to every private doctor we could afford to send him to without insurance) tell him he is unable to work; however, the state denies him disability again and again until he's had to retain an attorney. Either way, you're right- no one could superficially look and make a judgment call in either situation.


As for the OP, checks and balances are a necessary part of any system, even if to just catch human error rather than planned fraud and I don't have a problem with benefit and eligibility audits. I do agree, though, that something seems wrong with hiring more gatekeepers while simultaneously getting rid of those who facilitate the benefits some desperately need. Seems that the numbers of both social workers and gatekeepers ought to be consistently relative to the numbers of the population they are serving... but that's just too logical, now, isn't it?

[Bill McBlueState]

37. you should have a talk with that family friend

She apparently doesn't understand that the government benefits you get from having another child aren't nearly enough to offset the costs of raising another child. I think that's why the old canard of having more kids to get more welfare never seems to have more than anecdotal evidence behind it.

[Scully]

39. Tried. Like talking to a brick wall, but worse, because brick

walls don't realize they are bricks.

You're assuming she actually pays for the costs of raising her brood rather than passing her kids off onto her mother and sister to care for because they are too nice to see family put in the system and too doormatty to turn her in so they can get legal custody and assistance in raising the kids. It's an effed up situation, but she pays nothing for them and anything she gets from the government is profit to her- from her mouth to my ears to this screen.

But yeah- in general, you're right ;-)

[bertman]

52. That's what I thought too Bill McBlueState until a relative told me about her co-worker

who was gaming the system. This person was receiving monthly checks from at least four different agencies while she was working a steady part-time job. And those were the checks my relative knew about.

She had tapped into every available program to gain financial assistance even though she was healthy and able to work, but chose to work part time.

[RobinA]

79. What State is This?

I'm sending my clients there.

[bertman]

84. North Carolina. But please don't send us your clients. We are hurting already.

[mntleo2]

112. Oooo! One person! gaming the system ...

...I am not sure how she is getting away with this since it takes a Philadelphia lawyer to navigate the System. The poor have to document who they are, where they are, the last time they took a dump, who was in the other room while they did it, and then "prove" why they decided to take that dump at the time they did. There are appointments, appointments for the appointments, and the 3 appointments she needed when she forgot to cross a 't' or dot an 'i'; Where oh where does she find the time, even with a part time job to do that four times over?

Besides all that, I have to tell you the it is the POOR, not the rich who pay the most taxes out of their incomes ~ even welfare recipients, while corporations pay NOTHING and rich pay little ~ yet the rich get back BILLIONS in tax dollars. Legal or not the reality is the rich are deadbeats, unpatriotic, and greedy. If corporations and their avaricious CEOs paid the taxes they should, we would see over 1 TRILLION (or 1/3 of our national budget)into our treasuries.

Meanwhile, in comparison to a few MILLION entitled tax deadbeats who game the System for hundreds of times more than the whole DSHS budget combined, you worry about one person who, unless your friend does this woman's accounting books, 'supposedly' games the system. Low income people who struggle are often criticized for being smart enough to know how to get the assistance they desperately need. It is very difficult to game this system because in order to get assistance, the poor have to document every single thing and it is checked and rechecked. Rechecked 10 times more than any Merril Lynch or J.P. Morgan CEO who didn't pay a cent in taxes, and just got billions and are saying they don't even HAVE to justify what they do with that money. Just because they don't have 10 highly paid lawyers and as many highly paid accountants but still know their rights and know where to go for help that they are entitled to and get honestly, is *not* gaming the System.

I personally know honest hard working welfare recipients Furthermore, it all depends on what you call "work." If parenting is haughtily called "doing nothing" and "taking" from the System, as Welfare DEformed says (written by Robert REctor who is an entitled white man, a Heritage Foundation wingnut who thinks it is fine for his rich friends to take far more than what low income women should not be able to do, like oh ...go to school and get a degree so a woman can work for a livable wage). I would like to ask you then if you think parenting is "doing nothing" ~ who will pay YOUR social security when you need it? These people's kids, that's who. Who will fight your wars when you are too old to do it? These people's kids. Who will take care of YOU when you can no longer do so? These people's kids.

So if you really believe that raising the next generation is "doing nothing" and not as worthy of our tax dollars as the guy who lazily sits by his heated pool collecting the tax refund for taxes he never even paid, well, you are not very smart. In case you do not know it, just because these entitled prigs think that being a mother is somehow "taking" from the System rather than a part of creating our future country, those who feel so much more entitled to our tax dollars for themselves and to hell with the future for any other American, well they are idiots and worse unpatriotic dicks. Parenting IS work worthy of our support far more than for some jet setter whose only concern is whether he/she takes the corporate jet or the limo.

Here are some stats about who pays taxes and who does not and what a hard burden it is to whom: http://www.itepnet.org/wp2000/text.pdf. Read that and then tell me about the "woman who games the system with 4 governemnt checks" again, ok? Then tell me who is more entitled to our tax assistance again ok?

Gak!

Cat In Seattle

[Stardust]

163. Wish I could rec your reply, Cat. The hoops a person has to jump thru

to obtain assistance is mind-boggling and only for the very persistent. The system is designed to discourage, not empower. I lament for all those unable to jump the hurdles. I walk by them every day, ashamed that I can do little but offer a buck or two. It's just a matter of time before we'll have children begging on the streets just trying to survive.

[Two Americas]

165. very powerful Cat

Best post in a long time here.

Thank you.

[leftstreet]

190. Excellent post

:thumbsup:

[maryf]

198. Thanks Cat!! for speaking out

:yourock:

[varelse]

220. This post needs to be printed out and framed

I'm going to make damned sure it's circulated. Awesome rebuttal :)

My personal favorite:

Furthermore, it all depends on what you call "work." If parenting is haughtily called "doing nothing" and "taking" from the System, as Welfare DEformed says (written by Robert REctor who is an entitled white man, a Heritage Foundation wingnut who thinks it is fine for his rich friends to take far more than what low income women should not be able to do, like oh ...go to school and get a degree so a woman can work for a livable wage). I would like to ask you then if you think parenting is "doing nothing" ~ who will pay YOUR social security when you need it? These people's kids, that's who. Who will fight your wars when you are too old to do it? These people's kids. Who will take care of YOU when you can no longer do so? These people's kids.

So if you really believe that raising the next generation is "doing nothing" and not as worthy of our tax dollars as the guy who lazily sits by his heated pool collecting the tax refund for taxes he never even paid, well, you are not very smart. In case you do not know it, just because these entitled prigs think that being a mother is somehow "taking" from the System rather than a part of creating our future country, those who feel so much more entitled to our tax dollars for themselves and to hell with the future for any other American, well they are idiots and worse unpatriotic dicks. Parenting IS work worthy of our support far more than for some jet setter whose only concern is whether he/she takes the corporate jet or the limo.

[bertman]

51. Good examples, Scully. I also know some deserving individuals who have been denied

their benefits for what I can only call capricious behavior on the part of the bureaucrat who was handling their case.

We do need checks and balances and we need adequate staff to ensure that those who deserve benefits are served AND that those who are trying to cheat are caught and punished.

[Naturyl]

132. EVERY individual is "deserving" of life's basic necessities.

I agree that collecting four checks is cheating, but everyone (including this woman) ought to be entitled to a basic living if they need it - regardless of circumstance (including employment).

[bertman]

151. Naturyl, if you're saying that every single human being is entitled to government support

to live even if they can work but refuse to do so, then I disagree.

On the other hand, if someone wants to work and by reason of incapacitation or lack of availability of work, cannot work, then I think the government should help them with the basic amenities until such time as they are able to become productive members of society and provide for themselves.

[Naturyl]

203. Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Feel free to disagree, I'm used to that. But my position is that no American citizen should be denied the basic necessities of life for ANY reason. I'm not a fan of the Puritan work ethic, and I think society might be much better off without a dogmatic focus on employment. Forcing people to work through economic coercion is a form of slavery, in my view.

This isn't a popular position, but it's the one I feel is right.

[bertman]

206. For me it's not about puritan work ethic. It's about fairness. If you've held this position

for long I'm sure you have heard all of the arguments, so I won't express my thoughts on this.

But I do have one question: how would society perform its normal functions of feeding, housing, clothing, providing heating and cooling for homes, providing medical care, providing transportation, providing for educational opportunities, etc. etc. IF the majority of us decided that we wanted to be free from the obligations of gainful employment?

[Naturyl]

210. Studies show the majority will not make such a decision.

Common sense also backs those studies up. Human nature being what it is, the majority of people will always want more than "the minimum." I see no danger of hordes of people signing up for a subsistence level income just to avoid work. Most people like "something to do" anyway, and would not want to be unemployed for long periods.

Here is a report on one major study which found only a small work disincentive as a result of implementing a guaranteed income:

http://www.geocities.com/ubinz/Canada/HumSimpson.html

[bertman]

211. Thanks. I'll check it out.

[RobinA]

77. I Think The OP

was making the point that they are spending more to catch cheats than they are paying cheats, meanwhile eating up money that could be going to people who need it. Again, cheats aren't getting a heck of a lot of money to begin with. The person who is having another child in order to get the things she wants in in for a rude awakening. There is all kinds of rumor on the street, including the welfare-eligible street, that says all you have to do is to get all kinds of good dollars from welfare. It's all bull. I have yet to meet anyone, on welfare playing by the rules or scamming a little extra, who is living in an anywhere near comfortable way. Not to say there aren't any, but if there are, they are probably related to the governor.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

92. in addition to common sense wrt social safety nets...

I think billion dollar thievery desrves strict legal sanctions and serious fines--sheesh, that's a controversial opinion, isn't it?

Seems it's still too easy for those who can to buy their way around justice. and the money gained from dealing justly with cons like that could do so much good.

Good post bridging two ends of the spectrum, thanks

and welcome :hi:

[bertman]

49. Pray tell me how you know those "reports" of fraud are coming from unreliable sources, Bette Noir.

What you are saying is TOTALLY FALSE.

I'm sorry that you have friends who don't trust you, but please don't use your experience to tell me that mine is false, when it is not.

[rhett o rick]

28. I am sure there is fraud to some degree, but....

The line drawn between those that "deserve" the services and those that don't (fraud) is arbitrary. For example, if you said that those that make $5,000 or less deserve food stamps, and someone making $5,200 managed to get food stamps, then that would be fraud. This is definitely not a reason to stop the program, which is the goal of many of complainer, or to pay for expensive fraud prevention.

