If you're on public assistance, with NO desire or effort to get OFF of it, it's theft from all taxpayers, plain and simple. And that's one brush I'll paint with and not feel a bit ashamed about it.

Bert said:

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Mari, I don't have the law in front of me but if it was put in the story by the reporter that it was legal, and assuming the reporter reasonably checked it out before printing such, it is not stealing or immoral.

We'll just have to disagree on this one, because you will NEVER convince me that someone who started off with just over $500K after taxes should be taking government money to buy her food, especially when she had enough money to buy the freakin' lottery ticket in the first place! Yes, I do judge on this - you take our money and we get to judge.

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Oh Darn, It Really Is About The FSA

Of course it is. You're right again Karl.

I paid for my bc pills. It seemed like a small price to pay vs. an unplanned pregnancy. It never crossed my mind that it should be otherwise or that perhaps my medical insurance should pay for them. Why would they??? Having sex is not a medical/health problem.

But that was 30+ yrs. ago. My, how things have changed. I can hardly wrap my mind around it.

And you're probably right about the iphone too (and probably numerous other discretionary expenses). Sounds like Sandra is being squeezed financially by this stellar economic "recovery" we've got going, but instead of making sacrifices herself, she wants others to help pay for her pesky bc pills so she can continue paying for the "fun stuff".

I know of family members, friends, fof, etc, with similar twisted thinking on matters of financial responsibility. Some of these stories are of my 27-yo daughter's friends and acquaintances. It boggles the mind. It seems to be everywhere! Mostly it's younger people (20-40 yo) wanting or allowing someone else (government, parents, hell...ANYONE else) to pay their basic expenses (you know...PITA stuff like rent, utilities, FOOD!)while their "inadequate" income or unemployment! pays for a fancy vehicle, a Harley, a BIG flat screen tv, itoys, salon services, shopping, travel, etc... I really can't believe some of the insane stuff I hear about.

Oh and btw...Gramps should buy his own ed drugs too. imo

/

The level of theft does matter to me. And let's just say the level where I start getting*****ed off is somewhere far short of $200 a month. Where's she live? If she's in my neighborhood I'll go **** on her porch.

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Oh and btw...Gramps should buy his own ed drugs too. imo

Medicare doesn't pay for ED drugs and hasn't under the prescription program since 1/1/07. The FDA approved Cialis for another diagnosis, but the quantity is so small that it won't help much for ED.

I paid for my own BC back in the day, too. Durn, guess we were born too early!

I've had some peripheral discussions with some of the liberal women around here....I hesitate to get involved at any sort of depth, because there's nothing to be gained. These are affluent, all college educated women, and they ALL see this as a "reproductive rights" issue. They're all libs, for sure. Not one of them even hinted that it was the equity consideration of them having to pay for these rights that another woman claimed that was of any concern to them. Sigh.

I liked what another blogger said about Sandra Fluke.

"I'll pay for her contraception when they pay for my ammunition."

On a moral basis, I think people should be helped. On a moral basis, others shouldn't be forced to help them. The 5th amendment of the US Constitution actually prohibits the taking of property for public use without compensation.

From the book, Our Enemy the State by Alfred Jay Nock Forward

Nock's intellectual development was greatly influenced by the works of the German economist and sociologist, Franz Oppenheimer. Nock focused much of his attention on Oppenheimer's analysis of the two principal means--expounded upon in Der Staat--by which human needs can be met. Satisfying such needs through the exercise of "ones own labor and the equivalent exchange of ones own labor for the labor of others", Oppenheimer defined as the "economic means". By contrast, pursuing such interests through "the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others" he termed the political means. Nock elaborates upon Oppenheimer's thesis to describe how the state actually works. Because people tend to act with "the least possible exertion", in pursuing their ends, they will tend to prefer the political to the economic means, a trait that has produced the modern corporate-state- or what Nock referred to as the "merchant-state".

What does this sound or look like to you? To me, we are talking about enforced slavery of the economic side of the summation of output. The FSA is merely doing what people do. The state sends out their IRS and their regulations on health care and extorts from the rest of us what these people expect the state to steal for them.

