The funny thing is that most of them do, in fact, get jobs. The average time spent on welfare is around 6 months or so. However, people like you would just prefer to talk **** about poor people to make up for the lack of density in your penis or something...I don't know.
I think I have already identified there is a need for welfare. But apprently you think the system should support the ones that do not have jobs, that continue to have babies to increase their payments, and that are in the system for years..... not 6 months. Yeah, you don't know.......
You really think there are people out there having children solely for the sake of receiving more money from the government? You can't be serious. The government barely gives enough as it is, it would just make it worse on these people to have more kids. I know there are people out there that abuse the system, that's the case with everything. However, the majority of people on welfare don't want to be there, and show that by getting jobs and getting off of welfare after 6 months or so.
Why else do some new poor mothers throw their new babies in the trash can? Why are their women receiving welfare with 4-5 kids by at least 3 men? Why would anyone purposely have a kid while receving public assistance with no husband? Why do people do stupid things, I can't answer that, but they do it. Yes they have kids, and yes a responsible person knows the costs increase to legimately take care of a new baby. Thats why the state is constantly removing new babies from their homes, becuase this inadequate amount of money is not going towards the support of the babies. Belevie it or not, there are some sheitty mothers out there NOT acting responsiblity with their bodies, their kids, and their payments
Yeah. Because that infinitesimal amount of the national budget spent on giving some poor single teenage mother $600 a month or whatever really affects *you* personally, right? They're screwing you out of your hardearned cash! The poor are scum! They don't deserve our money! They have to be held to higher moral standards than we hold ourselves, and then they should *beg* for their handouts!
Many of the problems with poor welfare mothers could be solved with... 1. Better quality education in public inner city schools beginning with pre-kindergarten and head start programs. 2. More agressive sex education programs that taught the use of condoms. 3. Better low or no-income healthcare that would allow poor women the opportunity to have options when it comes to pregnancy. 4. Stronger laws to prosecute deadbeat dads. So often, it is made out like poor women are just sluts who want kids for money. That is a pathetic and small-minded opinion mostly propogated by men. It takes two to tango. 5. A living wage. Businesses b**** and moan about paying a living wage because of the cost but the people who own the businesses and make the money are often the same one's complaining about welfare. 6. Quality, affordable daycare. If mothers could actually go to work and not have to worry about their children, that would be a plus. 7. Job training and unemployment support. Ever tried to buy a nice suit or take a typing class with food stamps? Not real easy. 8. More agressive clean up and crime prevention in inner city areas. It's great that those gated communities 50 miles away from any urban area can hire around the clock security in addition to burglar bars and ADT security systems, but they can't afford that in the projects. 9. Affordable counseling and rehabilitation programs. Of course, all of these programs that would have a legitimate chance of working also cost money. It would be so much better if we could all just close our eyes and the tragedy would just magically disappear but this isn't fantasy land. This is reality and the reality is that the struggles most poor people go through on a daily basis make our struggles look like a walk in the park on a warm spring day. Instead of just hoping it will go away, maybe we should actually do something.
By the way, just a lovely little stat to make it all even more interesting. One out of every three women will be sexually abused by the age of 16. If the family of the girl is below the povery level, the chances double. Bashing poor people for their problems is easy when you don't know the sting of being there.
Thats funny, cause 1/3rd of all new borns last year were by single mothers Who actually loses when a unwed mother raises a child with no father in a poverty setting? The kid right? They are the ones that actually loose. Now they must compete in a highly competetive world without the resources of a more balanced family. So no it doesnt effect me personally, but it sure pisses me the hell off they think so little before having a baby. The baby doesn't get a choice in the matter. he is automatically plunged into a world already at a disadvantage. Exactly who is uncommpassionate, me for demanding these girls to think first, or you for allowing a safety net so they can fall on a system that supports their bad decisions. Its not about the money, its about the kids that must be raised under these circumstances that angers me.
Where are the fathers???? You are demanding "girls think first." Well, what about the boys? You think women are going around grabbing guys and sleeping with them so they can get pregnant, then kicking the guy to the curb??? You cannot possibly be making the suggestion that single mothers all want to be single mothers, right? There is no question that children suffer in this scenario. I don't think anyone would suggest otherwise. But your convenient failure to mention the father in the equation demonstrates either you are incredibly cheauvanistic or monumentally naive when it comes to this issue. Oh, just another stat... Every 15 seconds in America, a woman is physically abused by her spouse or boyfriend. Four of those women will die every day from their injuries.
