On Mar 23, 1:04*am, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
"Gordon Shumway" wrote:
I got this email tonight and it pretty much says how I feel about
this
"Sea Change" that you think is so wonderful.

snip

Gave you a chance to practice your "Cut_And_Paste" skills, I see.

Lew


Whoa, Lew. Pretty low blow. There was a lot of truth in that
letter. I, too, am sick and tired of of working my arse off and too
many people who don't give a hoot taking my money from me. Sure, they
are in the form of taxes that everybody (who works!) pays and I am not
upset in the least in helping a guy who is down and out. But I expect
that guy to eventually get off his butt and start contributing to the
society we both live in. Now I am SURE you can come up with extreme
cases where that will never be possible. I am not talking about the
fringes, where I fear too many people now look to find their
examples. I am talking about the mass of people who are in the middle
of the bell curve who ARE physically AND mentally able to work.

I remember talking to a (*gasp!*) black man at my last job. We were
quite close as while we worked at the same place. We would take long
walks at lunch time and I would grill him about many things. He is
about 12-15 years older than I am and he was in his early 20's when
all of the civil rights demonstrations were going on. He told me what
it was like living in public housing. He said that his father
(imagine that: his father and mother stayed together and both raised a
family together)..his father had to swallow his pride and he moved his
family into public housing whenever Marty was a young boy. He said
that the idea behind public housing was to help families who were down
and out get a firm grip on life again and they were expected to MOVE
OUT. Another thing that was expected was that these peopel would take
care of the house they were given and made sure to keep it and the
surrounding property neat and clean. And they DID. I think he said
they lived there for three or four years and they DID move out. His
father got steady work and while they were never what you could ever
call rich, they got out of public housing into an apartment and,
eventually, into a small house on Pittsburgh's North Side.

He indicated that all public assistant programs were based upon the
theory that the people who receive the assistance will receive it
TEMPORARILY but an unintended consequence was that people started to
think they were ENTITLED to this assistance and used it as a crutch
and now several generations deep, these families are still sucking
from the system and giving absolutely nothing back to it.

There were a lot more things we talked about and he opened my eyes a
lot to a time before I was born and a time when I was just a little
kid who knew nothing about the adult world. If my money were used to
fund people who could not afford to pay for one reason or another,
okay. I have no problem with that, as long as that person is
appreciative and it helps them become a contributing member of OUR
society.

The bottom line is that for every example of somebody who is getting
screwed and losing everything because of medical problems, we can
probably find FIFTY or more examples of people who are abusing the
public assistance programs that are already in place. Clean out the
garbage that is abusing the system that we have already established
and you will find more than enough money to fund this health care bill
AND to reduce taxes for every American.