X-Message-Number: 21801 Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 04:57:19 -0700 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Brainless comment about welfare References: <> > Message #21792 > From: "aschwin de wolf" <> > References: <> > Subject: Re: Defense Spending > Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 10:28:43 -0400 > > > Saddam's revenge is a potential problem, Bush's policy is another: The > > massive military expenses in a bad economics time may send the US the way > the USSR > > ended: In a catastrophic economics, social, and financial crash. The US$ > has > > lost 20% in some months, a similar fall before the end of the year could > send > > the money in a spiraling downward crash. > > Defense spending as a percentage of GDP is not that high. If cuts need to be > made it should be in other areas (like welfare). Excuse me!? Who the hell are you to say such a brainless and callous thing? Have you ever needed welfare? I highly doubt it! If you had you might think twice about mouthing off like you just did. Don't ever get seriously injured and happen not to be a millionaire or have iron clad irrevocable health insurance because, my ignorant friend, you'll get to learn what it is like to be held in contempt by idiots like yourself that haven't got a goddamn clue what true suffering and poverty are all about. I do happen to know what it's like. I'm treated like a third class citizen by clueless, myopic, shortsighted greedy bastards like you every day. Why? Because they think that the goddamn .002 a year that comes out of their pay to keep me alive should be better spent elsewhere. Why don't you just be honest and tell your representative to arrange for a new bill you can call "the final solution" so all you welfare hawks will never have to pay that .002 a year ever again?! I had the misfortune to have broken my neck at an age too young to have been established with health and life insurance. For this I get the privilege of trying to live on $541.00 a month while watching for the next cut in services because some politician thinks welfare should be cut to pay for defense or the next failed tax cut for the rich to hopefully stimulate the economy. It's the least able to defend themselves, unable to afford proper legal help, that get the cuts. I don't think you have a clue what it's like to have to live like I do. Don't worry though you're about to get enlightened. First of all I am paralyzed from the shoulders down. I have survived numerous dangerous surgeries, countless urinary tract infection resulting in the loss of one kidney and contraction of diabetes, the worst case in the world of a rare bone disease and not least of all forced abject poverty. But do you want to know what the worst of it has been? Having to endure the mindless attitudes of people like you. You remind of the father of a girlfriend I had in college that told me he didn't want his daughter hanging a around a cripple that sucked him dry for welfare dollars. I even have family members that would to my face argue that social security should be abolished because they didn't think they'd ever get their money back out of it. They could stand there and say that but offer no solution for what would happen to me. Oh yeah wait I remember, I'm supposed to beg charity from churches. I'M AN ATHEIST! I'd be the first person to get me _off of welfare_ if I only could but every attempt I have made has been sabotaged by some or other government rule set in place to make sure 'welfare recipients' don't double dip. I'm not allowed to own stocks, bonds, etc. or property I don't live on, more than one vehicle, certainly nothing like a boat or airplane. I'm not allowed to earn over $716 a month. I'm not allowed to possess assets totaling $2000.00 including anything that could be sold and cash in savings or checking. I should not be tying this right now on my PC because it and my TV/VCR and payday on the first of the month would put me in violation. I suppose I should sell them both and shut myself off from the world. If I do try and earn anything the more I earn the more gets taken away. It's a zero sum gain. But why not earn rather than take? Because the more that gets taken away to offset what I earn the closer I get to receiving zero SSI. I have to receive at least one dollar SSI or I don't get state Medicaid, WELFARE to you. Without that I must pay for my caregivers myself, also the 20-30 % (in actuality much more do to arbitrary and inadequate Medicare allowables) that Medicare won't pay for medical services (doctors visits, lab tests, hospitalization, medical supplies such as catheters, gauze, tape, urinary supplies, medical equipment such as hospital bed, floatation mattress, patient lift, wheelchair and more I don't care to list) and finally prescription drugs (Medicare does not yet pay for prescription drugs). To start with my prescripton drugs cost $1200 per month! My wheelchair was $19,000. Hospital bed, mattress, patient lift are rented for several hundred dollars a month (don't have exact figure this very minute). The various medical supplies needed monthly come to around six hundred to a thousand dollars a month depending what rotation of supplies needs replacing, e.g. one catheter (5 cents worth of extruded