Guys, There are people out there who have babies just to keep their welfare checks coming in. There are people out there who abuse the system. I am all for a helping hand, but at some point we have to get people to participate in the economy rather then simply drain it. The unwed mothers debate is a vicious circle with no real answers...the kids are the ones that suffer the most, and sometimes it is THE KIDS that are having the babies. This saddens me to no end as every kid deserves to have an equal chance in life. However, don't punish the rich kid because his/her parents worked VERY hard to make their life a little better for them. What I would do is have increasing welfare benefits based upon people that work, in other words if you have a job you would get more assistance, things like childcare, more foodstamps, more money etc....INCENTIVISE people to WANT to work. But, hey that is just me. DaDakota
Da: I agree that the children suffer, but what are you guessing the percentage of women out there who are single but do it only for the money is? My parents have both worked with pregnant single teenage moms for most of their careers. My father spent nearly two years as part of HISD's program at Crittendon - school for pregnant teenage girls. My mom counseled them and trained counselors to work with them. The vast majority of these girls were young and more than half of them were pregnant not by choice but by force. Most of them had been abused by a relative or friend. All of them wanted an education. These were programs that worked with single mothers who were basically homeless and pregnant. There is no doubt that there are deadbeats on the system out there. However, I read a statistic a few years back that stated that the majority of unwed mothers on welfare was outnumbered by the number of homeless families on welfare. To inflate the problem to the level of a national catastrophe is not being honest. I want the problem fixed as well but let's be realistic and honest about it. Just saying that welfare mom's are a drain on the system and bad for children is an extremely narrow view of the way things are. I still don't see anyone discussing the role of the fathers in this. I'm still waiting for someone to address why they aren't getting the same chastising the mothers are.
<B>There are people out there who have babies just to keep their welfare checks coming in. There are people out there who abuse the system. I am all for a helping hand, but at some point we have to get people to participate in the economy rather then simply drain it. </B> Yes there are people that abuse it -- there are people that abuse everything. However, it's not a real drain on the economy. The entire amount spent on welfare in the mid 1990's somewhere was like $10B / year -- and that included administrative costs, not just checks paid. Assume even a 1% abuse rate (which is probably higher than reality), then that's $100M per year. Out of about a $1.6T budget, that's 0.006% of the national budget. If you pay $15,000 in taxes, $0.90 went to support that abuse. There are plenty of inefficiencies in our government, but welfare abuse is not one of the most pressing ones, especially given the difficulties of determining true abuse vs. freak circumstances. <B>What I would do is have increasing welfare benefits based upon people that work, in other words if you have a job you would get more assistance, things like childcare, more foodstamps, more money etc....INCENTIVISE people to WANT to work.</B> The problem with this is that these people need the assistance first. A single mother with kids can't get the training to get a job until she has the childcare, etc. Besides which, this also assumes there are jobs to be had, which isn't always the case during slow economic periods.
The rich do get more services than the poor. They get more responsive police and fire departments. They also have more to lose in terms of property. Thus the activities of the military and other aspects of our government to protect us from invasion or to keep our economy healthy globally disproportionally help the rich. Think of it this way, the homeless guy in Detroit has a whole lot less to lose from a Canadian invasion than a ultra-rich Ann Arbor real estate investor--and it is the government providing the foreign and domestic protection. So yes, I do believe the wealthy get more benefits from the government. But that really isn't the larger issue. Government is responsive to all the people and we have an ethic in this country (though less than most other 1st world free countries) that the government should at least minimally do things like serve the sick, aged, poor, etc, that are incapable of caring for themselves. On another point, demographically, it is true overall there is a positive relationship between wealth or education and being republican (not necessarily what is popularly termed "conservative"--except with regard to taxation or fiscal policy). However, this doesn't always hold. In fact for people with post-bacc degrees (MD, JDs, PhDs, MBAs) etc, more of this group tend to be democrats than republicans. So the most educated group of American society tend to be democrats. As others have said many of the most wealthy persons tend to be democrats (many of the tech company CEOs and founders, actors, etc.). Thus it is a whole lot more complicated than just saying the rich and educated are republican or even conservative. In fact I would bet the financially better off states disproportionally voted for Gore over Bush. Personally, I think it had more to do with other social factors and religion that swung many states to either Gore or Bush than relative wealth.
While I certainly understand that the amount may be small in comparison to the over all budget, it is still a problem. Jeff, I recognize your parents expertise in this matter. My point of reference comes from my college roomate who is a probation officer in Lockhart Texas, and according to him, welfare abuse is far more prevalant then we think. He tells me that as soon as one of the children of these families turns 17, they immediatly try to have another baby so that the welfare remains the same. This is terrible, and I really feel for the kids, what chance do they have, what can be done, nothing probably. Now, Major, your point about it being a small portion of the budget, yes, I concur, but is is a good place to start. There are TONS of areas to cut down on, this one, entitlement programs, size of government, you name it, we need to cut back. All of these small abuses add up, I am for across the board tax reform. DD
Da: But where is the men's responsibility in this? There still seems to be a convenient omission of the role men play in being fathers. I can tell you that most single mothers are not single by design.
By far the biggest entitlement programs are social security (primarily to retirees but also to the disabled) and Medicare. So if you are taking about any serious money to give back to taxpayers, it is through cutting these areas. Welfare, medicaid type programs, school lunch programs, food stamps, etc., are such a small piece of state/federal taxes you could get rid of every cent of them and not make radically different tax changes. So if you are talking about cutting entitlements and serious about it for the purpose of putting money back into taxpayers pockets (versus just using it as a rhetorical phrase)-- it is through a strait and narrow paths cutting into social security and Medicare benefits. I personally would enjoy it if conservatives put their political muscle in trying to do this instead of dancing around the issue by focusing on cases of welfare abuses that make good storylines but are bugetarily (hey did I just invent a word) insignificant.
