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bookworm966 -> RE: Marrage (7/21/2008 1:02:37 PM)
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Having read the entire collection of posts, I have to add my 2 cents' worth (coming from my OWN pocket). I have been on both sides of this fence. I worked my early adult life at menial, low paying jobs, and realized I wasnt making squat to survive and support my children. I quit work, started school, applied for public assistance as a single mother and drew food stamps and a childcare benefit for 3 years. No monthly check because I had financial aid for school (grants and loans paid back through service), and a 16 hour a week job as a nursing assistant. We lived on about $1200 every three months from which tuition and books had to be paid and the balance given as a check. Mom, I want a happy meal....sorry kiddo, it'll have to wait until I get out of school.... I kept the lights on and the car running, and we bought clothes secondhand from the thrift store and yard sales. No satellite TV, no internet, no frivolous expenditures. The food stamps were a lifesaver and I squirrelled them away to the point that when I finally was ineligible, we ate for 3 or 4 months on what was left. I graduated with an Associate's Degree, passed my nursing boards (yay me) and IMMEDIATELY began repaying the system for the assistance. I give Uncle Sam approximately 1/3 of my paycheck now for various deductions. Am I guilty for the help? No. Did I try to get more than the system said I was eligible for? No. At the same time, my ex was attempting to get disability. Not because he was born with some defect that makes him unable to work but because he is a sorry piece of shit that is too lazy to work and thinks everyone owes him his existence. He finally succeeded. So I apply for my son's portion of his father's check in lieu of child support. My son gets $62 bucks a month SSI, because his dad hasnt worked enough to have paid into the system. (And dont get me started on why I married that ass in the first place) His dad lives from friend to friend, still abuses every drug he can get his hands on, works under the table when he wants to, and I have reported him time and time again for fraud. Nothing ever happens. In the meantime, the $62 bucks my son gets is basically coming from my own pocket, since I am the contributor to the system. There are far too many people who view SSI/SSD as a way to get by for free. I know people where I live that are going into the 3rd generation of sucking the public tit and no one has EVER had a goddamn job. We need nationwide review of benefits. I see little old people every night at work unable to afford their meds because they own a little falling down house on a 1/2 acre of land and therefore are not eligible for any assistance over what they paid in, and having worked their entire lives for next to nothing, that aint much. At the same time, I am treating the baby of the hootchie who has 4 more kids and has better clothes and shoes than I can afford, manicured fingers AND toes, gold dripping off her scabbed up neck, and wants to know 'can we write a prescription for the tylenol cause Medicaid will pay for it that way and I wont have to fork over 3 bucks myself'. Forget about the check, what about the benefits no one mentions...Medicaid (so its free medical care), reduced income housing (Section VII and other programs), free school lunches, and other get to the front of the line faster assistance? Add it all up, and THEY live better than the rest of us working our asses off to foot the bills. Sorry people, this is a hot button for me.... I didnt mean to run on like that.
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