[rhett o rick]

29. People that are looking to rationalize not helping often use the excuse that they are sure there

is fraud. "I would gladly donate to the good cause except you know there are people undeserving that get benefits". They don't care to hear the statistics. Rationalization is the key to happyness.

[Naturyl]

133. Bingo.

You nailed it. Anything to rationalize not helping.

Besides, NO ONE is "undeserving" of food, clothing, shelter and medicine. These necessities are provided to convicted criminals at taxpayer expense. Are convicted criminals preferable to the poor?

[bobbolink]

191. "Are convicted criminals preferable to the poor?" In the U.S. the answer is YES.

And while we talk about it, we actually do very little.

Everything else is so much more important.

Charity doesn't change the basic reality.


:cry:

[Naturyl]

201. Charity is a band-aid solution at best.

Issues like poverty need to be addressed at the societal level. Private charity has never been sufficient, and it never will be. In many cases it is consciously or unconsciously *designed* to be ineffective, because a lot of people have the belief that "the poor you shall have with you always."

[bobbolink]

228. You're so right. Systemic problems can't be resolved individually.

We consider ourselves a smart nation, but we can't seem to grasp that basic truth.

"In many cases it is consciously or unconsciously *designed* to be ineffective,"

Absolutely correct!

[Gormy Cuss]

30. Heresay is a really bad way to quantify fraud.

Welfare fraud is a tiny component of the overall costs.

Which is a better use of limited resources: pursuing the handful of cheats or providing a social safety net to more people?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. When I volunteered in Mississippi after Katrina, the priest in charge of

the relief center told us that we could either serve people or judge them. He said that we didn't know every individual's circumstances and that what looked superficially like fraud might be meeting a legitimate need that we didn't know about. He felt that it was worth letting a few cheats slip by in order to make sure that people who really needed help weren't humiliated.

I try to keep that attitude in dealing with the poor. It's not up to me to decide whether they "really" need help. I figure that anyone who will stand outside on a winter night waiting for our dinner program to open really needs help.

[Raksha]

54. It is absolutely worth it! That priest had the right attitude.

Re When I volunteered in Mississippi after Katrina, the priest in charge of the relief center told us that we could either serve people or judge them. He said that we didn't know every individual's circumstances and that what looked superficially like fraud might be meeting a legitimate need that we didn't know about. He felt that it was worth letting a few cheats slip by in order to make sure that people who really needed help weren't humiliated.

There is more I could say about that...a LOT more! But I don't think I want to open that can of worms now.

[bertman]

55. Good point, Lydia. I commend you for your graciousness.

But we are not discussing a meal given to a person who is hungry. We are discussing individuals who are getting substantial amounts of money that we taxpayers are providing with the assumption that the help is going to the deserving.

Most of the individuals I have referred to have been getting their taxpayer-sponsored benefits for YEARS. The dollar amounts they have scammed us for are in the hundreds of thousands per person. What pisses me off is that they are taking away from others who are not able to make a living on their own. Those are the folks I want to get our safety net services--not some healthy, freeloading asshole who thinks it's okay to steal from the government.

[conscious evolution]

59. Freeloaders getting rich on welfare

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Thanks for the laugh.

[bertman]

75. Getting rich on welfare? Where did I say that? You fail reading comprehension.

Apparently you also failed math in school, UNconscious evolution, so here's a quick referesher: Individual A, who is an able-bodied male who hates working a regular job convinces a caseworker that he is mentally incapable of handling the stress of a job. Individual A receives a check for $1300 per month from the taxpayers of the U.S. In one year, Individual A receives an income of $15,600 from us taxpayers--tax-free, I might add. In ten years time Individual A receives tax-free from the U.S. taxpayers $156,000. In twenty years this individual would receive over a quarter of a million dollars tax-free. This is major league screwed up.

I have a relative who has an autistic son with severe hearing and comprehension disabilities. She is unable to get any government help for him because of some bureaucratic bullshit, yet Individual A is getting thousands of dollars handed to him every year even though he is intelligent and capable of holding down a job. Maybe, just maybe, if someone had done a bit of investigative work on Individual A, the money he has cheated could have been used for someone who really needed it.

Is it so fucking hard for you to comprehend that welfare fraud is a problem? Why do you have to mock me by using such a loaded statement as if it were relevant to this discussion.

[fed_up_mother]

99. Welfare fraud is a fair sized problem, imo

And denial of benefits to folks who need that money is an even bigger problem.

[bertman]

103. I agree with you 100%, fed_up_mother.

[Naturyl]

135. Did it ever occur to you there might be REASONS people hate jobs?

"Individual A, who is an able-bodied male who hates working a regular job convinces a caseworker that he is mentally incapable of handling the stress of a job."

Isn't it possible this individual hates working a regular job because he ACTUALLY DOES suffer psychological distress due to working?

How would you know? Are you a qualified psychologist or disability examiner? Or, as is more likely, are you just a typical American who is convinced "these people on disability can really work?"

[Lydia Leftcoast]

60. I think the OP is complaining about the "guilty until proven innocent" attitude

that social service agencies take. Often it's the most vulnerable who can't jump through all the hoops while the scammers know just what to say and what not to say.

There are also scandals such as the "welfare hotels" in many large cities. The owners earn millions per year from the city to provide single rooms with no kitchens, sometimes no bathrooms, to poor individuals and families, when that same money given to the individuals could rent apartments at market rates. But no, we can't give the money to the individuals. They might $30 of it on a DVD player.

[bertman]

78. I agree, Lydia, that we don't want to use a shotgun to kill a gnat. But, this problem

is not a small problem, nor are these incidents isolated incidents. I object to setting up any government program without proper safeguards against abuse or corruption--regardless of whether it relates to social services or the military or environmental protection.

There are dedicated individuals in our government who want to help those who need help but who are hamstrung by budgetary concerns. Doesn't it make sense that saving even five percent of a $650 million dollar budget--that's $32 million plus--would be better than just wishing there were more that could be done?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

179. If we're going to have federal fraud investigators, they need to high-tail it over to the Pentagon

FIRST.

$2.3 trillion gone missing. $2.3 TRILLION "lost" to embezzlement? Black ops? Who knows?

The 32 million that is allegedly lost to "welfare fraud" is such a small percentage of the frauds perpetrated at the Pentagon that my calculator has to express it in negative natural logarithms.

Let's start cleaning house by rooting out the mega crooks in the Pentagon, not by going after a welfare recipient who earns an extra $50 a week literally cleaning a house.

[bertman]

209. I pulled the $32,000,000 out of the air as an example since I don't know how much

money we're really talking about in a multi-billion dollar public assistance budget.

I agree with you 100% that the military should be first on the list and that the priorities of some of our welfare organizations are ridiculous, but I still advocate oversight of ALL government agencies as a matter of standard operating procedure.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

215. One thing I learned while working with street kids is that people who are

really on the edge adopt a moral code that says that you do what you have to do to survive. For example, most of them, both boys and girls, had spent at least some time as prostitutes. They didn't do it because they liked it--in fact, they all hated it-- but because they could persuade their john to pay for a full night at a hotel in freezing weather.

If the choice is between doing some work off the books and having their kids go without food for the last couple of days a month, any parent will opt to do the "illegal" work.

What's wrong with the current situation is that we're going after the small fish who are "cheating" on a minor scale, not to get rich of the government, for the most part, but to make it through each month, while letting the blue whales in the Pentagon make off with trillions.

Our priorities are totally upside down.

I'm willing for "my tax money" to go to people who are struggling to get by, especially when it's more likely that "my tax money" is going into the Swiss bank accounts of top Pentagon officials or to pay foreign governments for torturing "enemy combatants."

[rhiannon55]

223. At this point, a few people possibly "scamming the system"

are not "taking away from others who are not able to make a living on their own." We're not yet turning away people for lack of funding--although I'm afraid that time is coming.

I am a TAF/food stamp caseworker and I can tell you that we are doing our best to serve everyone who applies and is eligible. My caseload is so high that it is all I can do to keep up. We have to make people verify everything (I'm sure it feels like jumping through hoops sometimes), so I think frauding the system is not as easy as you might think. I'm sure that some of my single working moms are babysitting or doing other things and getting paid cash and not telling me, but you know what? I don't care. I don't want them to tell me because then I have to count the damn $25 or $50 as income and their food stamps might decrease or go away altogether. With 160 cases and counting (I open three to four new cases a day and my 12 coworkers each open about the same amount), I don't have time, and they need their very measly $150 or $200 in food assistance each month to feed their kids. Not that it's enough, but it helps.

When people apply for TAF (Temporary Aid for Families, which used to be called AFDC), they have to sign a self-sufficiency agreement and agree to go to the local Work Force Center and start looking for a job. If they don't go every day and diligently look for work, their money is cut off. But the thing is, all over town, employers are laying off workers. But they still have to look and I still have to cut off their assistance if they don't keep trying. Those are the ones that I put at the bottom of my endless pile of work to do. I don't want to make their lives worse by taking away what little help I'm able to give them. I'm a taxpayer, and I don't begrudge people this kind of very basic assistance. And even if they find a way to make some money "under the table", I don't judge them. We don't give them enough to live on and they have to survive. And there are many reasons why a person might not be able to find and hold a job, and being lazy is rarely one of them.

There is not one 'welfare queen' in my caseload, but there are a lot of very poor people.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

232. Thank you for your compassionate attitude

Years ago, I heard the late Studs Terkel say that Reagan was popular "because he made it okay to be stupid."

He also made it okay to be mean-spirited, so people get all riled up about "welfare queens" who "cheat the system" to feed their children by babysitting or cleaning someone's house.

The income levels at which a person is permitted to have food stamps or Medicaid are so low that I'd really like to see some of the high-and-mighty people on this thread try to survive at those levels without "cheating."

We don't hear nearly enough about the $2.3 trillion dollars, only about how we should hate the down-and-out for "sitting on their fat asses living off the taxpayers' money."

When I was younger, I had chances to move to Norway, Australia, and Japan, and I could kick myself for not taking any of those chances. This is not the country I grew up in.

[davidthegnome]

86. What a great Priest

It's a shame there aren't more like that, or religion would be much more appealing to me.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

93. There are quite a few like that, but you've probably never heard of them

:-)

[G_j]

118. either serve people or judge them

Thank you. This is what works.

[bertman]

53. How do you know welfare fraud is a tiny component of the overall costs, Gormy Cuss?

If we have inadequate resources to investigate this problem we are certainly inadequately informed about the percentage of abusers. After all, they are not going to come forward and volunteer that they are cheats just so we can get an accurate accounting of them, are they?

