My issue with government assistance

Absolutely.
I have no issues with those who really need assistance, but it really sticks in my craw that there are self inflicted condtions (substance addiction, alcoholism, obesity to an extent) that will qualify a person for a monthly check.

"It is the fact that people, in general, have no drive to "do something better" with their life.  They take life as it comes and make excuses why it's not better."
I shall give you the benefit of the doubt that this is not a mere generalization but a very thoroughly researched premise.

Doctors diagnosed me with being bipolar as a teenager. Although I really doubt that's the case, is there any way that I could make free money off it? If so, then by golly, I'm bipolar!

I have two very opposite reactions to your piece.

First of all, I agree with your narrow point that the term "disability" has gotten out of hand. One of the achievements of modern times has been increased sensitivity towards (and utilization of) those with major disabilities. However, the broad consensus to move in this direction was never intended to include many of the things now enshrined. A simple example: parents of a student who misbehaves in school or does not like to do schoolwork can now shop around for a doctor willing to certify that the problem is a disability. Thereupon, the school is legally bound to provide "compensatory services" which often amount to exempting the student from responsibilities that most children dislike, but which the particular student is just not particularly good at. Truth be told, a "learning disability" has little scientific measurability -- it is just a discrepancy between ability and performance. (Don't even get me going on how ability is measured.) You don't have to be an expert to know that there are many reasons for a discrepancy between ability and performance other than a true disability. The result is a lose-lose situation: the public pays more for schooling, and the child learns to see himself as disabled. (Next time you feel like ranting about rising costs of schooling, do some research on the percentage of the rise in school costs that can be attributed to the growth of special education.)

On the other hand, I also feel that your article follows the usual track of attacking unnecessary expenditures on the poorest part of our society while saying little about the same, or more flagrant, abuses by those in the upper strata. Our tax laws are heavily laden with perks for rich individuals, while businesses receive massive assistance with little regard for true need. For a highly visible example, just look at the public money used to build stadiums for professional sports teams, which certainly do not need your money and mine to make a fair profit. And in many cases, the effect on private enterprise is just as damaging as the effect on poor individuals -- companies become dependent on handouts and continue doing business in ways that are counterproductive, because they are receiving funds to do so.

Personally, I try to think of the situations as evenly as possible. I want to see the needs of the truly needy met, and I want business to do well so as to provide jobs and products. In a perfect world, we would identify with accuracy who needs what and provide it. But this is not a perfect world, and I would probably prefer to err on the generous side in both cases rather than experience the consequences of the opposite -- but I really do not want either to get too out of hand in the excesses.

My family has a history with obesity and type II diabetes. It is an appealing thing to blame your problems on others. When asked why I have a weight problem, I could blame it on genetics. Tests of my metabolism would back that up. Why do I really have a weight problem? I eat too much and don't exercise enough. I do have to work harder at losing weight than others but it is my decision whether or not to do it. I have decided it is worth it to do something about it now so that I don't get to a point where I risk diabetes or other health problems associated with being over weight. If I decide not to do anything about it, I have noone to blame but myself.

I am giving this example because I know it holds true with other respects. You can sit around and say "poor me, I have it so much harder than other people" or you can do something to change your situation. Do some people have it harder than others? Absolutely. Is it right to expect everyone to have a level playing field? Absolutely not. There will always be Haves and Have Nots. You can transition from one to another depending on the decisions you make in life.

Don, I don't follow your example with sports stadiums. Is "public money" the same as tax money ? I keep hearing about tax shelters for businesses. I have been a failure at finding them for our business. We even pay a CPA to find them but to no avail. I don't see the tax law perks for the rich so I disagree personally that they are more flagrant since I have seen first hand many abuses from the other end. When will the rich be paying enough in taxes? When they pay 70% of the taxes? 80%? They are already paying over half. I guess I come from the stance that it doesn't make sense to penalize the contributors of society to benefit the noncontributors. Now before everyone jumps all over that, I am not saying that we should not give assistance to the needy. I just think that the extent of assistance and the percent of which is expected from the top 5% income bracket is not warranted.

The problem with BPD, OCD, and chemical depression is that 1) people who have them, don't want to admit they have them and so won't take their drugs and 2) people with drug seeking behaviors often want to be diagnosed with them in order to receive the drugs that have mood altering properties.

Super Baby, if you have been diagnosed you should definitely get a second opinion, but since the disorder can be harmful to yourself and others you should at least go in to a psychologist to find out why that doctor thought you had BPD.

Cheers

Just to add another thing about my mom -- not only did my mom manage to take care of myself and her on minimum wage without welfare, she did so with MS (multiplescelerosis) which she still has today.

She could have qualified for both disability and welfare. But she didn't. She chose to take the harder road and empower herself.

