But sometimes ya just gotta lance the boil... (Since this is all true, I'm keeping this vague to protect the guilty)
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There is a person in my immediate or "almost immediate" family, who works an entry-level job at or just above minimum wage. This job is not quite full-time. This person has one child out-of-wedlock. This person receives food stamps. This person receives state-subsidized daycare. This person gets OHP (Oregon's version of low-income health coverage). This person gets Section 8 housing, so this person's out-of-pocket monthly rent is about $130. By government standards, this person is living in poverty.
This person lives unmarried with a Significant Other. This SO works a similar entry-level job, and pays roughly half of the household expenses (not that there are many). This SO, however, is not listed as any kind of resident or breadwinner or contributor to the household. The State is aware of this ruse. But like a honey badger, the State just doesn't give a ****.
Haven't heard yet what the SO's taxes look like this year, but this person in my family is getting a $5600 tax "refund" this year. This person is DRIPPING WITH EXCITEMENT about how they're just days away from having a 72" HDTV, a brand new washer and dryer, and some brand new furniture. By government standards, this person is living in poverty.
Meanwhile, I work at least 55 hours a week and have none of those things. My couch is sprouting holes. The boy doggie is overdue for a vet visit, but we can't afford it right now. Keeping up with the bills has been extra challenging the last few months. By government standards, I am a fair bit above median income.
...with liberty and justice for all.
I bet they voted for Obama, too...
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit better off. No one in my loony left family even speaks to me. It's very peaceful...
Boy, do I hear ya! This reminds me of some neighbors from years ago, when I was living in a largely unheated duplex. The people next door had two kids, unmarried, both collecting food stamps and welfare and assorted other goodies. That was irritating as heck.
ReplyDeleteBut fear not - I was reading earlier that the good folks at the UN want to impose a global tax on all transactions so that everybody can climb aboard the gravy train.
I feel your pain. I'm about to go off to work for my 12-hour shift. I need a new bed and a mattress. I can't afford to buy both right now.
ReplyDeleteoh well. maybe I can use my tax refund. No wait, I need that to pay down debt.
Shut up!
ReplyDeleteI am totally pissed now
Where's mine?
It's amazing how some people know how to work the "system." Kind of gives you the red a$$, especially folks who have worked hard and done all of the right things.
ReplyDeleteOne a' these days, Alice, ONE A' THESE DAYS, POW!!! Right in the kisser!
ReplyDeleteThese sponges probably shouldn't get used to the life of luxury, using Oregon's safety net as a hammock. Things have a way of evening up, in the very long run. Eastern philophies call it karma, I just say 'keep it up, scumbags, just keep it up...'
And what is this unnamed person and his SO going to give you? I'd at least go for a boy doggie vet visit.
ReplyDeleteI really know what your venting about~I know people like this and it Pisses me off too!
ReplyDeleteTwo words. Chloroform. Oh wait that's just one word, but it's still the solution to your problem.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Inno...we've all seen it. But, on the bright side...
ReplyDeleteWell...
Okay, there is no bright side.
This kind of crap is why we need a radical overhaul of our tax system. (Either flat tax, or fair tax...I do not care which). It will NEVER happen, I know.
Did they thank you for paying the bills? I didn't think so.
ReplyDeleteI just wonder how in the HELL a person working at a minimum wage (or near to it) manages to receive a $5600.00 tax refund. I live on Social Security, my USAF retirement, and a pittance of a private pension yet I write the Feds a check every other April (I take a child exemption, shared with the ex- every other year, which results in a SMALL refund... like a couple o' hundred bucks... in those years I claim the exemption). And I have EXTRA withholding taken out of the USAF pension.
ReplyDeleteSo now **I'm** pissed, too. Thanks, Inno.
Buck, it's the Earned Income Credit.
ReplyDeletePeople under a certain income level (and I have NO idea what it is now) get thousands of dollars if they have a child...even more if they have two.
Rebates all of their FICA, and some to boot.
And to think I couldn't talk younger daughter into applying for food stamps when she was working for chicken feed and going to school. What was I thinking -- raising a child to be self-sufficient?!?!
ReplyDeleteI have a similar member in my extended family -- except that she has two kids out of wedlock and shacked up with the father of the second.
ReplyDeleteShe will not even look for a job! We the taxpayers are supporting her and her two kids lock, stock, and barrel.
I predict that she'll shortly have another child out of wedlock.
Inno, I'm not a Romney supporter. Yet. But your story illustrates that he's certainly right when he says he doesn't have to worry about the poor because we have all kinds of safety nets for them. (Of course, he was immediately condemned as a heartless person for even saying this.) I wish he had gone on to say that these various safety nets are part of the problem--we have too many, they have created a perpetual victim class, and they often destroy incentive among those who do work.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your story I thought of a quotation I recently put up on my sidebar.
"Every measure which establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives to it an administrative form creates thereby a class unproductive and idle, living at the expense of the class which is industrious and given to work." Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Yo yo yo ... I gave you The Liebster Award. The details are posted at my blog.
ReplyDelete...and, that is the "legitimate" return. There are people out there (I've heard) that file similar tax returns that are all bogus, the check comes because the form was filled out. People in New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland know this, they are in the wind after the check comes. The IRS does not have the manpower, or resources to go after this type of fraud.
ReplyDelete