If I have stumbled upon six examples purely by accident I think it's fair to assume that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

The best use of limited resources is to ensure that those who deserve them get them instead of cheaters getting what the needy deserve. That requires good administration and enforcement.

[JANdad]

63. Go sell this crap

over at Freeperville...it does not fly here!

[Name removed]

71. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Two Americas]

82. people have tried

People have tried to have a rational discussion with you about this. You are not merely relating your experience, you are pushing a point of view and not defending or supporting it very well. You stubbornly keep pushing that point of view and are not addressing the arguments that others are making here.

I don't care how long a person has been a Democrat, when they push right wing ideas they are going to run into an argument from other Democrats here.

[bertman]

90. I have explained my position in every reply to every post I made. If you don't agree with

it that's fine. That does not mean you are right and I am wrong.

But, I will not have some dipshit call me a freeper for stating facts and my opinion relating to them.

So, you're saying that it has become a right-wing idea that people who receive government money might actually do it under false pretenses? It doesn't seem to be such a right-wing idea that government contractors under the Bush administration would cheat the government. I read lots of threads on DU that advocate more investigation, oversight and prosecution of fraud among contractors and special interest groups. Why should we turn a blind eye to those who cheat the government on a smaller scale? It's theft either way.

I've been poor, received unemployment checks when I couldn't get a job, and I've known lots of people who received welfare and food stamps when they needed them. I strongly support the idea that our government is here to protect those who are less fortunate than others and to give a hand up to people who need help. But I am not foolish enough to believe that there are only honest people applying for government money and services.

You seem to advocate no checks on those who receive government services and money. I disagree.

I don't know how I can make my position any clearer.

By the way, two Americas, I don't consider enforcing laws to be a right-wing idea.

[riverdeep]

157. Here are two threads from the last week where DUers

rightfully ripped apart those stealing from government services.

(Fla. Medicare fraud debate focuses on patients)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3658575

(She saw her repair bill, then blew the whistle on a massive scam)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4726680

There's absolutely nothing wrong with setting aside funding for investigations and making sure that people who are getting the funding deserve it. There's a finite amount of funding available, any that goes to a cheat ultimately is less for the legitimate.

All the other comments about how demeaning and impersonal and inefficient etc., I'm in agreement with. I think at least some of those problems could be solved by making things as local as possible.

[JANdad]

94. Dipshit and asswipe,,,

Wow...thats a powerful argument...

you my dear poster are a sad excuse for not only a democrat, but a compasionate human being as well...

I believe it has been said that when the vitrol rises to this level...you have lost not only the argument, but the moral highground as well...good day!

[bertman]

113. Consider it a mild rebuke to someone who recklessly throws the slam of being a freeper

to someone on this site.

You know nothing whatsoever about me, so your assessment of me as a sad excuse blah blah is laughable.

I don't take kindly to being slandered by some faceless coward who can type a slur on a keyboard and disappear without facing the person he slurred. Your comment reminds me of so many that I see on this and other websites--slurs thrown out because the offender can remain anonymous and does not have to face the person he is belittling. You need to ask yourself if you would have called me a freeper if I were standing face to face with you. I doubt seriously that you would have done such a dishonorable thing. Or at least I hope you would not have.

You have no moral high ground, edwardsguy.

And without an apology from you for your callous remark I will leave my response as it was originally stated--in anger and disgust.

[JANdad]

167. If geography were not a problem

(not that we can see where you are from because YOU are the one seeking anonymity by not providing a profile) I would be more than happy to meet you face-to-face and tell you exactly how I feel. Or if you are a big enough person, PM me your telephone number and I will call you to discuss...

Oh and by the way...It will be a cold day in hell before I offer the likes of you an appology...

[bertman]

219. My profile is now up and running for you to check out whenever you want. Shoot me

a private message if you want to continue this back and forth.

[haele]

80. How much of a percentage were those 6 in 20 years?

And how much did they really profit from their fraud?

I can guarantee that even with fraud, even with "using 4 different federal aid programs", they weren't making a lot of money - certainly not as much as the anecdotal amount the "will work for food" guys get at the side of the freeway off-ramps supposedly do.

I wouldn't waste the time and money going after the people receiving the services - they aren't skimming enough off the top to actually warrant hiring an extra person to go after the fraud. I doubt that any of the 2% or so of those "lazy jerks" committing "social services fraud" are making more than $20K a year off their fraud. Most of them qualify for some form of service, anyway - especially those who are addicted or have mental issues, which isn't covered as much as it should be.
What I, if I were the government, would go after are the service providers who are skimming their profits directly off the service they are supposedly providing. Clinics or other Health Provider companies who are inflating or falsifying their costs and tests so as to receive more that $100K a year for services that aren't provided to those who need it. "Privatized" Social Service providers who are billing hundreds of thousands of dollars of overhead they don't really have to pay, while their boards of directors are not only pulling down a substantial monthly income, but give themselves "bonuses" off the costs they saved their companies by screwing their workers and those who require their services.

Hundreds of Thousands of dollars in Social Service Fraud goes to Corporations at the same rate that Tens of thousands goes to individuals committing fraud. Who would you rather go after?

Your individual commonly-called Welfare Queen isn't living in a Mc Mansion in a gated suburb off taxpayer dollars. She (or He) is most likely living one or two steps above what might be considered poverty, even if you factor in what fraud they may have committed to get a flashy car or a big screen home theatre setup - or committing the fraud so they can still live a halfway decent life in a housing project or ghetto without working when they could.
Those one-time flash comfort purchases - which often result in paying into a local tax revenue - pretty much have sucked up whatever extra they might have skimmed from the taxpayer anyway. And what's the difference between that and giving everyone $1K "tax rebates"? It's like going after the small-time tax payers for a couple hundred in owed taxes on forgotten items to file for, instead of going after the big corporations who regularly cheat the government for 100 times more.

Haele

[bertman]

111. I have no idea, Haele, what percentage those six represent as a portion of the whole.

It was never my intent to use that as a statistical reference, just an anecdote from someone who is not involved in any way with social service networks but who has some knowledge of people committing these types of acts. I should also say that the six represent a HUGE percentage relative to those individuals I know, or have known, who receive public assistance. Since I know very few of those individuals it would skew the percentage way higher than it actually is. But that's no more relevant than the percentage the six represent as it relates to the total number of those who receive government assistance.

I totally agree with what you say about going after the providers who are robbing us taxpayers and cheating the needy. To me, that would be a HIGHER priority than going after the individual recipients who are committing fraud. But it still needs to be dealt with as a crime, which it is. I would compare it to prosecuting a corporate criminal who deceives investors to the tune of hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars versus prosecuting a burglar who only gets a payoff of hundreds or thousands. Both should be prosecuted. Your comparison to a taxpayer who forgets to list items versus a corporate tax dodger is apt; however, in dealing with fraud the difference to me is also in criminal intent, as opposed to making an error on one's taxes.

Where we differ is in your apparent willingness to accept the criminal acts of people who commit fraud on a low level because they are poor. Certainly they are not raking in big bucks or living in gated communities, but nevertheless, they are a drain on the system and provide an example for others to follow to "get over" on the government--which, in reality is getting over on the taxpayers AND those who need the services that cannot be provided because the money is going to cheats. It does not matter to me what people spend their welfare/social security/disability/unemployment/assistance checks on. It's their choice and they have to live with it.

Just for clarification, I used the term "welfare queen" in reference to Ronald Reagan's characterization. It was and still is a mischaracterization--even of those who are gaming the system.

Because I have a number of friends/relatives who are on public assistance I am aware of the various programs that have been privatized to fill the role of government agencies. My general impression is that the contractors provide the service but at a minimum level of participation. Since I did not experience this relationship (vis-a-vis my acquaintances) until it was privatized, I have no idea how it compares to the quality of service that was provided by our state agencies.

My overall impression is that we might be better off going back to government agencies as providers, but it's only because I think that is a role of government that should not be outsourced to private industry--like we have done with our prison system and other former government duties.

[RobinA]

83. Well, I've Never

stumbled on this, and I'm a social worker working on the street. Maybe it's the state. Here in PA, while of course fraud happens, somebody is going to start asking questions if hundreds of thousands of dollars are going to one person. At the usual welfare level (with kids) of a couple hundred in cash a month, it's gonna take quite awhile to get to hundreds of thousands.

[Gormy Cuss]

91. Because in the past it was my business to know.

You can get more current data from recent reports by the respective agencies, but the last time I had to work with the data the TANF recipient overpayment rate nationally was under 4% of the total (that percentage includes errors and intentional fraud because of the way the estimate is calculated) under 2% for WIC, and under 5% for food stamps/EBT.

The government actually pays attention to fraud and error rates in programs and the agencies are continuously working on ways to reduce fraud and error while still providing services to those in need. It's a difficult balance and under recent administrations the shift has been towards making it harder for people to demonstrate eligibility under the guise of fraud detection while the end result is often that people who need the assistance aren't able to qualifyt.

[bread_and_roses]

108. What sad, narrow, tired, little boxes those thoughts reside in

"those who truly deserve it" - and what, pray tell, does it take to "deserve" to eat, have a roof over your head, shoes (something extremely difficult to buy at the thrift store - if you have money for the thrift store, which on "welfare" you don't) on your feet, and medicine for your ills? Who does not "deserve" that? We provide that to condemned prisoners on death row, but not to children with poor parents. And when those parents manage to find some work "off the books" on the side so maybe they can get the kids some shoes, they are committing "fraud." When they don't report the $20 extra dollars that would put them over the limit for food stamps - because the extra $20 is for shoes - they are committing "fraud." We create an impossible system that purports to provide support, doesn't, and then punish people for what they have to do to survive.

To conclude that "frauding" the welfare system out of a few $$ is "no less criminal" than massive corporate fraud and the transfer of most of the nation's wealth to a the top few % is utterly disproportionate. Which has harmed us more? From which have the individuals involved profited more? Which individuals can indisputably be said to have other options?

Nor do some of your examples even make sense. I worked in human services for over twenty years: never, in all that time did I encounter any agency that provided services or income based on an inability to work unless that inability was impeccably documented. In fact, as many below attest, getting such confirmation is extremely difficult, deliberately so.

And leaving child abuse services under-staffed while hiring fraud investigators, which was the original point, is criminally immoral. I guess in some value systems dead and damaged children are worth making sure that the desperately poor don't get a few "undeserved" dollars from the public till.

