One thing I’ve been promising myself I would do is lay out a 10 part plan on what has gone wrong with America and how best to fix it. So Over the next few weeks I will list my top ten list of what went wrong. Here comes the first topic. If you are reading and agree or disagree with anything I write, please comment, the only way we can truly fix this is by conversing and planning!
10. Demonizing the working class giving a pass to the leeches
My father is retired. He gave 48 years of service to my city, and to its residents, 48! That I know of the only real time off my father ever took from the job was his yearly vacations and some time when he got really sick and was hospitalized. Other than that he went to work every day, for 48 years. He did that to make sure he and his family was taken care of.
My mother is retired. She worked two jobs at times to make sure me and my siblings had what we needed. I had the opportunity to work a job with my mother and I can vouch, this woman knows what customer service entails! She has been versatile as well, working for schools, department stores, midsized companies, large companies. It didn’t matter where she worked she always gave her best. I can’t remember a time my mother wasn’t working.
Now they are retired and the key words being used around America is “cut backs”. Cuts to Medicare, and medicate, cuts to social security and cuts to pensions for government workers are things being thrown around. Let me get this right, we want to take our working class; you know the ones who did it for decades, helped this economy and take away the things promised them?
You know I watch the news stations fairly religiously. Fox, CNN, even for comedic value MSNBC. It’s important to understand all sides of the argument. Watching one side of the argument is counterproductive at best. The thing I have noticed is the demonization of the worker. Where is the outcry to stop the free money going to the people who have sponged on the backs of the workers? I’m sure there are stories out there, and people who want this to happen but the overwhelming focus is cuts to the worker.
A Google of “stop welfare” revealed not much in the way of articles to read. Googling “Stop Social Security” reveals many more articles. Now I’m not saying our politicians are out and out saying the wish to cut social security, that could be political suicide, but they sure do use it as a scare tactic. “If I don’t get (place sought entitlement program here) I don’t think we can save social security!” This comes from both sides of the political spectrum. What should be said is “We need to overhaul social security so the workers are taken care of, the people who earned it get their benefits, and the ones who didn’t, don’t. “
You see I make a living dealing with all classes of people, high end, low end, and middle class. The one thing I get all fired up about is seeing a hard working person of any class get penalized by a person who scams the system. I arrest people for a living. I love feeling like I made the city I live in a bit safer each day, I do my job. People let me tell you I am tired arresting 19 year old drug dealers who always seem to ask me “when am I getting out? I need to get my social security check.” I think most people would be alarmed by how common this actually is. One time specifically comes to mind with a person I have arrested at least 5 times and has a record that is literally pages long. This day in particular I got the guy, with drugs, and trespassing to sell his drugs. The conversation went something like this.
Him: “Let me go man, I need to get to the social security office.”
Me: “Why do you need to go to social security?”
Him: “For my check man! I got no job.”
Me: “Dude, you’re 20 years old why can you work?”
Him: “I can’t work, I get seizures.”
Me: “Why can’t you work? Do you get medication for your seizures?”
Him: “Yeah, but I can’t work because of them.”
Me: “have you ever tried to get a job man.”
Him: “Hell no man, jobs are for chumps.”
So here is a guy who sells poison to others like heroin, crack, cocaine etc. who is saying he has never had a job and never will, who is getting free money from our government because he has seizures. I know people with epilepsy who go to work every day and work their behinds off who are not on social security. Other people with disabilities work every day as well. But this guy will just take his free check and make tax free money selling poison and buying weapons and more poison. This is one story I’ve come across that mirror many others. I’ve dealt with families that are living on free government money and are on their fourth generation of living on the government’s teat with no intention of ever changing that status.
This is a problem, people! This is something we need to change!
Am I saying we stop the payments to people who fall on hard times but who want to work? Absolutely not! A mother whose husband leaves her without any financial support for her and her children should be entitled to help. But only for a limited time, say two years, enough time to stabilize her life. I think we need to have a discussion on securing benefits to the workers who earned that security by a lifetime of toil and stripping away the useless waste. If you get welfare and are between to ages of 21 and say 50 or maybe even higher you should be required to earn that welfare by working for it! No more sitting around on your behind waiting for your check! If you live in government housing for free you should be required to help maintain that housing development or work on beautifying your community to earn that payment that comes your way, it should be required that you show proof that you did something for your money! Imagine the reduced cost of government if instead of the government hiring people to clean the roadways, or paint over graffiti or fix a broken window, you give those same jobs to people who are already drawing from the tax dollars brought in. If you don’t work for it, then no money for you, you’re on your own until you can prove you can work for it!
Let’s stop with the talk of stripping pensions, social security and medical benefits for the people who have worked their entire life and now deserve the break and start talking about ending the waste eating away at the programs! Going back to my example, and putting it bluntly, maybe at risk of sounding too blunt do any of you out there really think if this 20 year old drug dealer who thinks “jobs are for chumps” stops getting his free money, crawls under a bridge and dies that our society would be any poorer for the loss? I don’t.
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