Reality. I am a big fan of it in many areas. For example, I prefer facts to propaganda perpetuated to get good people to vote the way a political group needs them to vote. I despise any “narrative” constructed by slick asshats who don’t quite come out and lie directly, but instead paint of false picture to convince people that their bullshit is based on legitimately discombobulating or scary things. One of the narratives that works my nerves the worst is that the “entitlement” programs are chockablock with moochers who roll in those lavish tax dollars they have defrauded from hard-working fellow Americans. No. This is not true. While far-right nut jobs are spinning tales of “Welfare Queens” and lazy sods who can work but WON’T, an “analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs[1] spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households — not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work … This figure has changed little in the past few years.”
Moreover, greater than half of the people receiving government assistance are those who are older than 65.
Check out the pie chart:
And what about that 9% who are unemployed but able bodied and not elderly? Are they not the “takers”? Well, as it turns out “the vast bulk of that 9 percent goes for medical care, unemployment insurance benefits (which individuals must have a significant work history to receive), Social Security survivor benefits for the children and spouses of deceased workers, and Social Security benefits for retirees between ages 62 and 64. Seven out of the 9 percentage points go for one of these four purposes.”
Thus, it is only 2% of benefit recipients don’t have a good reason on paper to be getting some help from Uncle Sam. I am also sure that some of the people getting assistance for “disabilities” are faking it or playing the system. However, it is hard as hell to get disability and you have to jump through all kinds of hoops, most of which are on fire, so it’s not exactly a cake walk to get on the dole.
You know what is really draining the US coffers? It’s the government ordering the Army to buy more takes which the top brass of the military has insisted they neither want nor need but get them anyway because defense contracting lobbyists give out hand jobs & campaign contribution kickbacks to Congress members. It’s the huge farm subsidies that don’t go to REAL farmers but actually line the pockets of factory farm moguls. It’s the huge subsidies to Big Oil. Those are some of the things that are eating the budget alive but they are sacrosanct to most politicians because they love Mammon and power more than they will ever love their country, or even their wives and kids.
Poor people, the people who actually need the entitlements to survive, are easy targets to blame because they have no money, no power, and no political clout. That is the only reason they are being reconfigured as the “boogeyman” by the far right talking-head-machine.
Mammon laughed.
I blew a gasket and started ranting and then erased as I was sounding like a lunatic. So I’ll just send a single digit salute at D.C.
Every time someone who knows us says something like, “If I’m gonna support a welfare family with my tax dollars I should at least get a photo of them I can put up on my fridge” I look ‘em straight in the eye and ask them if they want 4 X 6 or 8 X 10 and color or black/white? Because they’re talking about MY family- Edna who’s 93 and on social security, Joe who’s 70 and a disabled veteran, my beloved and cancer-mutilated husband and our 13 year old son who receives benefits because his dad’s a cripple. Four out of five of us.
When they stammer and say something inane like, “I’m not talking about YOU GUYS” I smile and say, “Yes. You are.” and walk away.
My Godchildren are “beneficiaries” because they get their deceased father’s SSI. Guess what anyone who thinks of them as “moochers” can suck?