JoeB131
Diamond Member
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1) on 45K --- no but once you add the food stamps and consider (look it up yourself) section 8 housing 3 BR apt for $700.00 --- it sure can be done. Not a great living - but in researching this little project I found an individual who works for section 8 housing who claims Big Screen TVs and video gam systems as the norm in these homes. My wife works directly with low income homes and says that the TVs, video games, and autos are in the same ball-park as our own. No proof for evidence in that I'll admit, but I am a pretty honest person.
I think it's kind of silly to measure someone's standard of living by their TV and Video Game system. Even assuming they weren't being money smart, the fact is, those things are one-time expenses.
3) Don't bring the GOP and their message into this, please, this thread can remain objective if we refrain from getting too much into ideology, and focus on the legitimate issue.
We all can see this is an issue. The question is (from this "righty") what can we do to keep this from going another 3 generations? Exponential growth would then put that one family into the TENS of THOUSANDS of people who work the system and will only vote for more free stuff....
How about the right regaining respect for those who ARE working for a living? I don't like paying the tax rate I pay on my decidedly middle class income, which have gone up 4% between Fat Quinn raising the income tax and the SSI tax break vanishing. But I also don't like my employer who has used the recession as an excuse to give me minimal raises over that same period.
Here's the problem. In my father's generation, people had good paying jobs, even if they didn't go to college, because they had a union that secured a good wage and we had a government that protected our industries from unfair foreign competition. And the guy on the Dressage Pony decided that was wrong, he wasn't getting enough of the money. And guys like me got knocked down to "Struggling to get by" while yeah, you had people who figured out how to game the system.
Again- if you take someone's ability to earn for himself away, he's not going to obediently starve on principle. He's going to do whatever he has to in order to get help. And then he's going to totally vote for more of that.
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There is a tipping point and I can assure you that there are MANY more than one family who are using this technique and it's not just in Illinios either...
We need to solve this issue in a bi-partisan method --- and fixing it will cost the dems votes. Gonna be hard to get the democrats to solve a problem that increases their constituancy ---- keeping in mind there IS a tipping point (the cart gets too big to pull).
But again, whose fault is that? Frankly, the thing is, even with the "generous" welfare payments, the vast majority of wealth since 1980 has shifted to the top, not the bottom.