The Obama Years- A GOP love story

[Daseal]

Welfare is a really difficult subject. I've met quite a few people that were/are on welfare, and it's interesting. I worked with a guy that worked his ass off every day that had kids too young, and was on welfare. He hated it, but it was a hell of a lot better than his kids going hungry. He worked the whole time and got off it as soon as he could. I then met a friend of my girlfriend, at the time. She grew up on welfare her entire life. She ended up getting a full ride to a top tier university. Upon finishing her degree, she went and lives back home with her mother, on welfare. These are two examples. One of the system being used correctly, the other of the system failing. To be honest, meeting that girl was eye opening. Her comments constantly hinted that she was owed something, and people should be handing her things at every turn. She was given many opportunities and failed to capitalize on either.

The real problem to me, is you have to have a safety net for people. Having a class of people with no money, no prospects, and no hope is bad for countries. Ideally we find a way to shrink welfare programs, but get more people back on their feet. Personally, I feel like pushing for a higher working wage is a step in the right direction. We're paying more one way or another (taxes vs slightly higher prices).

To me, there's a big issue when the single largest recipient of welfare benefits are members of the US military. My guess is this may be more of a loophole than anything. Their paychecks are small, but they also don't have to provide housing for themselves. We need to find ways to help make people self sufficient. Sadly, it's more efficient for a single mother with 2 kids to stay home on welfare than to work a full-time minimum wage job.

[Giantone]

Originally Posted by Daseal

To me, there's a big issue when the single largest recipient of welfare benefits are members of the US military. My guess is this may be more of a loophole than anything. Their paychecks are small, but they also don't have to provide housing for themselves .

With all due respect what the hell does that mean ,a loophole ???

[Daseal]

It means many members of the military are provided housing, thus their income indicates that. Especially in the DC area an apartment (with a roommate) will run you at least 800 in rent alone. That's far from living large either.

Originally Posted by Giantone

With all due respect what the hell does that mean ,a loophole ???

[Giantone]

Originally Posted by Daseal

It means many members of the military are provided housing, thus their income indicates that. Especially in the DC area an apartment (with a roommate) will run you at least 800 in rent alone. That's far from living large either.

I'm still don't understand what you mean loophole ?So do you think the military should or should not be getting welfare or do you think getting a housing allowance is welfare and just a tip an 800 hundred dollar a month apartment doesn't exist in the DC area (not one that is livable ) .
Question do you consider programs such as "wick" welfare ?Do you know that some Military base's don't have enough housing so they have to find housing else where ,so now there is commuting ,gas ,utilities, which point of fact they also pay while living on a base .I guess what I'm asking you is that do military families deserve help or not ?

[tshile]

Originally Posted by Daseal

To me, there's a big issue when the single largest recipient of welfare benefits are members of the US military. My guess is this may be more of a loophole than anything. Their paychecks are small, but they also don't have to provide housing for themselves. We need to find ways to help make people self sufficient. Sadly, it's more efficient for a single mother with 2 kids to stay home on welfare than to work a full-time minimum wage job.

I'm confused on this as well... as I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

If you're saying that military members wind up on welfare after their service then I would join you in saying that's a big problem and one that needs fixing. I know it happens, but I'm not aware of it being a huge problem (maybe that's my own ignorance.)

If you're saying the benefits military members and their immediate families receive constitutes 'welfare' in the same sense as what is generally referred to as 'welfare' (ie: poor/non working people) then I'll politely disagree with you. In my opinion we don't do enough for our service members, and I have to strongly question whether the people that feel otherwise have ever bother serving themselves or have had close family that has. Comparing their benefits respective to what they do for a living to those that do not have a job or work extremely low wage jobs to qualify for 'welfare' is, in my opinion, very disrespectful.