"Put an end to welfare - They breed like dogs"

[Q]

- "We're tired of them". "Let them starve to death". "They could work if they wanted".

- So says a caller from Oklahoma this morning who is retired and receiving Social Security.

[The Zanti Regent]

1. Does that apply to Coroporate Executives, too?

Probably not...

[snippy]

2. How very republican.

[Skidmore]

4. It's more how very like a member of

generation which survived a horrible depression. It's not an uncommon response among some lower income people of her age group. They continue to be very frugal and to live on cash purchases and not rely on credit. I understand her frustration with our credit dependent society and instant gratification our culture seeks these days. She's scared and people lash out when they are scared. We also do it here sometimes.

[Q]

6. Many have 'lived through the depression'...

...without being so bitter and resentful against other poor people. You shouldn't so easily excuse this type of attitude because it's very common in the Republican party.

[Kanary]

26. Lashing out when scared

The irony, or injustice, is that the very people the caller was complaining about are VERY scared, and if they were to "lash out" at others because they are afraid of losing the only support they have, and are able to get, they would be heavily punished for it.

People who are under the pressure of receiving any kind of assistance are expected to be more "in control" of themselves, and more "mature" than other people. Is it any wonder, then, that there is such a deep, pervasive sense of hopelessness and distrust? Is it any wonder that there is substance abuse among this population? The stress is tremendous, and average, everyday people would be given a pass for acting out under those conditions.

Kanary

[WarNoMore]

41. I hear you, Amen!

nt

[Q]

5. The host let this woman go on and on...

...and she couldn't find enough bad things to say about the 'animals' on welfare. Of course she had absolutely nothing to say about corporate welfare or the wealthy who suckle at the government teat and give nothing in return.

- This is the type of bitter, hateful person the Republican party breeds and counts on to keep them in power.

[snippy]

9. Your last sentence sums up the republican party very well.

[Mel]

3. I heard that

sounded like a bitter old woman that wasted her life filled with hate and fear.

'They' breed like dogs I'm surprised she didn't say the N word you know she wanted to and does.

Foolish old woman doesn't get it, that she's one of 'them'

[Loonman]

7. She on Social Security?

Starve her freeloading ass.

[Solomon]

28. LOL! Loonman strikes again.

Good one.

[Lindacooks]

36. Yeah

Depending on her age, there's a very good chance that SHE'S on welfare. Many older people have already run through the amount of money (plus interest) they 'put in' to Social Security, and are now on welfare, being supported by FICA taxes paid for by people who are employed.

[Mari333]

8. They are using stereotypes propogated

by the Newt crowd...remember when welfare mothers became the scapegoat for everything wrong in this country during that stooooopid welfare reform crap? and everyone ignored CORPORATE welfare. I was so mad when Clinton sucked up to Newt's issue.
My mother doesnt think that way now..she is on Social Security, and she is also Catholic..she watches my sister struggle with 6 kids, and my sisters husband LEFT her because my sister wouldnt kowtow to her controlling husband (who demanded she vote for Bush one day, and she said she wouldnt)
so the stereotype was erased in my moms mind when she saw her OWN kid going thru it.
It often has to hit home...these people dont realize how many people are ONE paycheck away from disaster. They must live in caves on Mars.

[rasputin1952]

10. I listened to that woman as well...

and found it incredible that she could be filled with so much hatred for anyone that might be "different" from what she perceived their lives should be like.

I've worked my entire life, usually doing enough to get by, sometimes actually getting ahead; I've spent a lifetime trying to help others, and usually get nothing in return except a generous feeling of self worth.

OK, now for a reality check for this woman. If, and I believe she is, retired, she is getting a SS check every month. When she was making $40 every two weeks, she was paying about 50 cents into SS each week. If she was married, her husband was also putting a small amount into SS. Over the years, this went up, of course, but if she is still married, her and her husband get a pretty good check with about a 300% return on what they put into SS. If she is a widow, she is receiving Survivor benefits, at a rate that is quite higher than what was originally put into the system.

All in all...she shouldn't be doing that bad. I'm sure she made more than $20 a week long before she retired. As for allowing others to "starve", she should re-watch "A Christmas Carol", and shuffle out of that Scrooge syndrome she's in.

Then again, some people are just plain mean and bitter. Glad she is not a relative of mine!


O8)

[Laughing Mirror]

12. I think she said she was 80 years old and gets 680 dollars

Social Security check every month. She worked hard all her life, etc. Owns her own house and is very frugal, survives it seems on nothing but bread and gravy.