The entire system is rotten. It is based on outmoded concepts of "the deserving poor" and blatantly false assumptions about both the employability of each and every individual and the availability of jobs. It doesn't work for the poor and unemployed and it doesn't work for the community as a whole. It is long past time for some sort of guaranteed national income. We could save a huge amount on income maintenance workers, fraud investigators, and endless paperwork. We could stop pretending their is a job for everyone and that everyone not severly disabled is employable. We can stop spending on "job training" for some people who will never work and some jobs that don't pay a living wage or exist in sufficient numbers to employ most of the people "trained." And we can stop treating people who have been consigned to the "disposable labor pool" - which is exactly what the poor are, and why capitalism needs them - as if they were criminals.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

136. And ironically, it was NIXON who last proposed a guaranteed annual income

and who expanded food stamps.

Today's conventional wisdom is to the right of NIXON.

Think about it.

And anyone who whines about a bit of "welfare fraud" and isn't the least bit bothered by the $2.3 TRILLION that the Pentagon "can't find" needs a priority readjustment. That money that the Pentagon has "lost" (a more likely explanation is massive fraud and embezzlement and/or black ops too horrible to be mentioned in public) would be enough to pay every man, woman, and child in this country approximately $75,000.

[Naturyl]

137. What a wonderful post.

""those who truly deserve it" - and what, pray tell, does it take to "deserve" to eat, have a roof over your head, shoes..."

Precisely.

I reject the entire idea that "undeserving" people exist.

[Naturyl]

127. Frankly, you are part of the problem.

How on earth do your allegedly liberal friends know what constitutes a legitimate disability? Do they see Mr X out mowing the lawn and conclude "oh, he's able to work?" Are you or your allegedly liberal friends qualified disability examiners? Gimme a break.

This kind of shit is exactly why our welfare system is in the sorry shape it's in. Unqualified people jumping to conclusions about "fraud" and spreading rumors to ears all too eager to hear such things.

[kdmorris]

144. That's just idiotic

So, you know of 6 people in all that time that MAY have done something to "game the system".

Have you ever BEEN on welfare? There's no money to be had in it. Sorry, but you get like $400 a month in cash and food stamps. You don't get rich or "game the system", because, quite frankly, the entire system is designed to humiliate and degrade people to the point that they don't even feel human, anymore. What would you call able-bodied, able to work? I was physically able to work, but I had no way of getting to work, no child care and no net if something went wrong. What if there were no jobs to be had? Would we then let the "able-bodied" starve, because they were "gaming the system"? And who amongst us is even fit to judge these people? How do you KNOW that there were even 6 people in 20 years who did this? Were they arrested for it? Or do we just have the word of your family and friends, who know someone who knew someone who knew someone?

Look at all the corporations that have "gamed the system" for billions of fucking dollars, but there's no public outcry. There's no one standing around looking at the corporations and humiliating them, talking about the corporate "welfare queens" (which I still find to be mean spirited and selfish, not to mention utter bullshit). Those fucking "fraud investigators" are allowed to come into your house at any time, to look over your shit and make sure you are not "gaming the system", if you are an individual on welfare. It doesn't matter if you have actually given them a reason to think you might be "gaming the system". They can come and look whenever they want and you cannot say a word about it unless you are willing to let your children starve. Where are the fraud investigators going through all the corporate underwear drawers and refrigerators?

Try being on welfare sometime. Not just for a month, with a way out. Be on welfare with no way out, no hope for a future, and three children who are hungry for YEARS and YEARS and endless YEARS. Try not eating dinner for a week (almost every month) because the food stamps won't come for another week and your children need the food more than you do. Try having to steal food from a grocery store, hoping to hell you don't get caught, but not having ANY other way of giving those same children dinner. Try having a slumber party in the living room for 2 weeks because the electric got cut off. Try knowing that your ex-husband has a great job and REFUSES to pay child support. Try going through years of knowing that you are not worth helping, that there is NO ONE to help you and you could die in your living room and no one (except your hungry children) would care. YOU try explaining to your 2nd grader why she can't go on that field trip and has to be sick that day.

Try finding a job and losing it because your only form of transportation broke down. Try finding a babysitter and having her quit a week later because you got stuck on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge for 3 hours and didn't have a cell phone.

Then come back and talk to me about how people "game the system" and how liberal you are, and how tempted you are to "cheat" when you are hungry or cold (can't fucking afford heat) or watching one or all of you children do the same.

[tkmorris]

149. Clearly, you have never received any form of public assistance

If you had you would understand just how humiliating a process it actually is. You are made to feel less than human, a grifter, a cheat, even for applying. For some people the process is so dehumanizing, so demoralizing, they develop emotional issues that stay with them the rest of their lives.

Furthermore I agree with the poster above that EVERYONE deserves to eat, and to receive medical care, and have at least a roof over their head. To say that there exist people who are "undeserving" of the most basic of life's requirements strikes me as one of the more callous things I've ever read at DU. I don't give a tinker's damn if there are some small percentage of people receiving benefits that could work instead. The support they receive is no bargain, considering what it costs to receive it.

[Hippo_Tron]

156. Social programs will inherently have some free riders, there is no way around that

I would rather pay a few additional cents in taxes and let those free riders have a free ride than cut off people who genuinely need the help in the process of cutting off the free riders.

[wolfgangmo]

184. Not a large statistical universe you have there, but you are right...

... about one thing.

Under the repubs oversight was cut drastically, likely as part of a plan to justify cutting the program because "o so many cheats exist."

So yah we need a system and we need to police it.

[snot]

21. K&R'd! nt

[OwnedByFerrets]

22. K and R

[AzDar]

24. K & R ...

[Hubert Flottz]

25. "repeal the child labor laws

and begin allowing them to work 12 hour days"

I know a lot of republicans who would love to see that happen, as long it it wasn't their kids.

[democrank]

26. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, damn it!

Even if you don`t have boots.

[madamesilverspurs]

31. Having spent nearly 25 years

on the receiving end of both state and federal "helping" agencies, I find some consolation in the confirmation that I haven't imagined the many ugly aspects of those processes. On the other hand, there is no consolation in the confirmation that the nastiness is in fact systemic and serves to increase the distress of millions of Americans.

That there are those who defraud the system is no secret. The "system" has chosen to deal with that by treating every applicant as a potential fraud, guilty until proven innocent, and I've often wondered what a trip to the bank would be like if banks followed that model. And I suspect that there are many who have died unhelped while the system took its plodding time to validate their circumstances, giving very deliberate weight to "the rules" instead of to the people those rules are alleged to serve.

In my own case it took years to navigate the Social Security disability maze, even with the assistance of an excellent attorney; and how the hell sad is it that in this country some people have to hire an attorney before they can see a doctor? On the day that the approval finally arrived there was a small news item that caught my attention: the Supreme Court had declared that it was unconstitutional for the Social Security Administration to employ persons with no medical training to make decisions of medical disability. Well, duh.

On the local level, the offices routinely lose paperwork. Clients no longer have case workers, we now have technicians because they couldn't find an even more depersonalizing term. When those technicians make errors, clients are expected to drop everything and fix the technicians' flubs and are often given a deadline for doing so. Phone calls to technicians go unreturned for days if they are returned at all. In the two-and-a-half decades that I've been going into those offices there has been exactly one time when I was greeted by my name and treated with respect, and that courtesy was delivered by someone borrowed from another department when my technician was on vacation.

To be sure, I'm thankful in the extreme for the benefits I receive. But I can't help but abhor the delivery processes that are, apparently by design, degradingly insulting and blatantly cruel. And having dealt with all this I have to wonder at those who firmly believe that all you have to do is walk in with your hand out and the national treasury is thus delivered to your pocket, following which you then begin to live in unbridled splendor at taxpayer expense.

[KoKo]

58. Well said...and the time involved to "scam the system" would

lead me to believe it may be cases where the "technicians" are in league with the scammer rather than someone who just decides to go through the whole dehumanizing process of trying to get benefits to scam on their own. The technicians and others in the system might be more worthy of investigation by the government to find out if they have preferential treatment for friends and family than the truly disabled person who has to go through the process.

[K Gardner]

32. Beautifully and poignantly written.

[Prophet 451]

33. Preach it, brother

It's starting to get the same way here (England). Our government just officially "leaked" plans to force the unemployed to work for their benefits (and we both know what that will lead to; people being fired and their positions filled with slave-labour dole claimants) and scrapped an Incapacity Benefit system that was already heavily weighted against the claimant because the tabloids drummed up the idea that it was being abused.

What horrifies me though isn't the attitude of the government or politicians because here, we tend to be deeply cynical about politicians generally. What harrifies me is the attitude of the public. Start a conversation about the unemployed or participate in one on the web and you'll be met with the most awe-inspiring (and not in a good way) outpouring of human bile and viciousness you've ever encountered. Sure, a few people cheat the system and claim thousands. Unfortunately, that's human nature but then the tabloids present those few as an example of the average claimant and the public eats it up. They could easily learn differently but for teh most part, they don't want to. They just want the unemployed to starve en masse to save themselves a few pence in taxes. A terrifying number of people seriously want there to be no dole at all, just let the unemployed starve.

I was unemployed for about five years at one point. Left school with no real qualifications, had some mental problems (severe clinical depression, which I'm still being treated for). Towards the end of that period they sent me to JobClub. JobClub is where a bunch of very bored unemployed people sit in a room, reading adverts for jobs which you've already read, do training courses which don't train you for anything worthwhile as a way to break up the monotony and get bossed around by a bunch of wannabee prison officers. I think the idea was to make the experiance so dull and so humiliating that you'd kill yourself rather than go back. None of us needed to be there. Two needed treatment for their alcoholism, one needed plastic surgery for his facial burns (yes, it makes a real difference). I needed some proper treatment for my mental problems. The rest of us needed a suit, training in real skills or a ticket out of the Bay because it was depressed as hell and there were no jobs to be had. We couldn't look for jobs nationally because none of us had the money to move and no-one was going to pay relocation allowances for minimum-wage McJobs. Absolutely nothing the JobClub did helped anyone get employed while I was there. In the end, I got lucky. A friend of a friend set me up with an interview.

I'm still bitter though. The way I was dealt with, the way we still deal with the unemployed here is humiliating, soul-destroying drudgery. You get just enough to keep body and soul together, worked out very precisely to the penny of how much it takes to keep you alive and then we wonder why the unemployed have no marketable skills, turn up to interviews in jeans or have no self-respect at all. We wonder why some commit crimes when the system treats you as a criminal, literally, so it's no wonder quite a few become minor criminals. We wonder why some kill themselves or become alcoholics or addicts when the system teaches you in every interview and every application form and every means test that wants to know how much your soul is worth, that you are only valuable in employment, that your worth as a person is measured by your job and without a job, you are less worthwhile than the rapist, the child molester.