I think the problem with your thinking Brad isn't that you believe it's a wonderful thing that people can do it on their own, because it is, but you think that no one should have the help available for them. We need to change the way society thinks, so that they do acomplish things on their own, but there were probably medications which your mother could have gotten for MS which would have prevented, or at least helped prevent relapses. Those medicines are expensive and I for one would not have minded dishing out the money for her to get them.

Cheers

jeblackstar, you need to learn more about MS and autoimmune diseases if you think that there is much they can do to "help" it.  Most treatments for autoimmune diseases end up harming you more in the long run that the disease itself does.  The only time that they usually even "treat" you is when there is main organ involvement or a concern of stroke.  Otherwise, they treat the symptoms as the symptoms are not the same.

How can you treat somebody who wakes up blind for no reason, or has lost use of half their body?  It may last a few hours, a few weeks, a few months- nobody knows.

There are two ways that people live with their life altering disease/disability:
1) They let it define them
or
2) They live beyond it

The easy route is to let it define you.  To let it become who you are and live with limitations.  Too many people live that way, but they don't need to.  Brad's Mom is an example of #2.  She lived beyond it.  It's part of her, but it is not "her".  She decided not to take the "easy" road.

jeb, I have never seen Brad even elude to not wanting to assist the needy. I don't think anyone here has. I just think we are all fed up with both the way the assistance is distributed and the mindset of those who abuse the help.

jeblackstar, you need to learn more about MS and autoimmune diseases if you think that there is much they can do to "help" it. Most treatments for autoimmune diseases end up harming you more in the long run that the disease itself does. The only time that they usually even "treat" you is when there is main organ involvement or a concern of stroke. Otherwise, they treat the symptoms as the symptoms are not the same.

There are drugs which can reduce the frequency and duration of the relapse. I have a family member with MS, so yes, I know they exist. I did not say there were drugs which would cure it, since most Autoimmune diseases are incurable. My statement did not say anything bad about Brad's mother, in fact, and I don't know how old Brad or his mother is, but it's possible that most of the drugs they are using now to treat the symptoms of MS did not exist at the time.

Brad's statement seemed to me to be saying that no one should be taking help from the government, something he has said before Jill when he insisted on cutting out all social welfare programs, he's done it in his blog on the breakdown of the federal budget, and several other places. I have no problem with his mother not taking government aid, in fact I say, "Good for her". I even recognize there are a good numbe of people on social government welfare programs who are abusing the system. There are a lot of them, however, who are on it for temporary periods of time. I personally know several people who have been on welfare for periods less than six months after being laid off in order to pay the bills till they got a new job. These are often people with houses and cars. I know Brad lived in a crappy apartment when he was a kid, but for those people who had decent jobs and were "let go" it's not possible to leave the things they havepurchased, like a car or a house. Believe it or not, after Clinton's welfare reforms the "welfare mothers" and mena and women who are drug addicts on the welfare system has dropped substantially, you can find that info on the DHS website. There is an increasing trend, and I saw this as a lawyer for people to go on "disability" and I believe this is a terrible thing, of course, except in cases of extreme proven physical or mental disability, your tax dollars don't pay for it. Usually those people who are disabled are being paid off by the company, factory, etc. that they used to work for.

In order to make the substantive changes to welfare and even corporate disability programs we need to change the way society works. Welfare should be viewed as a temporary measure, people should be motivated to find jobs, the government should encourage job growth and make education better available.

Unfortunately the first two things will not happen without a drastic change in society's attitude, the third has clearly not been helped by dubya's tax cuts because the estimated 2.6 million jobs that he wants are lagging far behind schedule. The last point, of which I care a great deal about, will not happen unless more money is provided to schools. Public school teachers, on average, make less than half what they could make in other fields. Is it any wonder we get so few, and as others have pointed out, so poor quality educators in our K-12 system? The only thing that makes being a professor worthwhile is book sales, otherwise we too are drastically underpaid.

Karma, Jill, and Brad, I respect that you disagree with my position on a lot of things, I hope the above has provided a clear view of my personal beliefs.

Cheers

Jeb said: I think the problem with your thinking Brad isn't that you believe it's a wonderful thing that people can do it on their own, because it is, but you think that no one should have the help available for them.

I'm surprised that you would say this. It's a pretty weak strawman argument. Not only have I never implied that "no one" should have help available to them I have explicitly stated that I support a social safety net.

What I object to is how easy it is to get on that safety net.  But your strawman argument is nothing compared to what you say next:

but there were probably medications which your mother could have gotten for MS which would have prevented, or at least helped prevent relapses

There is no treatment or cure for MS. There is no way of preventing it. I don't have MS so I'm only mildly outraged by such a blithe statement. But if someone with MS were to see this, I suspect they'd be quite offended.  You should have looked into MS a little bit before saying something like that. There is no effective treatment for MS at any cost.

