Taxes!

[Ldub]

It is a fair question, and I am not particularly hard over on the issue, nor especially well versed in the argument. Three things spring to mind, let me run them up the flag pole:
1. The majority of the high paying jobs you are referring to are in the corporate/private sector. I think it is one thing to enter into voluntary contract with an employer in which they pay you hefty salary in exchange for standards of conduct of all types, and quite another to cede to the State yet another power over personal privacy and actions for an ever widening sector of the populace.
2. Food stamps versus a high paying job? No contest. Lots and lots and lots of people would trade the first in favor of the second.
3. Given that these programs dramatically impact the children of the poor to an even greater degree than the adults, are you not simply stigmatizing poverty rather than merely government assistance?

Emphatically NO!!!...I NEVER said HIGH paying, I said well paying, as in $8-9.00 an hour, yeah, you heard me right. I've had to piss just to do menial labor on the bagging floor of a sunflower seed processing facility, I've had to piss for the privilege of doing carpentry work, from framing to finish, & most disciplines between the foundation & the shingles, I've also had to submit to a test of my precious bodily fluids for the right to work WAY too many 0000-0800 shifts as a security guard...LUCKY F-N me!
All done under the guise of lower insurance rates...
A couple of those jobs included the option of purchasing medical/dental & vision coverage, my current job has no such option.
You will probably reply that it's my choice to work in these capacities, & due to a few bad choices in my mis-spent yoot, I probably should have gotten a better education after graduating high school...at the time, it wasn't a real option, & i'm OK with that.

In the mean time, organizations such as lutheran socialist services continue to bring "refugees", from third world $h*# holes around the globe, into our community, to place an even larger burden on all aspects of local & federal social betterment programs.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...I live from check 2 check, make just slightly too much to qualify for any type of government assistance, & DREAD having to sell my truck & guns & what not, to cover whatever medical emergency/procedure (priced a colonoscopy lately?, or having a tooth pulled/filled?, or maybe even a splenectomy, or the removal of a gall bladder that's gone on the fritz?) that may well blip the radar after reaching the age of fiddy.

Why yes, there are a few of "them" who are fine upstanding citizens, & I have more than a few friends who qualify as "upstanding them", including friends from Sudan, Usbekistan, Somalia, & Bosnia.
However, there are an equal, if not greater number of "them" who are out most evenings cutting cats off parked vehicles for the recycling $ (I know, industrious, creative, & eco friendly), burglarizing homes, & just being $h*# heads in general...you're damned right there are a lot of home grown, hard working, well armed SOB's out here in the heartland wondering why they've gotta go PP in a cup to support all this crap.....

Oh, & lest we forget all the children...HELLO...if you're already impoverished, & receiving every conceivable form of govt assistance, the logical thing to do would be:

1 - get the unit, (on either mom OR pop (if you know who that might be)) fixed.(prolly won't co$t much...y'all welcome, that's something I wouldn't mind helping to finance...)

2 - practice some other form of birth control ( I happen to know that this option is available at little or NO cost through various organizations, such as planned parenthood or community health (MUCH cheaper for those of us paying the bills than another mouth to feed, clothe, educate, etc)

OR...

3 - keep popp'n em' out every 10-11 months, thereby insuring a continuous flow of free $ until the last one is "out da house", & the aged "hoo-hoo" won't put bread on the table no more.

To say that you (anyone in disagreement) & i see things differently would be a safe bet, & that's OK by me...you're still one of my VX brethren &/or sistren...

Stigmatizing poverty?...yeah, you got me...... I AM poverty, with no freebies.
Why NO...I don't have cable, a cel phon, or food stamps. I use as many coopn's as I can get my hands on to reduce the grocery bill...wonder how many "on the dole" use coopn's... Got any stats on that?

And this is not to brag, just fact...I do my be$t to give back, by shopping at/donating excess items to thrift stores that benefit childrens organizations (dakota boys & girls ranch)
And LENDING money to friends/co-workers who might not be in as good a $hape as I currently am. My most recent borrower just repaid 3 franklins, that he borrowed before Christmas, so he could get his heat back on.

Hefty salary... yeh b1tc4es, I'm kick'n it LARGE...

Sorry all, rant over...