Don't feed the animals.

I recently read an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News by Heather Denkmire  that tries, quite poorly, to justify welfare by including safety services and municipal services under the umbrella of welfare. You can access this article here. The National Parks Service under the Department of the Interior states "Do not feed the animals." The reasoning behind this statement is that "animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves." Welfare isn't a dirty word...but it's the massive fraud and abuse that makes it fair game for critique.

The first thing to address in the article are the portions of it that she used to try, valiantly I might add, justify welfare. Her qoute "There is no such thing as a self-made man or woman in this country" is how the left perceives us Americans. She goes on to say that municipal services such as water, sewer, fire, police and rescue and road building/maintenance are services that amount to welfare. I was unaware that these services amounted to welfare. These some of these services are payed covered by property taxes some generate an outright bill. As a matter of fact, some fire and most rescues have taken to billing the insurance of homeowner/individuals for services rendered. Police fine people who break the law and confiscate property. Water and sewer...these are paid for by the individual home owner/business unless that homeowner/business gets their water from a well and have an onsite septic. Let's add one to her list that she missed...public school. All of these services are paid for by the people. Some of these services are administrated by the government but none of them can be construed as welfare. Infrastructure is not welfare and for some reason, prior to the 1960's the United States of America was doing quite fine without a majority of welfare programs.

wel·fare  

/ˈwelˌfe(ə)r/

Noun The health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group. Statutory procedure or social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need.

Synonyms well-being - prosperity - weal - good

Many of the Americans that are critical of welfare are critical of such programs as Temporary Assistance for Needy Familys (TANF), the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP),  Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicaid/Medicare (When used by people under retirement age and over adolescence) do so because we all know someone that is screwing the system. ALL OF US KNOW AT LEAST ONE. So let's break it down a bit. For the fiscal year 2011 federal welfare spending was pegged at $1.03TRILLION. That number doesn't include the programs Medicare, Social Security and Veterans benefits. In 2011 about 146 Million people filed tax returns, about 46 Million of those had no tax liability..in other words they got their money back or paid in none. So, if we estimated that 10% (I know, rather small estimation) of welfare was subject to fraud or abuse (like I said WE ALL KNOW SOMEONE ON WELFARE and we've all witnessed some form of abuse or fraud) we could begin looking at the bigger picture or see why Conservatives have a fit about them. Let's start here.

• $1,030,000,000,000 = cost of welfare to taxpayers
• 146,000,000 (taxpayers) minus 46,000,000 (people who file but don't pay any taxes) =100,000,000
• $103,000,000,000 = 10% of fraud or abuse in the system

So, if we do the simple math, 103,000,000,000 divided among the 100,000,000 taxpayers we come up with a very simple $1030. Are we to just accept the fact that every year, out of  EACH our tax receipts the government pisses away $1030 JUST ON FRAUD AND ABUSE?? Before any of you Moonbats start crying at my numbers the author of that piece used her creative liberties in her column and most of my numbers are culled directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Internal Revenue Service. I took liberty with the 10% but I'd be willing to put my ass on the line that it's actually higher than that. I know college kids that can live off $40 a week for food. If we look at these numbers, $40/wk X 26 = $1040, then just the fraud and abuse could feed 100,000,000 College students! That's 100 MILLION people!! That's a lot of ramen!!

These people think that taxing the rich more will solve the problem. When the government taxes the rich, the people that offer the goods and services, they just raise the cost of those goods and services on people that use the goods and services, who in turn have to either raise their prices or lower their standard of living. Any tax on the rich causes a TRICKLE DOWN of costs to the people at the bottom. Don't believe me? Fill your tank lately? How about buy a gallon of milk? Wow...that loaf of bread sure has gone up hasn't it? Jeesh...it seems we're paying a whole lot more for goods and services lately, I wonder why? Why is my check smaller I thought I got a raise?

Keep living in your fantasy world  Heather Denkmire I bet it's a happy place. The very people that your kind profess to help are forgetting how to help themselves. When the bottom falls out those people will be knocking on your door to eat you. Be kind, don't feed the animals.

That's my two cents, spend 'em or put 'em in the dish for the next person.