Welfare system, sound familiar?

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USArmy_Veteran
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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by USArmy_Veteran » April 5, 2011, 10:39 am

This morning I went to sign my dogs up for welfare.  At first the clerk said, "Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare." 

So I explained to her that my dogs are mixed in color and race, unemployed, lazy, can't speak English and have no clue who their Daddies are.  They expect me to feed them, provide them with housing and medical care. So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify.

My dogs get their first checks Friday. 

Is this a great country or what!!! [-(



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NOLA
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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by NOLA » April 5, 2011, 10:45 am

Bigot

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by WhoUrDaddy » April 5, 2011, 10:56 am

Did you Section 8 the dog house so you get rent? Don't forget utilities, and subsidized heating in the winter!

Not sure where 'Bigot' comment comes from, as most fall into the categories listed. Especially since 1/2 of welfare recipients are fairly split down racial lines. So which half is being prejudiced against?

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USArmy_Veteran
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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by USArmy_Veteran » April 5, 2011, 11:02 am

NOLA wrote:Bigot
:-k You may call me a bigot if you define my belief that "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." as bigotry. Notice I said "will not work" not cannot work.

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by greatsnake » April 5, 2011, 1:23 pm

The biggest welfare system in America is the US military and US veterans' benefits and retirement scheme. Hopefully, the teabaggers will start cutting it down to size after they get finished with Social Security and Medicare.

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by cookie » April 5, 2011, 1:30 pm

greatsnake wrote:The biggest welfare system in America is the US military and US veterans' benefits and retirement scheme. Hopefully, the teabaggers will start cutting it down to size after they get finished with Social Security and Medicare.
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by UdonExpat » April 5, 2011, 2:47 pm

The most expensive welfare program is subsidies to businesses and nonprofits. More than $900 billion in 2007. The recent TARP and Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac subsidies added more than $500 billion to that amount.

TANF, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, is what most people think of as welfare. Since Clinton's, 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the number of persons on this welfare has shrunk from more that 12 million to less than 4.5 million. The present annual cost is about $17 billion.

SNAP, Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) is a larger program with 40.3 million participants in 2010, at an annual cost of $68.3 billion, or about $134 per month per person. Most of the people on this program are working. It includes most of the 4.5 million on welfare. So the remaining 35.8 million are the working poor. It is expected that the number will grow to more than 43 million people this year.
http://dhhs.gov/asfr/ob/docbudget/2010b ... riefs.html
http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htm

NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM, free or reduced cost. 17.6 million kids get free lunches, and 13.4 million get reduced cost lunches. There are also after school food and other nutrition efforts through the schools. Annual cost in 2009 was $9.8 billion.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/about ... tSheet.pdf

SSI, Supplemental Security Income (It is designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income; and it provides cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter) : $50.4 billion a year for 5.6 million recipients. So, about $750 a month.
http://www.ssa.gov/ssi/

The Office of Child Care supports low-income working families through child care financial assistance and promotes children's learning by improving the quality of early care and education and afterschool programs. $5 billion in 2010. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/occ/ccdf/factsheet.htm

Medicaid in 2004 had 52 million participants and cost $305 billion. Medicaid is available only to people with limited income.

There is also subsidized housing for low income people.

Low income wartime veterans or surviving spouses may qualify for a VA pension. The benefit amounts are complicated, but generally come up to about $660 a month.

Arguably, Social Security, Social Security Disability Insurance, and Medicare are also welfare, as particpants are not drawing money on what they paid in, but rather on what current workers are paying in. And many recipients have never worked: wives and children of former workers.

The 4.5 million people currently on the welfare are probably the people my fellow Army vet was raging about while inferring they are dogs. He's entitled to his opinion, but the facts are those people don't amount to a hill of beans in the larger picture. They are cheaper to keep on welfare than to put them in prison, which is where many of them have been and will end up if forced off welfare. Most people on welfare don't want to be there, but it's better than nothing which is what they would have without it. The welfare process is demeaning, onorous, and a pain in the ass.

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by FrazeeDK » April 5, 2011, 8:06 pm

touche'!!!!!!! good facts rundown for Udon Expat!

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by tigerryan » April 6, 2011, 12:08 am

The reason the OP is sorta funny is because its sorta true. I would be happy to take a 20% or so reduction of my VA benefits (and no I'm not going to do it on my own to prove it) if it was part of an overall austarity program . I don't know if I am out on an island with other vets on this but Im guessing most vets would accept a reduction if all state federal spending were equaly reduced.

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by UdonExpat » April 6, 2011, 10:09 am

The OP was talking about dogs getting welfare. Nothing to do with reductions or veterans.

I don't know any veteran who would gladly accept a reduction in benefits as part of a general austerity program. Most of the ones I know are scheming to increase their payments.

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by tigerryan » April 6, 2011, 11:38 pm

Expat, you are no doubt correct with respect to some retired vets in Thailand the "scheming" comment is particularly spot on to a number of retired military guys that I have met (who would be unwilling to admit it but they objectively retired to early and without a workable plan). I guess my comments were meant to include all vets in general many like myself that are sun setting on second careers and the importance of the government pensions are significant but by no means a retirement deal breaker or otherwise untouchable. The way I think about it as a reduction in current benefits combined with a reduction in long term govt spending could result in a reduciton of tax exposure resulting in a net wash. That's really all I am getting at.

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by UdonExpat » April 7, 2011, 10:06 am

Certainly many of the vets here did little planning for their retirement. Many of those who retired from the military rely upon that pension and Tricare and do their best to claim disabilities to move money from a taxable to a nontaxable status. Many have a pension that is part tax free or low enough not to generate any taxable income.

Others are living on VA disability ratings and all of that money is nontaxable. They often have no health insurance and/or use the VA overseas health program to get reimbursed for medical care that is disability connected. Recent changes in agent orange compensation have opened up the possibility of new claims for those who served in Nam.

Losing 20% of their income could be onorous, and a betrayal of the agreement under which they served. Of course, that doesn't mean it won't or shouldn't be done. Many people in private pension plans founds that previous agreements were unenforceable and ended up with greatly reduced pensions under government bailouts for their private companies.

Military retirement is extremely generous when compared to private work. Retire after 20 years of work and get premium free medical care for life, including your family. Armed law enforcement also have similar plans. Part of the rationale is that they perform potentially dangerous work and should be compensated for it. But they don't even get mentioned in the most dangerous jobs: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/ ... n-america/

I'd much rather see the government stop its subsidies to businesses and at least tax businesses at rate that individual taxpayers pay. It's time to take businesses off welfare, not people.

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Welfare system, sound familiar?

Post by papaguido » April 7, 2011, 11:08 am

UdonExpat wrote: Military retirement is extremely generous when compared to private work. Retire after 20 years of work and get premium free medical care for life, including your family. Armed law enforcement also have similar plans. Part of the rationale is that they perform potentially dangerous work and should be compensated for it. But they don't even get mentioned in the most dangerous jobs: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/ ... n-america/

I'd much rather see the government stop its subsidies to businesses and at least tax businesses at rate that individual taxpayers pay. It's time to take businesses off welfare, not people.
Not while residing overseas. Unless it's Tricare for Life (65 or older), still not totally free, because you have to pay into medicare (parts A & B). But not complaining and it's still better than nothing.

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