plastic) $18.00, night time drain bag $35.00, etc. etc. My caregivers split a mere $1300.00 a month, was only $200 when I was first injured and only one caregiver allowed then. They are required to care for me 24 hours a day 7 days a week and no paid vacations. You do the math, are they paid a fair wage? NO! This does not provide adequate care either. There's too much to do for only two people and so many things never get done. I minimize calling upon them by staying in bed every day rather than getting up each day and going out. I don't any longer hope for help on projects such as setting me up for doing artwork and more I don't care to mention. A rough calculation for a more reasonable, not slavery, caregiver employee situation would be as follows: 3 people working eight hour shifts for 5 days and 2 people working 12 hour shifts for weekends would approximate a 40 hour work week for 3 individuals and 24 hour work week for two part timers. If they were paid a decent living wage, say $1400.00 a month for the full timers and half that for the part timers it would come to $67,200.00, a decent income for any two people. However, for me to be adequately cared for and on my own with no government help $67,200.00 would be quite a deficit to overcome before earning even enough for normal living expenses, house payment, utilities, insurance, food, laundry, etc., etc. Now add to that a 20k wheelchair amortized over 3-4 years, the average life span of a wheelchair. Then add to that 50k for a vehicle outfitted for disability amortized over 7-10 years. Then add to that the drugs, medical supplies, hospitalizations, doctors visits and on and on. Remember, I cannot get ordinary health insurance with so many pre existing conditions. Why did I slip in these calculations for what it would cost for me to be off "welfare"? Because as I said I have tried many times but long before I could ever reach a yearly income of nearly 160k (the amount I'd need if you were paying attention above) per year I would, due to the draconian government rules -- rules put in place by "let's cut welfare to pay for defense" morons, be cut off of medical coverage's and caregiver pay and all the rest and not be able to survive, let alone work. In 1982 I won a lawsuit for an eye injury that occurred before I got paralyzed that blinded my right eye. I got 42k and an immediate problem. What to do with the money? According to the rules I was supposed to report it or go to prison. It was required that I go off of benefits and spend down the money by living off it to below the then $1500.00 limit. But that was not enough, no not by a long shot. It seems that my punishment for having the good fortune was that after the spend down I'd have to go on probation for six months, which of course would leave me with nothing to live on for those six months. Instead I bought a house. Funny thing though, no one volunteered the information that I could avoid the spend down if I bought a house to live in. They couldn't keep me from owning a house I lived in, just any I could have used for investment... investment that could have led to being self sufficient long ago and not costing you your precious .002 per year! What the welfare hawks don't realize is that their rules prevent people from being tax payers rather than tax drains. If they'd allow people to make whatever they could through work or investing, not even reaching full self sufficiency, and still be able to receive their medical they would reduce significantly the drain that they are. In this way with wise investment counseling or even guided investment for the less mentally competent they could eventually become self sufficient and no longer be a drain at all!! What would my 42k be today if I could have invested in Microsoft in 1982? I'll tell you where. I'd be a multimillionaire and at least 10 years ago been able to have gone completely off WELFARE! So don't come to me with brainless comments about cutting welfare, you won't get a sympathetic ill informed ear. I am too damned well informed thank you very much! It is you that is sadly ill informed. Perhaps you should look into ways to put to work an ignored asset. Talk about an economic stimulus package! James -- Cryonics Institute of Michigan Member! The Immortalist Society Member! The Society for Venturism Member! MY WEBSITE: http://www.geocities.com/~davidpascal/swayze/ Signature Memetic Virus--The worst enemy of those who now or will need medical care is the politician and proselytizing religious fanatic who proscribes what doctors are allowed to prescribe and research, with the consent of their patients. Those who understand this are strongly encouraged to modify this to fit their personality, and add this to their signature file, and organize to recover our freedom from Big Brother. For those who wait until they are sick, it will be too late. Those who suffer from diseases which might have been cured by fetal tissue research or schedule 1 drugs banned by Big Brother, have the right to hold accountable those who sat on their hands or worse, deferred their responsibility for personal and humanity's survival to useless gods and pontificating religious quacks, while they remained ill and dying. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21801