My perspective from having actually worked with AFDC mothers and food stamp recipients at the actual agency in TX that does that work. It is absurd to think that the woman has another baby to get the extra $60 per month or less per additional child The extra $60 per month doesn't help that much. The extra $60 is almost all taken up by the cost of another kid, and you just to have another kid sleep in the same small place. TX always ranks in the lower 5 states along with Miss, ARk, S.Carolina, miserably poor states, giving a good argument for TX being the most selfish state. TX is,last I looked,about dead center in $income per capita. Hereare the figures: per google search under tanf, texas ----------------------------------------------- Where Texas Stands in 1999, not much change since I worked there almost 20 yrs ago. 48th in the maximum grant provide to a family of three – $188/month The average family of three in Texas receives $158/month The current maximum benefit is equal to 16.25% of the federal poverty level The U.S. median benefit or a family of three is $377/month or 33% of poverty Combined with Food Stamps the benefit package is still only equal to 45% of the federal poverty level, U.S. median – 62%. Texas ranks dead last in the loss of buying power of the maximum grant. In 1970 we provide a family of three $148, in 1998 – $188, adjusted for inflation that is a loss in buying power of 68.9% ------------------------------------------------------------ For those who think is is so much tell me how a woman and two kids can live on $158 per month and food stamps? I agree with Dakota and others. It is best for society and these women that they work. Rig the system to give them the incentive to work. Just understand that it is difficult under the present system. For her to work requires one of two things, raising the minimum wage $2 or $ 3 per hr (the same crowd is agains it) or increased government aid, which is more than the $158 that TX gives a single mother and 2 kids, that so enrages many of you. The welfare mother who goes to work even at TX punitive benefit level often times comes out worse with working at a minimum wage work, paying for daycare and giving up her medicaid. I know it enrages you also that she get medicaid, i.e, medical insurance free. The men who impregnate these women are not the cream of the crop wrt to education etc. Often times they make minimum or not much more. They work at temporary labor halls and seasonal construction work jobs. So better collection of child support while important is not a panacea either. Get's some facts. Get out in the real world through your job or volunteer work. Meet these people. Quit spouting the "facts" fed to you by millionaire conservatives running for office or conservative periodicals, both of whose prority is to lower the taxes on the wealthy and the upper middle class.
I've missed a lot in the two days I was sick in bed Timing- I am going to say this with no hostility whatsoever. I do not believe you are incorrect about anything you have said on here. I don't have time to address it detail by detail. However, I am pretty sure you think I am a racist because of the comments I have made on this thread and others like it. Minorities do have a harder time today than whites do. There are very legitamate reasons for it, but there are other reasons as well. America was founded by white people who were unfarily advantaged in England and later other parts of Europe. They had it tough. They had to start a comlete new life from nothing essentially. I'm not trying to dimish what black people face and have faced at all. I am saying it will take time though. It's going to take more than just getting representatives in Senate or 12% blacks enrolled at UT. Representation does not always mean equality and it does not mean that racism and discrimination will end. People have to make it end by what they think and how they act. I still do not agree with the US News and the ranking system. They have like 7 categories and reputation is weighted 25%. That's very disproportionate, but you seem to gloss that over to fit your thought. I do know it's not the only factor, but it is the biggest. How can any school with a poor reputation raise it's rank? I would rather see a breakdown of every category and probably some other factors that they might not even consider. The news is not always right! I am baised because I go to U of H. However, getting my undergraduate degree is not going to hold me back in life, although I could let it and then blame it on the fact that my school isn't good enough. And you said you don't even know much about TSU. Looking at a reputable magazine is good for information. I just think it's important to recognize how the ranks are done. The fact that I hold these opinions and have evidence to back it up shows that what I have said in these threads is not unheard of. You may choose to ignore my evidence or hate my opinion and that's fine. However, there are people who either take advantage of the system and those who do not. Again, let me say that I don't think everything I said applies all the time. You think I'm naive for failing to see your side of this (which I do see, by the way) but I think anyone is just as naive to think that what you said is the only side of this. I'm making generalizations. You're correct. Does it keep me from having black friends? Would I deny a black person access to anything simply because he is black? Would I vote for a white person I don't agree with because he is the non-black candidate? I don't have generalizations about black people. I have generalizations about some of them. I have generalizations about people of every race, shape, size, weight, age, and tastes, as well as for many other reasons. We all make generalizations every day. I want equality and I want racism to end. But I don't think this is racism. For me, personally, I don't think the person should have said it, but that did not bother me as much as the person who blew up about the statement. For me, that persons helps confirm some of my generalizations and I really don't want that. I would like for all of my generalizations on this thread to have no basis whatsoever, but they do. Fixing representation is not going to change that. The way we all deal with the issue and each other will though. I'm probably getting myself into more trouble again. I'm not out to change your opinion of me or how you see the issue necessarily. I don't even know what I'm really doing. I guess I just don't think that the issue is as easy as you put it.
