Thread: Wal-Mart Working Conditions

Originally Posted by CatchyUsername

Bro Tom.....the poor already, generally speaking, get back THOUSANDS of dollars every year when they file their federal tax returns, literally many times what I could ever dream of getting back, due to claiming dependents. I know a lady who said that her cousin who is on welfare with 3-4 children, and a husband who works sporadically, literally gets back $10,000 per year, and she pays no federal income taxes. Does she take that $10,000 per year, and put it towards her child's education? No. Does she take that $$$ and get job training? No. According to my friend, she gets flat screen tv's and other tech gadgets.

See, this is the thing I think you and other well-meaning socialists forget, and please don't get offended. Where I think you and other progressives miss it is that you are educated, have a good job, and want to help the poor. I find this a noble and honorable thing. But because very few of you actually live among the poor, and see their day-to-day lives, you do not accurately access the root of the problem, for the most part. Money management, drug addiction, family cohesion, lack of proper job skills, etc....are at the root of it all, with the spiritual component the most important thing of all.

The fact of the matter is this. Illegals have been using stolen SS#s for YEARS and claiming dependents on their tax returns (dependents that live overseas and probably completely fictitious) and many of them get back $10-$12,000 a year as well. This has been investigated and guess what? Our government knows about this and still allows it.

So what I'm saying is this. The poor get PLENTY of benefits. They don't NEED anymore. They need spiritual help, self-awareness, job skills, etc....they don't need one more darned thing from the government. Again, I believe you mean well, but you and other progressives live in the land of theory, and because you don't actually live in these poorer neighborhoods, and look at the lives AND tax returns of these poor people you want to help so desperately, all that happens is that the taxpayer just keeps getting slammed with paying for all of the freebies and HUGE tax refunds poor people get (people with children or dependents, anyway).

We don't need to "help" the poor anymore. There are literally dozens of programs that help them.

That says it all!

*Sigh*

I wish there was a way to separate the "poor" people who game the system as you described above, from the working poor who are genuinely trying to do the best they can, but they still can't make ends meet.

Those are the poor people who I don't mind my tax dollars going to in order to "assist" them either with Food Stamps, Job Training, Free Childcare, Section 8 Housing, etc.

What frustrates me to no end is (as Catchy said) the government is fully aware of the abuse, yet seemingly nothing is done to kick the bums off the welfare rolls - I also agree with helping the physically and mentally disadvantaged...

But those that are lazy and able-bodied and mentally sharp enuf to fraud the system? I say cut their "benefits," and I bet they find a job or move in with relatives.

Of course, some of them will turn to crime, but lock them up and don't make jail or prison in the least bit comfortable for them, and maybe when and if they get out, they will have learned a lesson.

I know Jesus said, "The poor we will have with us always," but I think he was talking about the "true" widows and orphans that we (the Church) should help - Not, the slackers!

To be honest, I don't really blame the people, even if they scam the system or are lazy. They've been "taught" by the government, after all. When I mentioned my friend whose cousin gets back LITERALLY $10,000 per year even when she pays no federal income taxes.....I don't blame her at all, to be honest. This is a way of life, and a life that she has come to expect. What she does is not illegal. "Welfare to work" was signed into law back in the 90s, and it seems to have had no effect whatsoever. And depending upon the state you live in, you could receive up to the equilvalent of $50,000 in cash, food stamps, housing, benefits, etc....including state and federal payments. It just depends on a number of factors.

There are no easy answers, but a "living wage" isn't the answer, and MORE government programs isn't the answer, either. The government cannot change someone's spiritual condition, and never will.

The illegals using fake ss#s with the full knowledge of the IRS is a separate, but related issue, because it shows you just how crazy the entire system is. The bottom line is that the poor (illegals and citizens) have ways of getting money that most progressives wouldn't DREAM about, because progressives live in the land of theory, and not reality. I would bet that njtom and many others have no clue how much the average poor family gets back in taxes, when they pay none in. None....because it's not counted as annual "income". Shucks, I had no clue until my friend told me. I was stunned.

Originally Posted by Romans828

*Sigh*

I wish there was a way to separate the "poor" people who game the system as you described above, from the working poor who are genuinely trying to do the best they can, but they still can't make ends meet.

Those are the poor people who I don't mind my tax dollars going to in order to "assist" them either with Food Stamps, Job Training, Free Childcare, Section 8 Housing, etc.

What frustrates me to no end is (as Catchy said) the government is fully aware of the abuse, yet seemingly nothing is done to kick the bums off the welfare rolls - I also agree with helping the physically and mentally disadvantaged...

But those that are lazy and able-bodied and mentally sharp enuf to fraud the system? I say cut their "benefits," and I bet they find a job or move in with relatives.

Of course, some of them will turn to crime, but lock them up and don't make jail or prison in the least bit comfortable for them, and maybe when and if they get out, they will have learned a lesson.