I'm not a communist or even a socialist but fuck, there has to be a better way than this. The hatred of the unemployed is just becoming a social sickness now, it's getting to the level that I half expect to see a real suggestion that people who lose their jobs should be executed on the spot ("Thank you, Patterson, here's your P45, please report to the nearest reprocession plant").

[davidthegnome]

89. Wonderful post

Having been unemployed for four, maybe five years now, I know exactly what you're talking about. I've experienced a great deal of the same. Yet I don't think I could describe it nearly as well as you did.

[Naturyl]

139. Excellent post.

I really hate the entire employment-based model of society with a passion.

[Dystopian]

34. Thank you...

I work in the trenches with these people, but in a different capacity. (Ironically my salary puts me at poverty level.)
I see the needy, and in all my years with the program, wish there was more I could do. Scamming the system is not something that I've personally come across. I love my job, yet I also am so very tired.

A must read...recommended.


peace~

[WinkyDink]

36. Swift. "A Modest Proposal".

[BlueIris]

38. So sad, and so true. The part about laying off CPS workers while hiring fraud investigators

is sickening.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. The same is true of Medicaid and Medicare

My brother stopped accepting Medicare because of the picky rules that seemed to assume that all doctors were trying to commit fraud. He once failed to fill out a form that was required for a specific case, and he got a letter saying that if he ever did that again he'd be prosecuted for fraud.

(This is one change I'd make in Medicare for All: make the rules few, simple, and transparent.)

[Mithreal]

40. Always money there is to check fraud of the "welfare queens"

but never the fraud of the Republicans and some enabling Democrats.

[Mithreal]

41. The pallets of cash "lost" in Iraq

At some point we need to consider that the legendary pallets of cash were not lost but stolen by agencies of our government and used in ways that would embarrass and shame us. Of all the things R's love more than America, Money is at the top of that list. I refuse to accept the money was "lost" any longer despite the incompetence they would have us believe.

I realize this is off topic, sorry.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. I fully agree

Along with the $2.3 TRILLION that the Pentagon allegedly "lost," I have to assume that it was "lost" to massive and pervasive embezzlement and/or really evil black ops.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. Thank you for this piece---your average middle-class person has NO IDEA

and many of the ones who are aware smugly assume that people are suffering because of their own "bad decisions," such as being born to the wrong parents or working for a company that moved its jobs offshore.

I've been volunteering in my church's feeding programs for five years, and we have more people coming than ever. (Fortunately, no one has to jump through bureaucratic hoops. We feed anyone who shows up at the appointed time, and without requiring them to attend services or ever say grace.)

When I first started volunteering, it was mostly hardcore street people who showed up. Now we're seeing more and more people from obviously middle class backgrounds who have fallen on hard times. Our Monday night youth dinner for people under 30 is seeing more and more families with children.

There are too few jobs, and the jobs that exist don't pay enough to live on. No state wants to improve benefits because the Republicanites and conservative Democrats (same difference when it comes to their attitude toward the poor) raise the spector of the state being inundated with poor people.

One of the posters above was right. This is happening because we tacitly allow it, because we don't raise a fuss, because we're STUPID and CALLOUS and SCAREDY-CATS, afraid of terrorism, afraid of dark-skinned people, afraid that we ourselves might become poor unless we despise the poor enough. We let our politicians convince us that money for food stamps is "runaway government spending" and $250 million a day in Iraq isn't.

[Raksha]

61. You are so right! Everything in your post, but especially this:

We let our politicians convince us that money for food stamps is "runaway government spending" and $250 million a day in Iraq isn't.

I absolutely hate it when a Republican talks about "government spending" or "reining in spending" because it's always code for social spending, or spending on poor people. Spending on unnecessary wars, or to bail out rich crooked banksters, apparently doesn't count as "spending."

[shellgame26]

142. That's exactly right!

One of the most effective wedge issues created by Karl Rove was dehumanization of Mexican illegal aliens to the American public. I remember people saying things like "these people's children are in our schools draining our tax dollars" and "hospitals should turn them away". Meanwhile not even a grumble about billions of dollars of lost cash made into footballs.

[demodonkey]

171. Good post but... You "feed" animals, not human beings. How about saying "provide food" or...

..."share meals with" the hungry?

Saying that you "feed anyone who shows up at the appointed time" sounds like your church is dealing with a herd of cattle, not people who need help.

JMHO.

[Lance_Boyle]

186. That is without a doubt the most petty whinging bit of crap I've ever seen

on DU. How about taking your "concerns" and "helpful vocabulary suggestions" over to "Ipissmypantsoverthepettiestcrap.com" :eyes:

[demodonkey]

196. Right back at ya' -- you are the one who is petty. I said it was my OPINION and I am entitled to it.

I said it was OPINION, and I said it in a respectful manner. And unlike you I didn't feel the need to mention bodily fluids in my post.

I also at least can spell. (What the heck does whinging and pettiest mean???)

:crazy:

[mdmc]

56. when your clients can pay off (D) and (R) politicians, they will get

a fair shake.
Until then, our politicians will do the bidding of their masters, the CORPORATIONS.

[kiranon]

62. Too many people believe in Social Darwinism until it happens to them.

Social Darwinism is the other side of the Horatio Alger myth. Too many Americans believe that "it won't happen to them" and then it does. Someone gets sick or loses their job and then it hits home for them but it's too late. Hard times can happen to anyone and a social net is the least we can do for those among us who need help. Single payer health care is a must for any civilized society. I question whether we are a civilized society. Maybe someday but not yet.

[Cleita]

64. We need more stories like this on the front page of every news outlet. n/t

[Turbineguy]

66. I had the concept of "welfare"

explained to me in HS economics class. This was in 1967. It had to do with the problem of over production and unequal distribution of income in a geographical sense. Welfare would solve this by compensating low-income areas and giving more people a chance to buy stuff.

It was actually a pretty clever idea. Poor people are poor because they cannot hold on to their money. Therefore you give them money which they go right out and spend. Given that society is arranged economically in the shape of a cone, that money would come from a large group of contributors and end up in the pockets of relatively few, with the poor being the conduit. And, as we always do in the US, we industrialized the process for maximum efficiency and profit.

The problem comes when you shift from the macro-economic view to the individual. In order to get this largess people had to be willing to shift from being productive citizens to collector of handouts. And inevitably, we had a class of the un-employable.

So while many may think that the process exists for the purpose of distribution, or helping the poor, it does not. It exists for helping the rich get richer. And so the only way to effect changes to the system is to do it in such a way that the rich still continue to benefit from the system.

The system has to be arranged in such a way that giving money to those who do not intend to stay poor is denied.

But, as you say, the system does not work when the job base declines. By moving jobs offshore, the system has been broken as the number of contributors has declined. Hence many applicants are turned down.

I hope that's not too cynical a view.

[Cleita]

69. Typical conservative view of that.

Yes, poor people go out and spend the money right away...on necessities like food, rent and clothing. Yes, it benefits local merchants and the profits trickle up. Many of the unemployable back in 1967 were minorities and women with children. Those minorities could not get a decent job until we had affirmative action and equal opportunity employment, which came into law after that time. Also, back then, the view was it was preferable to keep a welfare mom at home with her children so you had a lot of unemployed women, who couldn't work without losing their welfare. If they went to work they needed day care as well and that discouraged women from getting a job. What women needed was government day care like every other industrial country in the world has so mom can go to work and get off of welfare.

I believe that the purpose of welfare is to keep from having people living in the streets, especially children and the elderly like they did in third world countries and we Americans back then were too proud to allow that to happen. Well we are a third world country today IMHO.

[Turbineguy]

226. Actually, the Teacher was

a Conservative (in his case spelled with a captal "C"). He dispised Reagan. He grew up in the Great Depression and talked about working in a store for 7 cents an hour. He took part in the Normandy Invasion. He had certainly earned his opinion.

Welfare should be for the reasons you state. The hallmark of a proper civilized society is to help those less fortunate.

[newtothegame]

67. Agree with everything, but not sure withholding free stuff qualifies as "punishment"... n/t

[varelse]

68. K&R

This is a good thread on a top priority progressive topic, and I'm glad it's getting some attention - although a few of the replies so far have been nauseating :/

[YOY]

70. Bill Clinton, Best Moderate Republican President ever.

That's heresy around here!!!




Heresy with a little truth in it...

[Joanne98]

72. It's time to bring welfare BACK!

Let the bastards STEAL and ship jobs over seas. GO AHEAD! We'll just TAX YOUR ASSES and feed them that way!

WELFARE REFORM WAS A MISTAKE!

[Naturyl]

140. Right on. (n/t)

[Prophet 451]

189. Not entirely

Granted, the main thrust of welfare "reform", the cutting off of long-term unemployed was a mistake but there were several minor provisions in the bill which were genuinely helpful.

[WillyT]

81. Big K & R !!!

:kick:

[Fireweed247]

85. K&R

Thanks for posting!

[truedelphi]

88. You wanna know who gets an A+ for changes made during his administration for women on AFDC??

Ronald Reagan.

Why? Because Reagan saw to it that the child support payments could be watched over on a Federal level. Under him the 40 to 67% of women who knew who fathered their kid, or who were willing to undergo paternity tests to determine that, could actually collect directly from the father, even if he had fled out of state.

No longer did you have to fill out monthly forms to collect a measly amount of money, + food stamps, and then be accused of fraud if, for example, you forgot to itemize $ 15 worth of $ 5 checks that went hrough your bank account. Plus if you got a job that paid well, you still got the child support.

The welfare bureaucracy has been one of the most heinous systems in the world. For whatever reason it took a Republican to figure out how to make it better.

[JANdad]

95. You are being sarcatic right??????

For whatever reason it took a Republican to figure out how to make it better.

This was the same administration that tried to qualify "ketchup" as a vegtable to reduce the costs of reduced priced lunches for children. Even if the Reagan administration was responsible for reforming child support laws...so what? That is a no-brainer...it was Reagan and his economic policies that got us to where we are today...please tell me you know this to be true...

[truedelphi]

104. I happen to think that in terms of

Helping women who were entitled to child support, Reagan did a great deal more than any one before or after.

Now, on the other hand, I am totally willing to join you in bashing Reagan concerning the "Reagonomics" that brought about "Supply Side" economics. But that philosophy would not have gone so far if it weren't for the Dems being in collusion with those policies.

