The government took steps Tuesday to highlight the increasing numbers of poor Americans, adopting a revised formula that is expected to double the number of older people classified as living in poverty to nearly 1 in 5.
Under the new formula, overall poverty is expected to increase from 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million people, to 15.8 percent, or 47.4 million, mostly due to rising expenses from medical care and other factors.
Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Hey, maybe YOU'LL qualify! Wouldn't that be great?
With the potential to add more older Americans to the ranks of the poor, the numbers may underscore a need for continued – if not expanded – old-age benefits as a government safety net.
These socialist manipulators seek to add more people to the welfare rolls, and convince them that their very existence depends upon the goodwill of their elected "representitives", thus insuring their infestation keeps skittering along behind the baseboards of our Republic.
So what is "poor"? What is "living in poverty"? Unlike many of these Obamabot social "workers", I've witnessed what "poor" is. Poor is a reservation family living in a mud hut with no running water and no electricity. Poor is a family living under a bridge overpass and cooking rodents over an open fire.
If you have a real roof over your head, heat in the winter, a shirt on your back, and food to eat, you are NOT poor. Your basic needs are being met.
If you have a car, a television set, and electricity, you are RICH, not poor.
On an every day basis, Americans should take care of one another, and each of us should strive to care for those among us who cannot care for themselves. This is not a function of government. It is the solemn duty of our churches and civic groups at the local level. That being said, I would entertain the thought of some type of governmental "safety net" for dire circumstances (such as people starving in the streets).
Of course, the definition of poverty is a subjective assessment. The above is MY opinion of "poor". What's yours? How do you feel about the current government manipulating poverty figures? Should we empower our federal government to provide a "safety net" for individual citizens, and if so, when should that "safety net" be activitated?
I'm with you, lady red. One of my children's friends is on the lunch program at school - he gets breakfast and lunch for free.
ReplyDeleteHe also has a nintendo ds, a psp, a wii at home attached to their flat screen tv, cable with all the movie channels, and complains in my house because I keep the heat "too cold" (I keep my thermostat at 68 in the winter).
I don't understand, I really don't.
Please feel free to dive right in! I value what you all think....
ReplyDeleteAFW, exactly! Your example is all too common these days.
ReplyDeleteVery nice, lady red, thank you. I think you picked the exact right word when you said "INFESTING".
ReplyDeleteBO is very clever. It's all about public image and hubris, screw what the public actually WANTS.
And yes, I'm pissed off.
I'm pissed off too, florrie. I see the abuses EVERY DAY. While times were good and money was flowing, we all grimaced and looked the other way. Now that finances are tight, we taxpayers are counting pennies, trimming our budgets to the quick, and eating beans while "poor" people maintain their subsidized standard of living. Now they want to add MORE people to the dole roll? Oh, hell no.
ReplyDeleteAlso someting they do not point out: Welfare that orignates with the Federal Government, and many other wlefare sources as well, do not count as income when determining if someone lives below the poverty level. The Feds could give every man, woman, and child currently living below the poverty level $100,000 a year -- and they would still be considered as living below the poverty level.
ReplyDeleteI understand the reason for figuring it that way, but everyone needs to remember that things are figured that way.
If many of these people actually had to live in "poverty," then they would do their damndest to do, on their own, whatever it took to not be poor.
Our last Liberal (read Socialist) government tried to do this in Canada a few years ago. It's called moving the goalposts.
ReplyDeleteThankfully our last two consecutive minority Conservative governments put an end to that crap.