Further and maybe the most important statement I have read out of this book so far.

Such a question brings us to a consideration
of Nock’s purposes in writing. He had
no interest in political reforms, seeing such
efforts as superficial in nature. Neither was
he motivated by a desire to educate massminded
men and women, as such people
lacked both the depth of character and the
intellectual capacity to understand the principles
underlying “the humane life.” He saw
his task, rather, as being to care for those he
called “the Remnant,” those independent
men and women whose intellectual and
emotional inquisitiveness provide them a
profound understanding of such principles.
Unlike mass-minded persons who are easily
manipulated and mobilized in service to various
institutional causes, the Remnant remain
skeptical of proselytizers who seek converts
to ideologies, or who desire to save mankind.
Trying to find members of the Remnant will
be futile, Nock tells us, for it is they who will
seek out like-minded spirits. Nock sees his
role as providing the support and nurturing
to such individuals who will, once the civilization
has collapsed, be the ones to “build
up a new society” on the basis of their understanding
of the “august order of nature.”
For such people alone, Nock tells us, was this
book written.

There you have in a nutshell, why the FSA will run the country off the cliff. If we tried to cut the FSA off, they would either burn down the towns in which we live or form gangs to steal from us what they want. They are an irresistable political force. I might note that maybe Obama hasn't put the bankers in jail for the very reason that the rest of the country can't justify asking for their bailout if the bankers paid with their freedom. OV wants centralized control and thus mass enslavement of those involved in the work of America. The bankers still get up and go to work and they create what the FSA spends.

http://library.mises.org/books/Albert%20....

http://mises.org/document/4685

The second link has the dope on the book including a minute plus video description. This is one of the early bibles of modern Libertarian thought and a recognition of the rise of the Levithian government in the USA.

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Medicare doesn't pay for ED drugs and hasn't under the prescription program since 1/1/07.

Mari,

Thanks for that info.

hey quick question -- isn't the point of govt funded birth control to serve as a bandaid/damage control for the socio-economic status of many households? That is, I don't think that anyone expects that it will solve a long-term problem, but since children born in poverty tend to grow up to create a "family" in poverty, and since that cycle tends to feed on itself, isn't means-tested welfare, especially with regard to reproduction, the right thing to do while we work towards free markets?

There are reasons why the poor continue to stay poor, aren't there? It's not entirely their fault, is it?

I suggest anyone who wants to comment or even read other's comments go google up a transcript or youtube of sandra fluke's statement first.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/20....

This just seems to be another story about someone throwing deck chairs at the band while the Titanic is sinking.

The insidious nature of the US ponzi is that the FSA is not "free" to most recipients. Most of the Medicare and SS benefit recipients have paid into the system. The unemployment insurance has been partially paid by the mickey mouse FUTA.

So most of us do this "cognitive dissonance" thing where we paid some part of the wealth transfer we receive or expect to receive and ignore the increase in transfer that no one has paid for, or even yet been taxed for.

I would hope that Karl is right and that the wheels come off this bandwagon to Hell soon, but the pessimist in me says it might be 10 years before we can get on with starting over.

William Graham Sumner had it correct back in 1883 in his essay The Forgotten Man

These illustrations bring out only one side of my subject, and that only partially. It is when we come to the proposed measures of relief for the evils which have caught public attention that we reach the real subject which deserves our attention. As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X. As for A and B, who get a law to make themselves do for X what they are willing to do for him, we have nothing to say except that they might better have done it without any law, 'but what I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social speculator and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the many burdens which are laid upon him.


http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis....

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Most of the Medicare and SS benefit recipients have paid into the system.

Really? Are you SURE about that?

I am more*****ed off at the government (i.e. drug dealer) than the leech**** lottery winner (i.e. drug user). She’s inadvertently found a way to game the system by stealing taxpayer dollars in similar fashion to what Bank of America, JPM, and Wells Fargo did with the taxpayer funded bailouts. The FSA runs deep through all social status spheres.