My mom would wake up unable to move the right side of her body. Or another time she might be blind. Or another time she couldn't move her legs. What "medicine" do you think there is to treat that? The only way they can even fully verify she has MS is with an MRI.

There are drugs which can reduce the frequency and duration of the relapse. I have a family member with MS, so yes, I know they exist. I did not say there were drugs which would cure it, since most Autoimmune diseases are incurable. My statement did not say anything bad about Brad's mother, in fact, and I don't know how old Brad or his mother is, but it's possible that most of the drugs they are using now to treat the symptoms of MS did not exist at the time.

Feel free to name these drugs you speak of and when they came out. If there are any that treat the SYMPTOMS of it they'd have to be pretty new. Certainly too new to have made a difference for her when I was 4 years old and she was trying to get food, clothing, and shelter for us on her own.

I understand where you're coming from Jeb, but some of your words reflect an almost knee-jerk reaction to conservatives -- if we don't fully support your views on welfare, then we must be in favor of throwing them out on the streets or exterminating them.  I know you don't mean that but that's the crux of your argument. Even though I've said over and over that I believe in having a safety net. But I want people who receive aid to 1) acknowledge that it is charity/welfare and 2) I want it to be limited to those who really have problems and not to people who are simply unable and unwilling to overcome relatively minor obstacles in life.

My mom's disability was certainly a lot less treatable than say bi-polar disorder (which is much more treatable) or say a phobia that makes you afraid to leave your home. But she percervered. She could have gone on disability, but she chose not to.

I know it makes people feel warm and fuzzy about themselves to want to show compassion for EVERYONE. But in the real world, someone has to foot the bill for that "compassion" and it's rarely the people who argue so strenuously for it. The survival instinct usually trumps a great number of personal problems.  Some peple are better than others. I know that's ot politically correct but it's true.  My mom is better than the person in the same situation who simply surrendered and became a ward of the state.

MS, like most autoimmune diseases can only be treated if you have the same occurrence of symptoms.  There is no such thing as a "relapse" as the symptoms change all the time (hence why they are so hard to diagnose).  The best you can do is hope that you can prevent a flare up of the disease and treat the things that will cause that flare up.

Usually those people who are disabled are being paid off by the company, factory, etc. that they used to work for.

Where does that money come from?  It comes from insurance that the company has to pay.  The higher the insurance, the more the company has to pay which means the less people they can afford to pay.  There is a "big picture" to that scenario, too.  But, there are *a lot* of people that are on disability that didn't get that way because of injury.  Please read about the SSD requirements.  Dharmagrl found out the truth about it and wrote an article about it.

 

I take the name "relapse" from the most common form of the disease, "relapsing, remitting", which means the person will suffer the symptoms and then, usually, recover. As for treatments, Interferon beta 1-a, has shown, in clinical studies, and actual use to prevent or reduce the number and frequencies of "relapses". One of it's more common names is "Rebif". I have said, repeatedly, there is NO CURE for MS, there are some treatments however. In fact there is a promising new study that takes a look at the actual cause of MS, which, states, unlike previously thought, that MS is not an autoimmune disease at all. The study is in the early stages, so they aren't saying what does cause it, but they have been examening patients that died during or shortly after an attack. Their mylien sheaths lack the macrophages typically found in an autoimmune attack. So, yes, I actually do know a little about the disease Brad and Karma, my twelve year old nephew has it, and I hope that he lives long enough for them to find a real cure, but with the Interferons he's been without an attack for over a year.

Karma, I'm a lawyer, I know how people get on disability, I've even defended companies that were being sued by people who didn't meet the requirements. I know how bad and corrupt the disability system is. My posts have never defended disability payments, EVER. But, I would like people such as yourself to recognize that disability payments do not come out of your taxes, as some of the rants I've seen imply or outright state.

Brad, from your response, I may have been too, to borrow your phrase, "knee-jerk"ing about my response, I apologize. It seems that perhaps our views on social welfare are not too different, just varying on how the funding should come about and not on how it should be used.

If anyone has been offended by my comments on MS, I invite them to tell me, I have not meant to blithely cast the disease aside, as I find it very terrible, both to the affected and their family. I have repeatedly said there are NO CURES for MS, but there are some treatments which seem to offer hope.

Cheers

I'm going to derail the "MS" discussion at this point as it is really taking my article off course as it's not a discussion of diseases.  Back the point- people use their "disability" as an excuse.    SSD *is* a government program that is abused by many.  There are also many people on SSD that are on it because it is *easier* than trying to do something more productive. A previous quote of mine:

There are two ways that people live with their life altering disease/disability:
1) They let it define them
or
2) They live beyond it

Agreed.

