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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsjust a rant that I messaged a former friend (I have been unfriended) a while back. Some just hate
I saw a post from a friend of mine about that $600 a week being too much, that were getting scammed, that they did not get that much on there social security that they WORKED FOR IT, this was liked by a couple of other friends. I answered, people need help, got back, different comments over how they could remember when I was down and did not get any assistance, or how dare I be like this with my pensions. I blew up, took it in to private messages and replied. Unfriended by all who received. (I did remove some PII for this post)
Yes I have a "wonderful government retirement package". Matter of fact I have two of them. I am a double dipper. Let's look at both of them. First one, from the State of (redacted). I receive $330.00 a month, pre tax, thats the entire package, no other benefit. My second one is from (redacted) 220.00 a month (also pre tax), but it allows me to continue to purchase my healthcare at my prior cost, so I purchase my major medical this way for $283.00 a month. As with all other medical plans I have co-pays and spend limits so I have to spend out of pocket prior to it covering the rest. Do the math 330 + 220 = 550 less 283 = $267.00 a month, that my "government fat cat retirement package". I also have to pay taxes on both of these pensions, but I pay them at the end of the year, after factoring in all other tax matters.
(big redaction re; how we met, where we lived, my current finances and life style)
I had truly hard times, I will always remember them, what I learned is people need real help, not a kick in the gut. If you're unemployed, cant find a job, have used up any savings you have, cut back (no cable, no meat, no doctor visits, and forget about a dentist), you need money. So take me, if I had lost my house, or my car, I would not have been able to recover. The same is still true. You get evicted, good luck managing to find and or keep a job, when you get no sleep, cant bathe, etc. Depending on where you live, loose your car (repo or expensive repair thats out of reach say a transmission), how are going to get to work? Again, your only going to fall father down that ladder, and if your are so worried about your tax dollars, thats going to be a bigger drain on the system over a lifetime because the needs are just going to go up. Next up I hear you say, but there are people scamming the system. Yes there are, and always will be but they're about 3%, you're going to spend more of your taxes attempting to stop/find them than they are scamming. (See drug testing, we spend more on it than we find drug users on government assistance, the only ones coming out ahead on that one are the drug testing companies.)
Next up that $600.00, you're right its a stupid amount, but not because someone else is getting more than me,(your complaint, that you dont get as much on your SS) but because it is a blunt plan. If I was in charge, I would pay in unemployment 80% of gross pay plus medicare. But, that 80% would be on a sliding scale, so if you made X at or below poverty you get 120% (OMG, more than they make, how about we give a leg up) . If you made X above (say the top 20% of earners), you could get as little as 10% to 20% (see that's how I can afford to do this). Yep some are going to get screwed, but you can never avoid that. And yes some are going to scam ya, again you can never avoid that. By my way of thinking 80% is enough to hurt, but not so much as to cause you to spiral down to the point of no recovery if you were in fair financial shape prior, so you loose cable, or some special foods, but if your one of the lucky one not living hand to mouth, I think you can make it, and have motivation to get a job. (dont forget again I am adding in medical coverage, people need to see doctors).
The most important thing I have learned in my life as far as government money goes is look up, not down. Its not the undeserving poor that are eating up our tax revenues, it's the wealthy and corporations hiring lobbyist to get specific tax breaks that save them billions, not the poor getting assistance in the millions.
Annie Moosee
(69 posts)only thing I'd add is that not only are the major corporate interests getting tax breaks, but polluting & fossil fuel vampires are essentially double dipping. (or triple) They not only get sweetheart deals on leases, pay scant taxes, but they have funded mois-information campaigns regarding climate change. And when lives and property are lost to the climate change conditions they have caused; it is the government at large that picks up the tab.
It is almost as if millions of Americans were giving their blood for free to a major for-profit corporation and then when they needed blood they had to pay through the nose for it.
government for the profits by the profits
SWBTATTReg
(21,859 posts)AllaN01Bear
(17,383 posts)and congress. eggscllent rant.
patphil
(6,033 posts)Unfortunately there are a lot of people in this country that resent anyone getting anything, even if they are doing well themselves.
They would rather take a sharp stick in the eye than see poor people be given enough to pay their rent and put food on the table.
They want to feel superior to the poor; to feel justified in judging the poor as not worthy to have their basic needs met.
The $600. a week was a temporary amount to protect those who needed protection. This was a small price to pay to protect millions from financial devastation.
Meanwhile, the rich, who had no need, raked it in.
jaxexpat
(6,703 posts)Very much what my grandfather had to say about it, too. He was a newly wedded man in 1930. Sharecropper from day one. Came to understand first hand and pretty quick that those who have any little bit more than the average in their community depend on those who have less to support them. And the lessees stay in bed with them because they're beholden to them, forced to support the systems that keep those of lower station pushed down as low as they can.
He knew first hand that it wasn't lazy people who were to blame for their state, much less their poverty. It was a society of those highly stationed who labeled everyone of lower station, "lazy", maneuvering the perceptions of the poorly informed and the just plain stupid folks to maintain their higher station.
Tribalism 101. Or, the black heart of American Republicanism.
Arthur_Frain
(1,783 posts)Thanks for this part of your comment, from my perspective, it belongs on the greatest page.
"The most important thing I have learned in my life as far as government money goes is look up, not down. Its not the undeserving poor that are eating up our tax revenues, it's the wealthy and corporations hiring lobbyist to get specific tax breaks that save them billions, not the poor getting assistance in the millions."
That's it right there. Shrewdly distilled and simply said.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,746 posts)she said a lot of her neighbors were just taking the generous unemployment and not bothering to look for work. I tried to bring up that the extra $600 ended over a month ago, but she didn't seem to hear.
You would think a nurse of all people would be more empathetic. However, she is married to a NYS trooper, which helps explain her increasing move towards right wing stuff. Sigh.
There needs to be a Universal Basic Income. People opposed to it are under the impression that a lot of people would quit their jobs and somehow live the high life off that money. First off, no one is proposing a generous UBI. Secondly, the places where it's been tried, people use that money to help dig themselves out of poverty.
Joinfortmill
(14,246 posts)EndlessWire
(6,377 posts)not theirs. If we want everybody to get extra money because they lost their job, have everything they own to lose, then we should be able to give them the money--without some bozo trying to do our thinking for us.
What good is it going to do us if everyone is living in the street? Cutting our noses off to spite our faces is not smart. These are exceptional times. Nobody asked for this pandemic to show up.
If we had decent leadership, something else might have prevented all this business chaos. Instead, we have this Orange Asshole screwing our entire country up.
NOBODY WITH CHILDREN DECIDES TO SIT HOME FOR $600 extra per month. Parents have been known to rob stores to feed their kids. And $600 extra per month is not really that much.
calimary
(80,699 posts)flotsam
(3,268 posts)and it wasn't just a throw away or snark. I really appreciate when someone works to express coherent thought, philosophy or discussion because they give their time freely to advance communication. Thank you.
Edited to add:
PS: As a person living solely on SS I was of course slightly jealous. But I did get the single $1200 grant and that alone allowed me some small luxuries for the last several months and even made the first payment on my yearly heating fuel plan. MY heating fuel plan is 11 months and August was my month off. All of August cotton was high...I even had my local family (brother and sister in law) over for delivery pizza which I paid for in full! It's always fun to be the youngest kid in the room). Here's the thing-I got a bonus and if others got more doesn't matter-I got some and some poor bastards got none. I wonder what my $1200 would have paid for for some homeless family?
pansypoo53219
(20,906 posts)the deserving rich.