It’s incredible in this age of technology that a single entry into a database wasn’t made to remove this leech**** from the dole but then again the government can’t seem to extract its head out of its ass for a single moment, so none of this is a shocker to me.

Kenny,

If everyone in the FSA was poor - really poor - I would be much more amenable to helping them out. However, that's not the case. Check out the nails on some of the women using the food stamp benefit cards - how can they afford that? Same with their dyed hair, fancy shoes, good cars. I'll grant that their good clothes could come from a thrift shop, but you don't get highlights, weaves, artificial nails, etc. from the thrift store. If you want my help, I want you to live like you NEED it, not think you DESERVE it!

In addition, Fluke and her ilk aren't asking for this for poor women; they are asking for it for EVERY woman! NO ONE is denying them birth control - we're trying to deny them FREE TO THEM birth control. If you don't want a baby, that's fine, but I shouldn't have to pay for that decision!!!!!

Geesh, what part of this do you not understand??? Oh, first post - okay, I understand now...

Kenny wrote..

hey quick question -- isn't the point of govt funded birth control to serve as a bandaid/damage control for the socio-economic status of many households? That is, I don't think that anyone expects that it will solve a long-term problem, but since children born in poverty tend to grow up to create a "family" in poverty, and since that cycle tends to feed on itself, isn't means-tested welfare, especially with regard to reproduction, the right thing to do while we work towards free markets?

One might think so, but providing publicly funded birth control to those on Medicaid and additionally to those with low incomes hasn't worked. Those receiving public assistance have a birth rate 3 times higher than those who don't receive public assistance.

Data and Census links posted here:
http://market-ticker.org/cgi-ticker/akcs....

Wineaux...if I hire a gang of thugs to go rob you and bring me your stuff, are you more*****ed at the thugs...or me?

Agree with you on the second part though...should have immediately been removed from the gov tit.

Mpilar - I am MORE*****ed at you because YOU are the root of the problem. The thugs are the symptom. Eliminate you, the problem goes away and I get to keep my stuff.

Exactly Wineaux...the government is just a symptom...the FSA hires (votes for) the gov that will steal the most from those of us who produce.

Mari, I am not so sure we are in disagreement, rather it is more as to where the problem lies. The problem is that government allows this and I view this person more as a symptom rather than root cause.

As I understood it, the test for qualifying for food stamps is significantly different than qualifying for full on welfare. The talk in the article about changing the law to have lottery winnings being reported will have little effect as the next week, her income will once again allow her to qualify.

I see no point in holding her to the fire and calling it stealing, when the government is sending her food stamps and it is within the law. The law is written by YOUR GOVERNMENT.

Right in the middle of the article a link:

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Get rich AND die trying: Ambitious people earn more money - but they die younger and are no happier, says study

//www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2110891/Get-rich-AND-die-trying-Ambitious-people-earn-money--poorer-health-die-younger-says-study.html#ixzz1oSuro3Vt

Sure, be happy and be a leech.

To qualify dump your cash in non-recorded gold or silver?

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In addition to the income requirements, you also must pass the “resources test” to qualify for food stamps. Resources are separate from your income, but can be cash benefits you receive from other social welfare programs, money in a checking or savings account (besides your paycheck), investments and other available assets. To qualify for food stamps, your entire household cannot have more than $2,000 in available resources. For households that include a person who is 60 years of age or older, or an individual who is disabled and receiving Social Security Disability benefits, the resource limit increases to $3,000 total.

[QUOTE

1/2 million is less than $2000 ... right?

What percentage of the welfare budget goes to the government employees who administer it versus the people actually on welfare?

I consider anyone administering such a program to also be part of the FSA, because their interests are aligned in the same direction.

That house is ~$25k...lot of $$$ left over...

Quote:

What percentage of the welfare budget goes to the government employees who administer it versus the people actually on welfare?

Precisely. The same question can be asked about education, road paving, etc.
Good luck listening to the news for the answer to that question, you'll need it. Which reminds me of something Bill Whittle quoted Breitart saying: Remember, the real enemy is the media.