She was marvelous wasn't she? I'm glad Peter let her rant on and on. The tone of her voice, her accent, her outrageous self-centeredness--she sounded like a stereotype of the seething ignorance and bigotry so rampant in this country.

[radwriter0555]

14. Sounds like she is very old and alone in her rage and bitterness...

and will lay dead for weeks before anyone finds her frozen corpse.

[CatWoman]

32. my original thought was

Rush's mom needs to get a grip.

[librechik]

45. She was the 4th "support the President" call in a row!

on fair-and-balanced C-span.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. She ought to get together with the 73 year-old from NJ who

called in one day last week and screamed about Howard Dean (she loves him, thinks everyone is out to get him.) I believe Susan was the host at the time. In any case, that caller was also allowed to go on for a long time. I guess the hosts are just as fascinated with the train wreck callers as we are.

It's like they can't be real. . . but they are. :scared:

[dsc]

21. how classy

comparing Dean supporters to anti poor women. Nice. And you wonder why I would rather drink poison than vote for your candidate.

[veganwitch]

24. i think she was simply referring the fact...

that both moderators let them rant and rant for ages while any other caller will get cut off after awhile.

[veganwitch]

22. i remember that woman

i only listen on the radio but i cant imagine how the moderators keep a straight face.

[radwriter0555]

13. He wants 4 year old kids to work? Since more than 70% of welfare recips

are kids n all.

He sounds really stupid, greedy, ignorant and arrogant. He must be a republican.

[GOPisEvil]

15. I invite EVERYONE who criticizes welfare recipients to change places with

one. For a month. See how it is living on a fixed income in this country. For an added month, try working at minimum wage (since you want recipients to get a job, and that's all most of them can get). Try living on your minimum wage job, losing some benefits (after all, benefit levels are determined by income), having to pay for child care, transportation, etc...see how "easy" these people have it.

Oh, and by the way, Social Security is an "entitlement" just as TANF and Food Stamps are, so get off your high horse.

</end mini ex-case worker rant>

[Kanary]

33. Having the shoe on the other foot

would clear up a lot of misconceptions, wouldn't it?

Thanks for painting the picture. The only thing you left out is ..... being reviled, day after day, and learning to keep your head down.

Not reading a newspaper because you can't take the constant articles about how you are responsible for the sad state the country is in.

Trying to learn to live with being called a lazy, no-good bum all the time, and endearing terms like "parasite", and noticing that the so-called "liberals" say nothing to this.

Yes, trading places would be very good. The "us and them" thing is killing us.

Kanary

[Kaysera]

38. Getting a job might be the way out.

[GOPisEvil]

43. How incredibly simplistic.

Many times a person who wants to get off welfare finds that even working full-time for minimum wage provides less in real financial terms than staying on benefits.

Taxes, transportation, child care, loss or reduction of benefits(including housing) eat up that 1000 bucks a month gross pretty quickly.

[Kanary]

51. I nominate you to trade places

with a welfare recipient for one month.

Clearly, you're a bit lacking in not only compassion, but simple understanding.

A trading of places might give you not only some perspective, but a bit of needed humility.

Kanary

[Iverson]

16. "Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

brief excerpt from Dickens, Charles _A Christmas Carol_. 1890

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."

[JanMichael]

17. Bring it on?

I guess that's what people like that want.

Think street crime is bad? Try a fucking uprising. I know what side I'll be one, it isn't hers.

[bleedingheart]

18. There are many like her unfortunately.

[polmaven]

19. "Let them starve to death"

"God said if you don't work you don't eat" ...Ah...More good right wing Christian values...Warms the heart, no?

[kentuck]

20. She drew out everything she put into Social Security about 15 years ago

and has been living off the rest of us ever since...Good thing Hoover got that Social Security passed or she would still be eating gravy and biscuits... Damn!

[waldenx]

23. sounds like a new-dem

he must have been reading straight from DLC policy.

[onecitizen]

25. She was a real sweetie wasn't she? nt

nt

[Terwilliger]

27. who was that...Clinton?

OH some caller on C-SPAN!

[Catherine Vincent]

29. I have quoted this woman's rant before on DU.

She seem to have a problem with people on welfare. She also still manages to whine about Clinton too ("he's from my back yard!") Did you notice how the moderator let her go on and on. You would think that he favored republicans on that call but what I really think he's doing is showing how stupid and ignorant she is.

[veganwitch]

49. the moderator did say

we look forward to hearing from you again in 30 days. i dont remember hearing her before but that did catch me as comment that she had been on before.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

30. i heard that insane old bitch and he let her keep ranting but cuts off

intelligent dem callers...redux on now cspan... right now you can catch that caller again :puke:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

31. "kill welfare" i ate bread and gravey" let'em strave" and "i live good"

on my $600 social security check"..."take the damn things off a welfare and make go and work"...:i'm 80 years old"


and you sure as hell better be scared of your dying and meeting your maker imho!

