Some Form Of Welfare Needs Be Re-Established

I've been unemployed for the last 15 months. I spent every cent I have to get my car fixed, so I could try and get a job in Barre or Montpelier, because in Northfield, the town I live in, there's only waitress and cashier jobs in town, and they won't hire me because I have a bachelor's degree and they figure I'll quit as soon as I can get a better job. There also is no form of public transportation. If you're trapped in Northfield without a car, you're trapped in Northfield.

A few weeks after getting my car fixed, it broke down again, and I have no money to get it fixed. I can't even pay my utilities. I've had to appeal to our local social services to help me so my electricity won't be cut-off. I'm about to try to appeal to the local churches to help me, [since that's the advice United Way gave me after telling me they couldn't help me, either,] to help me get my car fixed, so I can get to where the jobs are I might get hired for. I tried to apply for unemployment, but since I held a job for two months after I quit the job I had for 8 years they insisted I could only get unemployment for the job I worked for two months, which makes no sense. You have to be employed at least three months to even be eligible to collect unemployment. The only aid I qualify for is food stamps and health care [which for some reason doesn't include getting eye glasses, which I need]. If you need eye glasses you have to hope the Lion's Club will help you to purchase them or go without. And that's basically what the federal government has done by abolishing welfare as we knew it.

In the old welfare that we knew I could have applied for some kind of benefits and been able to pay my utilities and save some extra to get my car fixed, then I would hopefully get a job and get off welfare. I understand why the government wanted to abolish it. A lot of people were abusing the system, in particular the welfare mothers who kept pumping out kid after kid to increase the benefits they got so they wouldn't have to work for a living. Well, you want to know the irony in this new system that took it place? The welfare mother's are still getting benefits. The ones that got cut off from a free lunch are the people who are single without children. You know, the ones who weren't abusing the system in the first place? Basically, as far as our government is concerned if you're single without children you can go lay out in the gutter and die. They'll just step over your corpse on their way to their luxury car as they go bail out another bank. But who is bailing out the single person who has been left blowing in the wind without any financial help when they can't get a job in this economy? That answer is no one.

When the government abolished welfare the economy was in a different place than it is now. We had a government surplus and things were going well. The same can't be said about the economy these days. Part of the problem is the government is trying to be the Little Dutch Boy and sticking their finger in a hole to patch a leak instead of fixing the problem. Our economy is based on people buying things and if you're out of work you can't buy anything. The government needs to develop new ways to make money that don't involve buying goods. And, unfortunately, that average person who is unemployed and isn't getting any kind of aid, can't do what the president did, and just increase your debt limit. We have to deal with the reality of our situations and suffer the consequences when we can't pay our bills. That's either ending up homeless or living in a home without any electricity because you can't pay the bill.

It's nice Obama is so involved in the healthcare issue, but there are a bigger and more important issues. Like what about the people that can't even afford to pay for their basic needs? How about concentrating on that. It's not even a topic you hear being discussed like it doesn't exist.

Years ago I remember viewing a documentary on Jamaica. They showed all the expensive hotels, but beyond the hotels and resorts were the slums. I feel like that's the direction the United States is heading in if they don't start addressing the real problems in this country.

They need to re-establish the welfare system for everyone, not just single mothers. It also needs to become a multi-step program, that includes education and job programs and employment services to help people find jobs so that the welfare is a temporary situation until they can become employed. Of course, I'm sure the argument against it by the politicians is they simply don't have enough money to pay benefits to those in need of help. Maybe they could if all these elected officials had to take a 50% pay cut.

Take Obama, for instance. He's living in a house he doesn't have to pay rent or mortgage payments on. I'm sure utilities and food are included in that. Aren't all his bills picked up by the federal government? So why does he need to also receive a fat inflated paycheck to go along with that? Most people survive just fine on $30,000 a year, if they're lucky enough to make that much. Why do these politicians need such inflated paychecks? The government cries poverty but the politicians are still taking home their fat paychecks. It's the same as these corporations crying poverty who got bailed out and took big bonuses for themselves out of the bail-out money. It's disgusting when you think of all the poor people in this country just struggling to make ends meet.

And what about the gross amounts of money being donated to political campaigns? Want to bet these rich fat-cats don't give a tenth of what they donate to a presidential election to charities that could help the poor? Who won't think twice about out-sourcing jobs to another country and putting Americans out of work if it means they can save a buck.

The key to solving the problems with our economy don't lie with the rich fat cats. It lies in helping the poor find jobs and make a decent living. It's the poor who buy all the goods that the rich fat cats manufacture. And the first step to helping the poor is re-establishing the welfare system, because if the poor can't even afford to pay their utility bills, they sure can't afford to buy your goods and keep this economy going.