I know Jesus said, "The poor we will have with us always," but I think he was talking about the "true" widows and orphans that we (the Church) should help - Not, the slackers!

From what I've read and observed, poverty is a problem that can be triggered by a variety of factors: poor choices, bad luck, having alcoholic or drug-addicted parents, medical bills, auto breakdowns, job layoffs, etc. It's a complex problem with numerous causes.

A balanced book on the topic, in my view, is The Working Poor, http://www.amazon.com/Working-Poor-I...e+working+poor.

The working individuals in this book are neither helpless nor omnipotent, but stand on various points along the spectrum between the polar opposites of personal and societal responsibility. Each person's life is the mixed product of bad choices and bad fortune, of roads not taken and roads cut off by the accident of birth of circumstance. It is difficult to find someone whose poverty is not somehow related to his or her unwise behavior - to drop out of school, to have a baby out of wedlock, to do drugs, to be chronically late to work. And it is difficult to find behavior that is not somehow related to the inherited conditions of being poorly parented, poorly educated, poorly housed in neighborhoods from which no distant horizon of possibility can be seen.
...
The poor have less control than the affluent over their private decisions, less insulation from the cold machinery of government, less agility to navigate around the pitfalls of a frenetic world driven by technology and competition. Their personal mistakes have larger consequences, and their personal achievements yield smaller returns.
...
For practically every family, then, the ingredients of poverty are part financial and part psychological, part personal and part societal, part past and part present. Every problem magnifies the impact of the others, and all are so tightly interlocked that one reversal can produce a chain reaction with results far distant from the original cause. A run-down apartment can exacerbate a child's asthma, which leads to a call for an ambulance, which generates a medical bill that cannot be paid, which ruins a credit record, which hikes the interest rate on an auto loan, which forces the purchase of an unreliable used car, which jeopardizes a mother's punctuality at work, which limits her promotions and earning capacity, which confines her to poor housing.

Originally Posted by njtom

From what I've read and observed, poverty is a problem that can be triggered by a variety of factors: poor choices, bad luck, having alcoholic or drug-addicted parents, medical bills, auto breakdowns, job layoffs, etc. It's a complex problem with numerous causes.

A balanced book on the topic, in my view, is The Working Poor, http://www.amazon.com/Working-Poor-I...e+working+poor.

The working individuals in this book are neither helpless nor omnipotent, but stand on various points along the spectrum between the polar opposites of personal and societal responsibility. Each person's life is the mixed product of bad choices and bad fortune, of roads not taken and roads cut off by the accident of birth of circumstance. It is difficult to find someone whose poverty is not somehow related to his or her unwise behavior - to drop out of school, to have a baby out of wedlock, to do drugs, to be chronically late to work. And it is difficult to find behavior that is not somehow related to the inherited conditions of being poorly parented, poorly educated, poorly housed in neighborhoods from which no distant horizon of possibility can be seen.
...
The poor have less control than the affluent over their private decisions, less insulation from the cold machinery of government, less agility to navigate around the pitfalls of a frenetic world driven by technology and competition. Their personal mistakes have larger consequences, and their personal achievements yield smaller returns.
...
For practically every family, then, the ingredients of poverty are part financial and part psychological, part personal and part societal, part past and part present. Every problem magnifies the impact of the others, and all are so tightly interlocked that one reversal can produce a chain reaction with results far distant from the original cause. A run-down apartment can exacerbate a child's asthma, which leads to a call for an ambulance, which generates a medical bill that cannot be paid, which ruins a credit record, which hikes the interest rate on an auto loan, which forces the purchase of an unreliable used car, which jeopardizes a mother's punctuality at work, which limits her promotions and earning capacity, which confines her to poor housing.

Problem Tom is that a lot of the sources you are citing are humanistic in their definition of poverty so leftists basically tend to make it up as they go along. In essence the poverty line becomes whatever they call it.

The bible is clear about what Poverty is ..IE Food, Raiment and Shelter everything else is pretty much a like to have in that context .

For instance you cited "the purchase of an unreliable used car" .. well back before the government got into the business of providing "reliable cars" people constructed their lives in such a way to mitigate such issues. They resided where they could get to work by bus or maintained friendships whereby ride sharing was feasible ..

The so called poverty line is an arbitrary construct whereby people who live better than 95% of the rest of the world are categorized as poor based on the equally arbitrary notion of income equality .

I took a quick look at the link you provided and most of the people in there look pretty well fed . Yes they may work hard to make ends meet but they are neither homeless nor starving. Yes they work hard but they probably don't do the biblically mandated 12 hours a day 6 days a week model of what labor should be (6 days you work on the seventh day you rest) at least for every able bodied man because in America anything more than 40 hours a week is considered cruel by modern humanists thus contributing to the very poverty they claim to seek to eradicate

My advice , stick to biblical definitions not humanistic definitions..

All the best