[madamesilverspurs]

158. If that's true, the record is even more pathetic than thought.

Let's pretend for a minute that Reagan didn't coin the term "welfare queen." Instead of recognizing women as equals and rendering due respect, he relied on his much-vaunted charm. He may have talked a good game when it came to child support issues, but when push came to shove it was same old same old. Back in the mid-90s, long enough after Reagan for his initiatives to have taken real effect, numerous studies showed that the overwhelming majority of children on welfare were in that situation because their fathers were not paying court ordered child support. Some states had made that refusal to pay a felony of some degree, but failed to fund any real enforcement. Even in those states where licenses were withheld or revoked until the deadbeats made good, too many fathers continued (and still do) to work in underground networks that exist to help them avoid making the payments. The social service agencies in charge of support enforcement are often underfunded and understaffed; if the deadbeat is one of those who changes jobs every few months, by the time the agency receives the notice of his employment he is probably two or three jobs down the road.

Like I said, this was a dozen or so years ago when I did this research for a simple paper. It turned into a semester-long directed study, and I was frankly horrified at the rather cavalier attitude taken by many state legislatures. I posited at the time that the disparity between enacting the statute and funding its enforcement suggested that a number of legislators, being themselves in arrears on child support, might be shielding themselves from financial responsibility.

Further, there was gross disparity between the upward movement of the absent fathers' lifestyles and the downward movement of the childrens' lifestyle. Adding insult to injury, the now-single mothers laboring to care for their children were (and still often are) castigated for abandoning their kids to daycare warehouses (and how is she to earn a living without child care?); or they are reviled for staying home to care for their children, thus teaching them to rely on welfare. Nine times out of ten, if you read a story about a single father it's written in heroic terms. Maybe one in ten such stories about single mothers cast the women in such terms.

By the way, Reagan coined his "welfare queen" on the basis of ONE very extreme case. One. And on that basis he set in motion whole batteries of iniatives and attitudes that effectively hobbled the movement towards real equality. And many of those effects still hold sway. Thanks in large part to Ronald Reagan, a woman still earns only 79 cents to every dollar earned by a man for the same work. And there are still uncountable numbers of women with children on welfare because daddy cannot be compelled to pay support. Gee, thanks Ronnie.

[mentalslavery]

97. Social work is one of the hardest jobs out there.

Pay and power is too low. Stress is to high. I feel this post to the bone.

[MichiganVote]

106. Thank you. Yours is one of the few voices on this thread that heard the real message.

Most people do not know the history of social work. As such, they do not have the insight to recognize that what this social worker portends is the end of social work as a profession for our people. THAT is really what the author is writing about and THAT is what is at stake. Our government is selling us all out.

They are returning the US population back to the 19th century and anyone who thinks that was pretty is just plain dumb.

And you're right, a Social Work position is long, hard, very stressful and often discouraging. When it goes well, its a joy. But all too often all I get is grief. If I am laid off this Spring, I'm going into something else.

Sick of it and the people who give us a hard time, which is pretty much everybody.

[bobbolink]

152. Thank you!

[dajoki]

222. Thanks, Bobbie

Be safe!! :hug: :loveya:

[mentalslavery]

153. Thanks, I appreciate your service to our country. SW is a family affair

round my household. Everyone in my family has done it in some form or the other. Mom was a social worker (DC, you can only imagine, right) when dad was in grad school. Then she did "options counseling" (teen and low income pregnancy) when I was a small child. She got fired because people thought she was "pushing" abortion. It was a conservative county health department.

You have to "do it" to "get it". I worked in Chicago and burbs with at-risk youth, ABA, cognitively disabled, and affordable housing (Iowa). Peeps don't know what we go through. We are on the front lines, and in some places that means war-like conditions. Sometimes I can't sleep at night because of things I saw, people who "fell through the cracks", general injustices, and (the worst) "clients whose fates I can only imagine". Some days I have positive visions. I think, when I left, they were doing good. Other days I don't.

I had to leave because I could not serve the clients well. I have mild PTSD, which means I am basically functional (I hold a job) but have problems sleeping sometimes. Additionally I will see something that reminds me of something bad go into a dream-like state where my brain replays the events. Its uncontrollable and my body goes on auto-pilot. Its really weird because I can perform complex task when this occurs. Sometimes I just go blank. People ask me what I am thinking about because my face makes strange expressions and I just stare off into space. How do you tell people the truth? Im thinking about what a starving child looks like, or how scary it is to be shot at, and how fucked up it is to carry someone who is dead. People don't understand that social workers can become permanently harmed.

Your screen name implies that you are working in what is arguably the most important place. I hope you don't get laid off. I hope you get a raise. I hope that when and if you leave it is your terms. Until then, keep your head up, do what you can, and protect yourself.

[bobbolink]

187. there are no words.....

"We are on the front lines, and in some places that means war-like conditions. "

What you are describing is, indeed, battle! :patriot:

You are going through what so many soldiers go through, and yet *yours* is unrecognized!

Thank you for your service! :patriot:

This is so

wrong

in the richest country in the world!!!

:hug:

[mentalslavery]

218. A rich country for the top 1%, The rest of us...........nt

[Hydra]

98. I've been living this for the last few years

And I have to say, I'm happy seeing so many of the formally smug joining me down here. For the crime of working full time and taking case of a disabled relative, I've been given the honor of being treated as trash by the slightly better off and state institutions that I've had to apply to for help for us.

Considering that they wouldn't give us any actual cash without the promise of paying it back later, I'd like to see the proof of this "massive fraud" occurring in such a grand way in our system.

[yardwork]

100. Time to put socialism on the table in the U.S.A.

Capitalism has failed, failed miserable.

[Hydra]

101. Capitalism worked exactly the way it was supposed to

It destroyed millions of lives for the benefit of the few "elite."

The most ironic part is that with just a few changes, we could all be the rich, and the rich would be even richer. That's not enough for them, though- they not only must have all the money, they must deny us the same benefit.

[bread_and_roses]

102. Yes. "By their acts shall ye know them" says this atheist - we hate the poor, children, elders,

people with disabilities, people with addictions. Just look at how our systems treat them. Look at the rhetoric of the politicians we vote for. Look at the esteem in which Clinton, of welfare "reform" fame is held. I worked in human services for many, many years and can substantiate everything you say (I am also in NY, btw - and NY is one of the more "generous" States when it comes to income support, which is a truely awful thought when you know how little anyone on "welfare" gets).

We are long overdue for a guaranteed national income. It is appalling that anyone should have to beg for food from a "food bank" or be treated like a criminal for needing food, shelter, and medicine.

[Naturyl]

143. Thank you for advocating a guaranteed income.

I've been pushing for a guaranteed income for years. Its the only sane and humane solution.

Damn, I really thank you all. I needed some DU today. I've been arguing with a monstrous social Darwinist from hell and it was completely ruining my week.

[bobbolink]

229. Nixon, our last liberal president, proposed a guaranteed income for all.

While Clinton, a moderate Republican, kicked people off welfare, and didn't even care enough to track what happened to them.

Who knows how many died because of his welfare deform?

If we had a guaranteed income, we wouldn't need to give more $$$ to privatize low-income housing!

But, it would make too much sense, and "progressives" arent' willing to fight for it.

So, we suffer and die on the streets.

Oh well, does it matter?

[Still Sensible]

105. The flaw in welfare has always been that those of us of the progressive and...

democratic persuasion have historically left the police mechanisms underfunded, leaving mountains of anecdotal "welfare fraud" and "welfare queen" evidence out there to poison the well and produce the atmosphere that led to things like the republican-lite welfare reform of the 90s.

I can't tell you all the otherwise reasonable and progressive-thinking people I know for whom the idea of "slackers" and "system-gamers" being taken care of by hard working taxpayers is the number one reason they have sometimes voted republican. Between this point of view and the success of the Reagan "all-taxes-and-government-are-evil" meme, common sense has been hijacked for about three decades. It doesn't matter that slackers and gamers are only a small percentage of benefit recipients, there is still enough cheating out there to poison the whole atmosphere.

In my opinion, the democrats in crafting the victories in this area in the 50s and 60s, and then in later modifications, should have made sure to appropriate the 20% or so more funds it would have taken to adequately police the system.

It is like everything else in the Reaganomics-poisoned world we live in. You get something that might have a chance to work and then, for fear of being labeled "big tax and spenders" you leave significant dollars out--dollars that could have helped really make it work in a manner that reasonable people could believe in.

[haele]

205. I think the reason so many people are against small potatoes "slackers" and "gamers"

Is that the generic "we" tend to get most angry or disgusted at things that we see in others that feel we are capable of in ourselves but for whatever reason, we don't do or have been lucky enough not to experience.
Whenever I hear people disparage or talk about punishing those who has given up, screwed up, or otherwise fallen through the cracks, the harshness is usually centered on a common thought process -
"Why did they do that or screw up so much that that bad thing happened to them? They seem to be strong and healthy, and they're not dumb. I would never do that - I would never be caught dead in that situation! "
Fear and Projection makes an otherwise bleeding heart liberal hard. I catch myself thinking something along those lines much too often - and then I remember how f**ing lucky I am that my sometimes stupid or "lazy" choices in life hadn't totally blown up in my face and that I was born to smart, curious, empathic, and equally lucky hard working parents that showed me how to recognize and evaluate opportunities as they came around.


Haele

[Spacemom]

107. Happy to be the 100th rec

Animals don't treat each other as badly as we treat each other. :(

[Pharaoh]

110. Ditto/k&r/nt

[killbotfactory]

115. Everyone should have a right to food shelter and healthcare

It's ridiculous and stupid to create a web of laws and bureaucracy to try and deny people who are "underserving" of what should be their right, and which humiliates every else who does get help.

[Naturyl]

146. Yes, and it should be an *unconditional* right.

Anyone who does not have adequate food, clothing, shelter, or medicine should be provided with these necessities of life by the state.

God damn, how hard is that for people to get their selfish heads around? It's really just common decency - and it ought to be the lowest common denominator of any so-called "civilization."

[bonito]

116. So sad

Dealing with chronic illness has been my way of life for many years now, have learned much with conventional medicine and alternative medicine as well, gaining from each, reaching for better days ahead, otherwise I would have not fought, or should I say, be fighting still, but I DO, because I AM.

[Naturyl]

117. Thank you so much for this.

"It takes a toll that is more than physical, it eats away at the soul to see people ask for so little and receive far less."

Amen.

We need articles like this in the public eye every day.

[trickyguy]

128. Greed at the top. Need at the bottom. It's the American Way.

[Baby Snooks]

134. I have become who I used to help...

I have become who I used to help. Not once but twice. Not by choice. But by circumstance. What bothers me most is no one has helped me.

Because I have never been on unemployment I have never qualified for "welfare" and don't qualify for disability because of post traumatic stress syndrome from two stalking situations over a 20 year period because I'm not willing to have a fraudulent psychologist claim I am disabled. Although I am. I function. Just not all 24 of the 24. Just not all 7 of the 7. Instead of 24/7 I'm sort of 15/5. During a good week.

I have donated my time to the only real resource for stalking victims in this country. An online support group. I am not the only one. We are in many ways the most forgotten of victims in this country. People tell me I don't need a phone or the internet. I don't. But without either I wouldn't be able to help other stalking victims. Agencies don't pay the phone bill. It is not necessary. Even if you're a stalking victim. That terrifies a lot of stalking victims. Many of the "emergency phone" programs for victims of domestic abuse/violence don't supply phones to stalking victims.

There is little funding for stalking resources. Or to pay those who provide it. Most of it is from VAWA funding and that is not sufficient enough for resources for victims of domestic abuse/violence. So there really is nothing for stalking victims.

Not that I could live on what you get from SSI or disability. I am surprised anyone manages to. Most in fact really don't. They depend on food stamps and other forms of assistance including HUD housing programs. And food pantries to supplement the food stamps.

It is getting much worse in this country and will get even more worse with what, and who, Barack Obama has brought to the table.

I have wealthy friends. Actually I have wealthy former friends. Their attitude is I "brought this on myself." No one brings this on themselves. I was not a silent victim. Victims are supposed to be silent. "Out of sight, out of mind."

Some supported Bill Clinton. Still do. Some supported George W Bush. Still do. Some supported both.

We are a falling empire. One reason why is we tell victims they "brought it on themselves." We turn our backs on the victims. Without realizing we are turning our backs on ourselves.

I get angry over those who write a check to a food bank. Most of the food pantries have watched actual donations drop. They have to buy the food from the food banks. Most people don't know that. So many food pantries are running low. While food sits on shelves of food banks. But most people just like to write a check to a food bank. The thought of taking food to a food pantry terrifies them I guess. They might have to look in a mirror provided by someone they know and who they turned their back to. Believing they "brought it on themselves."

More and more are needing and there is less and less to give them. And I am sorry but I do not see that changing. I see it getting worse.

I read comments about the victims of Bernie Madoff. Most are "they brought it on themselves" comments. Not all the victims were wealthy. Some merely trusted him to manage their retirement accounts. Some of them will be needing help soon. And will confront the "you brought it on yourself" of our society. Lots of people will lose a lot. And the attitude will be that they "brought it on themselves."

We are a shameful nation. We truly are.

[mntleo2]

181. Made-off also took from non-profits

....who invested their funds in his investment company hoping to make a little more so they could go out and help more people. Thanks to him, now these non-profits are going under. Food banks. Housing assistance. Energy assistance. Family support people.

In the Reagan. Clinton, and Bush ytears the attitude about helping the poor was, "Let the non-profits do it. We will give them a little 'faith-based money,' we will throw them a few crumbs and they will make it all better."

Yeah right.

The faith-based dollars WE pay are going to line the pockets for religious mostly Christian wingnut mega-churches and huge organizations such as the YWCA who defraud the needy and the government. These regularly deny with impunity the help they are being paid to give to desperate families. Families who are even dying in the streets because they were denied the assistance they need and deserve (see the link below). All so these "welfare pimps" can fly on their private jets to places like Africa ostentatiously to "help the little black babies." But reality these trips happen in order to check on things like personal gold mine investments that force little children to slave in them (See Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy where he witnessed this very thing with Pat Robertson. Robertson who has done more than almost any other "pastor" to elevate the rich and demonize the poor).

Honest churches, mosques and synagogues who truly help need not apply, because they are not part of the "real" church, they are not "real Christians," they do not merit our tax dollars.

Instead religious organizations like these people get the funding: http://www.welfarewarriors.org/mwv_archive/w07/w07_indiana.htm. I am sure that these welfare pimps who are in reality faith-based demons disguised as Jayzuz, will start crying too because they "lost" their Made-off investments and now (sob) they can no longer "help the little black babies" :sarcasm:

Love
Cat <---whose church does real work for the poor and never takes a dime of federal funding because we believe it is wrong to be welfare pimps.

[bobbolink]

150. My wish for the New Year....

Is that EVERYONE would have to experience first-hand the degradation and humiliation of "applying for aid".. yes, even those who have written here in support of this article.

Because it is PREJUDICE, pure and simple, but a prejudice that doesn't get recognized, either at DU, in the Dem party, or in the "progressive" media.

WE are INVISIBLE.

And getting really PISSED. :nuke:

[bobd0]

161. See photo below

[JeffR]

162. Kick!

:kick:

[Two Americas]

166. very inspiring posts

Thanks to all of you.

kpete

mntleo2

kdmorris

Lydia Leftcoast

haele

kenzee13

madamesilverspurs

Prophet 451

Baby Snooks

:applause:

[Gman]

168. "I read of billion dollar bailouts and disappearing pallettes of cash..."

That's where my blood pressure went through the roof...

[Happyhippychick]

169. I'm in the same line of work, too. I'm a therapist for low income families.

When you have an actual dialogue with people who are underprivileged you see them as what they are: human beings. It makes it much more compelling to help them out than to dismiss them as "lazy" or "crack whores" or whatever society needs to label them in order to make themselves feel better.

[Baby Snooks]

172. "Those people..."

That's always the excuse in most of our major cities when low-income housing projects are announced. The "neighbors" don't want "those people" in the neighborhood. They are, after all, just lazy. If they're not dealing drugs, they're promoting prostitution. Just another variation of the "they brought it on themselves."

The "why don't you just get a job" will soon become "why don't you just get another job?" It is amazing how so many believe it is so easy to just get a job. Sometimes it's not really so easy.

[Happyhippychick]

175. Exactly. When you are in a position of actually having spoken with a homeless or low income

individual, you realize that there is very little difference between you and them. We are much more alike than we are different. The thing is, that makes a lot of people feel very uncomfortable so they do the "those people" thing. And you are correct, it is not at all easy for them to "just get a job" in this economy.

[maryf]

174. Wish I could recommend, the system is hard

to fight. Trying to help folks get help that really deserve it is very hard work and you deserve huge kudos for still caring so much! When both my in laws became disabled (one stroke, one breakdown due to the hardships and bipolar) it took my husband and I over half a year to get them covered. They had us, how many have no advocates? Your clients are so lucky to have you, thanks for all you do.

[demodonkey]

176. Not all Social Workers are good people... BEWARE some...

...especially some who work for HOSPITALS & NURSING HOMES. The medical industry is a for-profit business, and many social workers know where their bread is buttered. It is by turning the beds over as fast as they can and in any way they can, and they are not really on the side of the patients they are supposed to be helping.

IF YOU HAVE A FAMILY MEMBER OR FRIEND WHO IS IN A HOSPITAL OR NURSING HOME, BE CAREFUL. Never trust a hospital or nursing home social worker. Document everything, and take at least one and preferably two or more other family members or friends with you to every meeting as co-advocates and witnesses. Fail to do this at your loved one's peril. It is a damn shame that it has to be this way, but as long as we have for-profit insurance companies and other for-profit forces driving the "healthcare" in this country, that's what it's going to be. BEWARE.

If this offends any decent social workers and their supporters out there, I'm sorry. But I have beloved family members dead because I listened to hospital social workers. And I have been lied to, lied about, and threatened by hospital social workers because I am a strong advocate for people getting the care they need instead of the shaft from greed-driven bean counters.

So again, beware. Not all social workers are good, or honest. Those of you who are good ones, on top of all your other troubles you need to police your industry and your own, especially where it comes to those of your profession working for for-profit healthcare.

Again I'm sorry but that's how it is. BEWARE.

[Baby Snooks]

178. Another sad reality...

Our elderly are looked upon as "cash cows" by many in the health care and nursing home industries. And really nothing more. And it is pretty much across the board. The poor and the rich alike are victimized.

And then there's hospice care. Many doctors "refer" to the hospices. And get referral fees. From personal experience, many families choose hospice over a "second opinion" believing there is nothing more that can be done. Not realizing the doctor telling them there is nothing more than can be done is getting a referral fee for referring them to hospice. And they believe that "palliative care" is the most compassionate care that can be provided. Not realizing that in many cases "palliative care" is really "terminal sedation." Many hospices operate on the "roll 'em in, hook 'em up, roll 'em out" policy of putting profit above all else. Easier, and more profitable, to just kill them quickly than to have to actually take care of them.

We are really a shameful nation. More than most realize. And more than many will admit.

[RobinA]

200. In The Case

of hospice, I think people really need to ask questions. Probably questions they don't really know enough to ask if they aren't medical, unfortunately. I do believe that people don't know the full extent of what hospice will not do, but I'm not sure it's completely hospice's fault. In some cases I suspect there is a lack of communication. Plus there is a need for something between hospice and the-whole-nne-yards that is not yet being filled.

[Two Americas]

221. absolutely

From my experience working in hundreds of elder care facilities, I can verify what you are saying here.

The vast majority of people working in elder care are saints walking the earth, by the way so I am not talking about them. There are some good facilities, too, but far too many bad ones. The referral fees create a corrupted system, and the drive for profits runs the system. It is a national horror. Heartbreaking, overwhelming.

In my experience, as a general rule, the more poor the facility the better it is.

[bobbolink]

227. And those of us alone and without family to oversee everything are in even WORSE shape!

I'm so frightened, with what I've seen of how us poor folk are treated, of ending up completely disabled, and at the mercy of what I see of "compassion" today.

I want to make sure I'm not alive to go through that kind of hell!!

Enough is more than enough!

[kdmorris]

182. One more thing

A song for everyone to think about. I thought about it a lot during the holidays, when I was actually able to buy some gifts, but knew that there are so many people this year who can't even buy food, much less Christmas gifts. It's truly heartening to see so many posts refuting the lies that are spread about the poor:

Down and Outer
Nanci Griffith)

I once was a lot like you
We share a dream
I couldn't make come true
I was a child who wrote my name
Across a frosted window pane

And there are jobs that I might hold
If they'd just let me through the door
Without a shower and new clothes
That I can ill afford

Chorus
Can you spare the time?
Can you spare a dime?
Can you look me in the eye?
I'm down n'out
And I am lonely
Do you ever think of me on Sunday?
No, I don't live across the water
Hey, I live right here on this corner
Just a bank account away from America

I won't hurt your family
I don't want a house there on your street
And I know that you think that I'm
As lazy as a hobo's sigh
Now, you call me down n'outer
If there's a way out
I've not found 'er
I only want to earn my piece of America

Chorus

I'm just a bank account away from America

[wolfgangmo]

183. In all the great big world, no one hates Americans...

... more than Americans

[lenegal]

185. We lost our soul as a country a long time ago. When our government cares not

about the poor, the struggling, and the disabled....we are no better than a third world country.

[SCantiGOP]

192. this could have been written by my wife

She is a Legal Aid attorney, meaning she handles only clients who meet the poverty guidelines and most of her cases involve bankruptcy or foreclosure. She comes home very depressed a lot of nights. Sometimes, just 2 or 3 thousand dollars could allow someone to keep their home, but none of the billions floating out there are going for that.

[Yellow Horse]

194. Good for your wife, but what about legal help for the middle class...

...many of whom are suffering and facing horrible problems too. I am talking about folks who are just outside the poverty guidelines but still can't afford the $150-$200 an hour and up that most attorneys charge nowadays for even the most simple legal matters.

Legal help for these middle class people is just like health care, dental care, and many other needs unmet. They do self-care or do without and then when the problems come finally crashing in, they crash all the harder.

[mntleo2]

216. the poor don't get help either

...if they can't document undeniably that they are indeed poor enough to merit the assistance, which can take things like the cost for documents and copies, or if the department thinks that they were given too much (say for being $10.00 over the limit), they have to pay it back, which further burdens them, since the funding is so minimal that it breaks the family's budget to pay it back ~ which is considered "fraud" and a crime if they don't. At least once a month, the assistance people (often non-profits) run out of the "1rst come 1rst served" money, which happens every month. Then no matter how desperate, well, the family goes without the heat, food or becomes homeless because there is no assistance for whatever it is they desperately need.

I do know of what you speak however. A family may be $10.00 over the limit, living without heat,phone or food, and POOF! Too bad, you are "too rich."

It is time for the torches and pitchforks, People. While the rich, who don't pay any taxes at all and who justify they should have all the funding keep getting it, and real families go without the basics and their desperately needed advocates stand idly by and don't speak, the sad part is that when you lose your job or become disabled or find yourself in a place that your paycheck won't cover the necessities, YOU WILL BE NEXT.

This has been what we advocates have been saying for 30 years, but especially after Welfare DeFormed, which took away the entitlement to a safety net for anyone who needed it ('entitlement' is a legal term for the list of rights that Americans have)and then this act, signed by Bill Clinton, endorsed by the Contract for American Entitled, proclaimed that having a safety net is now a "choice" for the government to fund, which of course they won't.

Believe me, myself as well as others tried to write about what was coming for the middle class and what was happening to the poor even 6 years ago on this very forum, and almost invariably we got flamed to death.

Now it is the middle class's turn and they are screaming bloody murder because they see the reality (and really just the tip of the iceberg) of the truth of what they face that is happening to the poor at this very moment. They stood by and many even applauded Welfare DeFormed.

Maybe if the rich were not taking all the money from the rest of us, we all would be better off and would not have to face the punitive, dehumanizing assumptions that you are a criminal because your company's CEO is a greedy bastard who won't pay his subordinates a decent wage much less admit that he worked you to death when you got that OTJ injury that he and his insurance company refused to cover. You know, the one who thinks he should have it all while you do his dirty work ~ including the assumption that he, not you should get all those juicy tax breaks and refunds for the taxes he never paid. Oh and when he drives the business into the ground and you lose your job because he didn't pay the bills? He will legally take your entire retirement fund that you paid into for the last 20 years when he declares that bankruptcy that after he has left you penniless, you can't ever dream of declaring now because bankruptcy is no longer an option for the little guy (you can thank Joe Biden for that one whose state was the one he represented who pushed through the bankruptcy bill that only allows the rich to proclaim it anymore and which he gladly voted for).

Want to join the ones who have seen it all coming for years? Here's your pitchfork, have at it, we could use the help!

Cat In Seattle <---mad as hell and doesn't want to take it anymore!

[Hidden Stillness]

193. A Depressing Topic That Just Goes On and On

A few points on this OP:
Many of these programs used to work very well, until the Cheney/Bush Administration came along and deliberately killed them, either by appointing people to head them, whose mission was to dismantle everything and not let it run (the old Reagan trick, as when Reagan put Clarence Thomas in charge of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission), appointing "Government-haters" to run the Government; or by changing rules, and killing funding, so that an agency that used to be well-run now does bnot function at all. Either way, helping people is replaced by obstruction and secrecy. All you have to do is consider the case of Social Security, which up until this Administration was the best-run Federal program, whose whole approach to people was to presume that they deserved the benefits, and an agency which always attracted many of the best people to run it (read "The Battle for Social Security--From FDR's Vision to Bush's Gamble" by Nancy J. Altman, etc.). Now, you find delays of years for easy cases that should have been accepted immediately, challenges, refusals to answer questions, denials two and three times before acceptance, etc. This was never the case before, and matches all the Cheney/Bush Admin.'s behavior on all other issues. This reminds me of something I heard a couple of years ago--but the media is so shitty, that nothing was covered on this issue, so I only heard it once and can't remember the details: a Federal agency that used to have its documents available online, had the whole procedure changed by this Admin., so that now, you can't print or save the whole report of something all at once, but now have to SEPARATELY save or print each individual page, one at a time--and many of these reports are hundreds and hundreds of pages! This effectively makes it unavailable.

Everything they do makes it needlessly difficult for people--"Medicare" Part D has inflated drug prices, drug coverage changes and things are not covered anymore that you signed up for but you can't change, there are penalties for all kinds of odd things, etc; the DTV coupon (when they forced this commercial purchase on us), has an expiration date, is not even sent out until half a month after you order it, stores are not carrying the items, etc. Everything is made very hard for non-rich people.

Food stamps, which are extremely effective as poverty-fighters, and to stimulate the local economy, have been cut to absurd levels--many people get only around $28 a month, from cases I know--Pell Grants have been cut to unhelpful levels over the years, student loans were shifted from a low-interest Government department to loan-shark-level rates from commercial lenders--all these deliberate efforts to kill things that worked, and to hurt people. The only thing ever proposed anymore are tax cuts, despite the fact that it doesn't help the poor, and all economic studies show tax cuts give a negligable result, and no recovery from recession. The entire purpose of this recent Administration, was to shift all operations, of all kinds, from Government agencies, to corporate profit-making, and then dismantling.

By the way, about social workers--they are the ones who enable people to negotiate dealing with large institutions, departments, hospitals, etc., when you don't know where to turn. They help people who are not "rich, connected insiders" to also pursue their own interests, and have a chance of winning on some claim or complaint you had; this is why they are always cut and seldom supported.

Depressingly, this topic just goes on and on and on, and Obama, as yet, shows no sign of being different. The difference between the Depression attitude and this era's is that people knew, first-hand, that their own good neighbors were poor, could not find jobs, and needed help; they did not have the stereotypes that people have now. Just wait; that is going to fall away, really soon... Bill Clinton was not the "Best moderate Republican president ever," as the OP claims, but was a totally corrupted corporate enabler like all the rest nowadays; the best Republican modern President was Eisenhower, who launched a huge infrastructure project--the building of superhighways--the like of which we need now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

199. The best analogy I have for the modern Democratic party is New Labour in Britain

Not only did they not undo Margaret Thatcher's attacks on the welfare state--they added restrictions on civil liberties that even the Tories object to.

As things are unfolding, I'm hoping that I'm wrong in my prediction that Obama will not be another FDR but another Tony Blair.

[humbled_opinion]

195. What will Happen When

The Federal government goes broke and no longer provides these services. The revolt of the people who are absolutely starving to death in the streets of America will be a scary sight indeed. Will the government turn our own military against civilians who are desperately attempting to feed their children?

[DutchLiberal]

202. As long as people keep voting against their economic interests...

...nothing will ever change. As long as people continue to believe they're gonna strike it rich someday and they don't want the government to 'redistribute their wealth' (thinking of Joe you-know-who here), this will continue. Corporate candidates will continue to be elected.

O course, this change of mind will never come, since the media keeps pounding in the exact opposite message every day. They are owned by the corporations who benefit from the current policies. So I predict nothing will ever change. Ever.

(By the way: I like how the article describes Clinton as the 'best moderate Republican president ever'.)

[JPZenger]

208. ... And people in need who don't vote at all

Many important decisions are made at the state level. While many lower income people may show up to vote for a Presidential race, their numbers fall dramatically for state races. The politicians know exactly which groups show up to vote.

[Baby Snooks]

213. Our first Republicrat President...

That's what I call him. He entered a Democrat. But left a Republicrat. He took us from "by the people, for the people" to "by the corporation, for the corporation." Everyone points to Phil Gramm who wrote the legislation that turned Wall Street into Las Vegas. But it was Bill Clinton who signed it into law. No doubt already counting the millions that would start pouring in once he left the White House.

All we really have any more are Republicrats. The only Democrats and Republicans are the fools who believe there are Democrats and Republicans on the ballots.

Things are only going to get worse in this country. Which is a scary thought for those of us who are barely surviving as it is.

[bobbolink]

230. Keep blaming the victims. That's such GOOD strategery.

It wasn't but a few weeks ago you all were here BEGGING people to vote for Obama.

Now, you are so anxious to turn away those votes, in your zeal to BLAME folks.

If you made an effort to actually GAIN the votes of poor folk, you might find things changing.

So, go ahead..... make yourself feel superior.

It makes life sooo pleasant for people like me.

[DutchLiberal]

231. Do they or do they not keep electing the corporatists who fuck them over?

Yes or no?

Try again with a post that actually makes sense.

[bobbolink]

233. NO

Is that clear enough for you?

[DutchLiberal]

234. It's clear. It's a LIE. But it's clear.

They keep electing people who will screw them over, but at least the people they voted for are 'pro-life' or against gay marriage, or any other real important wedge issue.

[JPZenger]

207. Food Pantry: Grapefruit Juice and Saltines

At one point, a month ago, my church's food bank was down to cases of grapefruit juice and saltines. We can buy subsidized food from a non-profit food distribution center, however, their selection was very limited.

Companies used to donate overstocks, dented cans and discontinued items to the food centers. Now they sell them to Dollar Tree.

The food bank just opened 3 months ago, but is already serving 250 people.

[ooglymoogly]

214. Thank you.....no words

[Fire1]

217. I almost became a MSW, but knew I didn't have the stomach

for it. My mother did it for many years and even she eventually went into education. I still remember when she would 'play santa' on Christmas Eve, with the trunk of the agency car filled will toys and clothes.