[Vision2020] Welfare Queens

[No Weatherman]

Donald:

You're right.

I'm going to start calling them "ACORN Queens."



On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 1:52 PM, donald edwards
<donaledwards at hotmail.com> wrote:
> We could end welfare if we really wanted to but it doesn't even appear to be
> as much of a drain on our budget as Wall Street bailouts and wars for oil.
>
> Some Facts:
>
> By 1973, 75% of magazine pictures featured African Americans as the face of
> welfare, despite African Americans making up only 35% of welfare recipients.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen
>
>
>
> Religions groups such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
> Day Saints and the Peoples Temple have been accused of bringing in a great
> deal of money by taking the welfare checks of their members.[citation
> needed]
>
> Welfare Facts
>
> 5 % of the U.S. population is on public assistance
> 1% of the federal budget is devoted to welfare or public assistance for the
> poor. Yet Aid to Families with Dependent Children was the only government
> entitlement program politicians sought to reform.
> 12 % of the federal budget is devoted to welfare for the middle class and
> wealthy in the form of tax credits, no interest mortgages, home investment
> incentives.
> Under the guise of aiding poor women's choice, Norplant and Depo-Provera
> have been pushed on poor women as a way of controlling poverty.
> 34.9% of female headed households live in poverty.
>
> Despite these facts, welfare continues to be a highly contested political
> topic. The National Welfare Rights Union is against the Work First welfare
> reform policies in Michigan. It forces women to work at least 20 hours per
> week even if they have young children, no skills, no transportation. Even
> though the Work First program provides transportation, child care, and
> clothing expenses because being a mother is already a full-time job. It is
> forced labor and does not provide for education so women can move out of
> poverty.
>
> Minimum wage is not a living wage and most of these jobs do not provide
> benefits.Welfare rights are human rights. What good is welfare reform if it
> does not provide the basic necessities: food, shelter, and clothing?
>
> Understanding the "myths" surrounding welfare and communicating them to
> others in the community, can begin the process towards open, honest, policy
> discussions.
>
>
>
> Five Major Welfare Myths Myth #1: The typical welfare recipient is a black
> inner city single mother.
>
> The Census Bureau's most recent annual poverty report found that urban black
> mothers constitute less than one out of six of all poor households. Rural
> white families account for more--one out of five. White surburban families
> accountfor even more--one out of four.
>
> Myth #2: The poor are lazy.
>
> Forty percent of poor adults work, although many cannot find full time jobs.
> Indeed, even when they do they may still be in poverty. Some 11 million jobs
> in 1991 paid less than $11,500, $2,000 under the official poverty level for
> a family of four. Of those poor adults who don't work, 90 percent fall into
> the following categories: 22 percent are disabled, 17 percent are in school,
> 21 percent are elderly retirees, 31 percent have family responsibilities.
>
> Myth #3: Welfare mothers breed welfare daughters.
>
> Two long term studies reported by the House Ways and Means Committee in 1992
> found that only about one in five daughters of "highly welfare dependent"
> mothers themselves become highly dependent on welfare. The rest rely on
> welfare sporadically or not at all.
>
> Myth #4: Throwing people off the welfare rolls will eventually improve their
> lives and save taxpayers money.
>
> The most celebrated experiment in welfare reform has occurred in Michigan.
> Governor Engler completely eliminated his state's $240 million General
> Assistance(GA) payments to 83,000 childless, able bodied adults.Only 8
> percent of these former GA recipients found employment and they earn
> an average of only $120 a week. Many sell blood for $20 a pint. Over one
> third lost their homes when the program ended. As one study notes, if only 5
> percent of these former GA recipients end up in prison or a state
> psychiatric institution all the taxpayer savings from ending General
> Assistance will be lost.
>
> Myth #5: Welfare is cheaper than creating well paying public jobs.
>
> In his book "Securing the Right to Employment", Philip Harvey calculates
> that in 1986 we could have achieved full employment by creating l0.4 million
> public service jobs. He further assumed that the average annual wage would
> be $13,000. The cost of such a program would have been a daunting $142
> billion. But when we deduct from this sum the taxes that would be paid by
> these new workers and the savings from drastically reduced unemployment
> insurance payments, welfare , Medicaid, food stamps and other expenditures
> directly linked to low income and unemployment overall we would have spent
> $13 billion less. A full employment program, even excluding the social
> savingsfrom reduced family violence, more stable communities, and less
> crime, pays for itself in reduced welfare expenditures.
>
> If we can overcome these five myths about welfare we may well engage in a
> national dialogue with meaningful results, not only for the one in five
> Americans who now live in poverty, but for the nation as a whole. But this
> will occur only when we challenge and overcome the welfare myths that
> paralyze our thinking.
>
>
>
>
>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:47:15 -0700
>> From: "No Weatherman" <no.weatherman at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Obama cancels interview with a Free (not in
>> the tank) Press
>> To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>> Message-ID:
>> <28a621640810260647n29968cd4x8d40f340d9550217 at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>> Chas:
>>
>> Ummmm.
>>
>> It's always easier to play poker with someone else's chips.
>>
>> Someday, if you're ever rakin in the dough, you'll resent the
>> government confiscating your hard earned money to finance crackheads
>> and welfare queens.
>>
>>
>> On 10/25/08, Chasuk <chasuk at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 17:07, No Weatherman <no.weatherman at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's comment, to Joe the Plumber,
>> > > about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama
>> > > isn't being a Marxist with the "spreading the wealth" comment.
>> >
>> >
>> > We already spread the wealth. It's called taxes. Obama is merely
>> > proposing spreading the wealth more equitably.
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>
>
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