[BiggJawn]

35. "Ah eat bizkuts an' bred!"

Wasn't she just the hateful thing?

Hey, if she can call people "things" just because they're on welfare, I can call her a "thing" for being her locale's largest source of bitterness....

People like that live and Wellstone had to die. And there's a God?
He's mentally retarded if there is one.

[Fleshdancer]

34. my first question to idiots like this is:

So who the hell do you know personally that is on welfare?

[freethought]

37. Does that include corporate welfare?

Just asking!

[camero]

39. Boy is that ever funny

This from a person that's living off the government teat. I had an argument with this type once.

He was actually thinking that his money went into some little account with his name on it. I said it was not so, that the younger workers were the ones who were paying for his retirement. He somehow thought that was ok.

So in anger, I told him to get off his ass and fund his own retirement. End of conversation.

[skippysmom]

40. what a Christian woman

People like this are disgusting.

[zonmoy]

50. people like that

have long made me think that the god they follow must be the source of all evil.

[MadHound]

42. This attitude always amazes me at the ignorance it shows

People like this repeat the same old tired mantras. "Its costing us too much!" If you're worried about cost, let's look at the defense budget which takes up about half of federal spending, compared with welfare, which takes up about eight tenths of one percent of the federal budget.

Or the stereotypical view of the "welfare queen", a black, able-bodied person who makes a career out of living off of the dole. The truth is that there are more whites on welfare, and the average length of time spent on the dole is around four months.

Or the whopper of women having kids "just so they can get more welfare money". Well, actually that's not true, I read a statistic, I think in JAMA, that the birth rate for women on welfare actually declines. And didn't the per diem pay raise go out the door for welfare recipients when Clinton passed his welfare "reform"?

And yes, it seems like a lot of these complaints are made by those who are receiving SS or other public assistance:eyes:

Just ignorance in action, that's how I figure it.

[noonwitch]

44. I do support welfare reform, but not heartless tactics that starve people

Welfare keeps a roof over a family's head and food in the fridge, but not much else. It shouldn't be a way of life, and dependence on it has led to some of the crumbling structures you see in large urban areas with high unemployment.
Welfare programs should be about assisting people while training them for better jobs.
The problem with guys like this caller is that they have no clue what life is like for people who receive benefits, and guys like this don't realize that there are very few people who are just collecting benefits and not working. Most adult recipients are now employed, at minimum wage fast food and retail jobs. They still receive food stamps and medicaid benefits, but not much in the way of cash payouts anymore.

[Kanary]

47. Welfare traps people because

of the very belief that you have espoused.... a roof and food in the fridge and nothing else. That leaves NO resources for any kind of improvement... just the opposite...... it traps people into hunkering down to protect the little they *do* have, and resist any risk of losing it.

Maybe welfare *should* be about "assisting people while training them for better jobs", but that is rarely the case. It's been another one of those deals of propose pie in the sky, then don't fund it.

The ones who have been timed off the rolls have simply been lost. While everyone is celebrating the shrinking rolls, there isn't much interest in actually finding out what has happened to those who were just cut off. Does anyone know where they are?

Kanary

[Hamlette]

46. average # of children in "welfare family" is 1.5

look it up. In my state, Utah, average # of kids is 1.7, average age of head of household is 2.8, reason for being on welfare: husband left family. Number of "major barriers" to employment per welfare family: 3. (A "major barrier is something like serious medical problem, or child with serious medical problem.) Average length of time spent on welfare: 1.8 years. Percentage of people receiving welfare after 5 years? 0. Unless they have medical evidence showing they can not work.

Less than 2% of our federal budget goes to welfare.

People are outraged because they are uninformed. Like the chart on Rush Limbaugh's page showing the top 50% income earners pay 96% of the federal income tax. He doesn't tell you that the top 50% income earners earn 84% of the income OR that when you factor in regressive state takes and federal taxes like gasoline and FICA the "tax burden" of the top 50% is closer to the 84% that they earn.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Gets you every time.

[veganwitch]

48. ive determined that if you are an absolute hateful snatch

you will live longer. (i should never die. hahaha) the nice people die young.

i had two great aunts that where the most mean spiteful people on the planet and lived well into their 80s.

my grandmother was the nicest person and very active in her community (helped the two ungreatful hags for a while) died in her 70s.

[MountainLaurel]

52. May I plagiarize?

I really like the phrase "hateful snatch". It's just got that certain ring to it. :hi: