Reply #10: kick for the morning crew [View All]

As so eloquently put by ThomCat: all our safety nets are tattered and full of holes.

It's not about welfare reform or healthcare reform, it IS a civil rights issue. I hate the concept that if we had more welfare or assistance that people would be content to sit on their collective asses and suck it up while the rest of the productive members of society work hard....
Most of the people I know who have to rely on these programs for survival of themselves (AND their kids) are movers and shakers...always trying to get a leg up. Unfortunately the system is so broken and the corpratacracy is so enmeshed that those of us on the bottom have a very low chance to ever make it to a place of REAL self-sustaining lifestyle.
Even when you are off the system, you then become even MORE of a ghost - "the working poor" - who scrap for $8-$10 an hour to never have anything resembling savings and the slightest emergency can throw you back into the pit of abject poverty. (car breakdown, health issue, family member dies, etc...)

and let's not forget that the AMOUNT of foodstamps you recieve is calculated by the size of your family... and ANY other cash you may get (child support, etc) counts against you. By "giving with one hand and taking with another," it prevents any movement toward sustainable self reliance. I get $350 a month for my family of four - 3 kids, one of which is a teen and eats EVERYTHING in sight ! I never realized how much we relied on the free lunch program at school!
And then people talk smack because you buy cheap mac&cheese - even when budgeting, how am I supposed to buy all organic or health conscious foods? the cost for the 'healthy' foods is so crazy high, I'd be broke in a week, 2 tops.

like a spiraling argument... poverty equals limited choices, equals more health problems, equals more need for assistance, and the loop continues for generations...

I pray that my kids will be able to make a life for themselves free from the spiral