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General - Poor People - View Post

That Guy on 05 October 2009
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madskillz said:
That Guy said:
yeah if I were Obama, I'd do the opposite and INCREASE tax writeoffs for charities, at the same time phasing out welfare programs.

I'd probably also spend some money setting some criteria as to exactly what charities can do with donation money (i.e. not funding terrorists in Iraq)

You know, that's interesting. I remember when my dad was out of the Air Force, unemployed and looking for work. Tried to get food stamps and Welfare and they said his retirement - which was about $15K a year - was too much for a family of 6. He bounced around a couple jobs - got laid off right before the holidays one year - and got his last check and a turkey.

I was let go from one paper because an editor was jealous. I have tasted unemployment, my wife expecting and I had my back against the wall. Even had to live off unemployment under the radar. I was unemployed last year, but got a new job within a week (and had several thousand in severance, so it was like a vacation).

I said all that to say - welfare has its purpose. To phase it out is ridiculous. People need it - just like folks need healthcare. The ones scamming the system - well, you know, there are educated folks who scam every system out there - why are their auditors?

I know homeless folks - and I don't brush them off, but try to help them if I can. I treat everyone the way I want to be treated.

 

Its not like I don't want to help homeless folks, but there are the few bad apples out there that ruin my entire perception of that guy at the street corner. I've heard of too many anecdotes of people begging for money, and then buying beer and cigs or outright being dishonest and pocketing hundreds of dollars a day. It makes me not want to trust anyone anymore.

I wish we could trust everyone to spend their money wisely so we wouldn't have to even have this discussion in the first place. The easiest way to deal with people who are down on their luck is to give them their welfare/unemployment benefits and trust that the money goes where its supposed to be going. And then they don't need the benefits anymore, they would say "thanks, but no thanks we don't need this unemployment check anymore"

What really sucks now is that in order to make sure its not being misused, the government is trying to micromanage by handing out foodstamps and coming out with weird stipulations and such.