I don't think SSD should be eliminated however since there are people who are on it who are on it for legitimate reasons. I believe there should be better regulation, and perhaps hiring of more employees so they can check up on those people who are abusing the system.

Once again, your belief is, and if I'm restating to simply please let me know, that since some people abuse the system we should eliminate it, and my belief is that some people abuse the system, and they should be eliminated from the system, but the system itself should be maintained for those people who really need it.

Cheers

No, I don't think it should be eliminated.  I think that it (and welfare for all that matters) should be taken back to its roots.

SSD should be for people who can't work anywhere.  People who are so disabled that there is no job that they can qualify for or be trained for.  (I much rather pay to train somebody to do a different job than to have somebody be non-productive in society).  

Welfare should go back to what it was- bare survival.  "Food Stamps" should allow you to buy food staples from the government store so that you won't starve.  "standard of living" shouldn't play a part.  It should provide enough to keep you alive until you can fend for yourself.

I have a beef with SS to begin with.  SSD just adds to my beef.

Alrighty then, it appears as if we to share common ground. Again, my apologies if I painted you with too broad a liberal brush.

It seems then as if my arguement with both you, Karma, and Brad is over taxes, and well, I can live with having that be our sole arguement.

Cheers

I've said privately that if I were to take an extended leave, Jeb, I would want to put you in charge of the site. So even though we disagree on some issues, you always put forth a very rational, civilized, and often (unfortunately for my side) lethal argument.

Well thanks Brad, that's the nicest thing I've been told all day.

Cheers

Don, I don't follow your example with sports stadiums.

I'm uncertain as to what you are questioning.

A sports team is a business. Why should my tax money go to support it, by building a new stadium, so that this company can improve its profits? If, like the city of Green Bay, the team is owned by the public, so profits then repay the stadium outlay, then I get it. But why is a wealthy corporation getting to use my tax money, otherwise?

In my mind, this is very similar to giving money to individuals whose neediness is questionable.

A similar example would be the new mall going up down the road. The businesses receive a ten year exemption from paying property taxes. he plus side to this for the community is that we get more jobs and stores. The negative side is that local costs go up as sewage and traffic patterns change, and so the local citizens must now pay higher taxes. Further, the new jobs are mostly offset by competing businesses down the road declining and/or going under -- creating empty storefronts and lowering nearby property values. This assistance for the new businesses was just as unnecessary as the assistance for the marginally disabled, yet this kind of thing is far less noticed.

Small businesses pay a *ton* of taxes.  There is a difference in exempting a business from property taxes (which is really a small bit of their overall taxes) and giving money to somebody.  The new businesses also bring cash flow into your community.  You say that they compete with established businesses.  Competition is only bad when you can't compete.  I don't know what state you live in, but most state schools are funded mainly by sales tax revenues.  The poorer the economy, the less money for your state schools. 

Sport stadiums are partially funded by taxes in Michigan (and we have quite a few of them) but they are also mainly funded by the sponsor.  The stadiums also serve as a place for other community functions, not just for the sports team to play.  It also provides jobs and tourism, which brings more money into the community.

You really can't compare sport stadiums and government assistance.

Karma, when Brad took me to task concerning my comment to you on the "Sherye" blog, I realize that one can't be too careful when not knowing the history of a fellow blogger. Again I apologize for lumping you with the arrogance of an existentialist not accounting for so many without the wherewithal to make something of themselves. You, obviously did take on the true spirit of existentialism and heroically succeeded. Keep up your magnificently spirited karma.

You really can't compare sport stadiums and government assistance.

I could not disagree more.

Business conservatives hate the comparison because they take the rather arrogant view that what is good for them is good for everyone. Truth be told, the same could be said for government assistance to the needy; practically 100% of the money goes right back into the economy. (It is the dirty secret of the history of public assistance that much of the reason for its existence is to prevent damage to the general economy that results when spending goes down. As you posted originally, such assistance is often counterproductive for the recipients but rarely so for the local economy.)

Further, when you excuse someone from their normal share of taxes, you are giving them money. If the five furniture stores along the road each have to pay X number of dollars in property tax, but the sixth one does not due to its going into a new mall, you have given that store X dollars. They are being provided with the local services paid for by local taxes for free. Free services provided by government is government assistance.

As to competition only being bad when you can't compete... I can understand why the older furniture stores would resent competition which does not have the same overhead that they have. But that is not my main point. My main point is that there is not much additional cash flow for the community if the new store simply takes away customers from other stores. In effect, you and I pay a larger local tax load so that local services can be provided for free in order that some businessman will have a built in advantage over some older business, typically resulting in deserted storefronts.

And I don't know about Michagan, but here in New York property taxes are high enough that businesses complain plenty and threaten to leave. I assume that if they would move over the issue, it is worthwhile to be exempted from the cost.