Tag Archives: Welfare
The Welfare Cliff
The U.S. welfare system sure creates some crazy disincentives to working your way up the ladder. Benefits stacked upon benefits can mean it is financially better, at least in the short term, to stay at a lower-paying jobs rather than taking a higher paying job and losing those benefits. This is called the “welfare cliff.”
Let’s take the example of a single mom with two kids, 1 and 4. She has a $29,000 a year job, putting the kids in daycare during the day while she works.
As the above chart – via Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania’s secretary of Public Welfare — shows, the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income and benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income & benefits of $57,045.
It would sure be tempting for that mom to keep the status quo rather than take the new job, even though the new position might lead to further career advancement and a higher standard of living. I guess this is something the Obama White House forgot to mention in its “Life of Julia” cartoons extolling government assistance.
(Read more)
Advertising Fraud? Government Says Food Stamps Assure Heath, Beauty & Happiness
Washington, DC’s stupid Capital Bikeshare
Killing Africa with Good Intentions
TN Man “Fathers” 30 Kids But Can’t Support Any
(Knoxville, TN) Desmond Hatchett is pleading with the state of Tennessee to help him pay for child support.
With 30 kids, who could afford to pay child support?
Yes, 30 children by 11 different “baby mamas.”
Desmond explained how it all happened, well you know what we mean, “I had four kids in the same year. Twice.”
The children range in age from toddlers to 14 years old.
He was last in court in 2009, at which time he had 21 children. (Read more)
Julia — Obama’s Dependent Slave
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Stimulus, Infrastructure Projects, Green Jobs and other Government Frauds
Medicare cheats the young
Wealthy Seniors benefit from medicare:
Response to Cornel West
1) His statements are vague and rambling. What I hear him saying is: “everything sucks, so you need me (and people who think like me) to set up a benign dictatorship.” He does not explain WHY things suck. That’s where I can educated him.
2) He speaks from two typical paradigms: profits and business vs. workers, and white vs. black. The first is Marxism the second is cultural Marxism, which, as a Ukrainian, I’m largely immune to :).
Both see not individual human beings but only “classes” — a vague, never-defined term at the center Marxism. There is no solidaridy within any class. Everybody struggles to be the best employer, the best customer, the best worker. Look closely, and his paradigm falls apart.
3) Inequality. Only if you accept the Marxist paradigm of class war, and stop seeing people as individuals can you make inequality a leading issue.
Rallying behind the idea of inequality is dangerous for three reasons: it calls for state-sponsored violence as a equalizing force, it inspires emotions useful to politicians — jealousy and hatred, it is impossible — thus lending it to what Lenin called “permanent revolution.”
No society in the history of the world has ever improved itself by taking money from one “class” of people and giving it to another. Many who’ve tried it turned into gigantic meat grinders. The Cambodian attempts at an agrarian based communist society slaughtered almost 1/3rd of the population.
Don’t believe the leftist claim that they simply didn’t do it right, and that we need to try again.
Inequality is also a very, very small price to pay for liberty and prosperity. Without exception, conditions for poor people have been best in the countries with the free-est economies.
4) He, quickly and loosely, attributes our economic crisis to freedom. Bullshit. The economic crisis was caused by inflating the monetary supply, a long history of bailouts which enouraged recklessness, and laws which **** REQUIRED **** banks to make bad loans. The only regulation that works is the free market regulation of letting people go the hell bankrupt when they’re irresponsible.
5) Quickly and loosely, he says that the people want gov’t insurance and that it’s opposed by big pharma and big insurance companies. I don’t want gov’t insurance. Don’t I count? I’ll remind you that one of the first things Obamacare did was REQUIRE people to buy medical insurance. That’s not exactly sticking it to the insurance industry. And no, finding a better, stronger, kinder, more benevolent dictator will not work. The search for one is called “the road to serfdom.”
6) His faith in democracy is charming. Reminds me of when I was a child.
7) When the hell were intellectuals on the side of free markets? It’s always been a heterodox movement.
Don’t feed the bears!
Something to think about:
1. The Department of Agriculture is distributing the largest number of food stamps in its history.
2. The National Park Service asks us to not to feed the animals because they will grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves.
Seattle welfare recipient lives in million-dollar home
A Seattle woman who is receiving welfare assistance from Washington state also happens to live in a waterfront house on Lake Washington worth more than a million dollars.
Federal agents raided the home this weekend but have not released the woman or her husband’s name because they have not officially been charged with a crime.
However, federal documents obtained by KING 5 News show the couple currently receives more than $1,200 a month in public housing vouchers, plus state and government disability checks and food stamps. They have been receiving the benefits since 2003.
The 2,500 square-foot home, which includes gardens and a boat dock, is valued at $1.2 million. (Read more)
“Somebody needs to be held accountable for all my [15] children . . . they need to pay.”
A story about the redistrubution of wealth
“Seems like the economy functions better when there are less gross inequities.” Really?
No society in human history has ever made itself richer by taking money from some people and giving it others. Many, on the contrary, have turned into gigantic meat grinders following Marx’s vision of equality.
Rich people already reinvest and redistribute their wealth. In the 90’s, for example, rich people gave a lot of their money to working class yacht builders. This, obviously, was despicable.
Why should some people have yachts and not others? Furthermore, what role was there for this country’s considerable political talent?
Happily, America’s yacht building industry was taxed to death. Hurray equality! Working class people still got money from rich people, but instead of building yachts (hard work) they just had to sign a statement of uselessness and failure — i.e. welfare application (much easier). The intelligence and talent of the politicians became indispensable in facilitating the transaction. And the politicians lived happily every after — some of them even purchased European-made yachts for themselves. (the end)