Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Are Government Benefits Too Much Of A Good Thing?

  When I was a young man,  I had a job at a local grocery store chain as a bag boy or carry out. I enjoyed the job. I liked meeting people, one thing always bothered me however, I noticed when I was carrying out groceries that the  customers who paid for their groceries with food stamps often ate better then I did.My family was eating peanut butter and tuna and lunch meat but these folks were eating steak shrimp and even lobster.I also noticed they always seemed to have plenty of junk food and snacks including several flavors of ice cream. One thing I never understood, no matter how poor they claimed to be, it seems they always had enough cash on hand to pay for their three cases of beer and five cartons of cigarettes. I would load their groceries into their car and be surprised to find that many of my food stamp customers often drove nicer cars then my family could ever have afforded. Look. I don't mind helping those in need, but don't tell me how hard your life is when you eat better than I do and you drive a real nice car certainly better than I could ever afford, and then to top it off you still have plenty of cash money for your beer and cigarettes. As I  consider situations like this I have to say, what's up with that?
  When I consider America's present economic condition, I'm almost in shock when I hear the democrats say that America really should provide larger unemployment checks for those out of work. The democrats also want to extend unemployment benefits for another year. If this happens, why should anyone look seriously for work? I have heard of people who have been on unemployment benefits for three years now. There are those in this country, who don't want just any job. One person I know, turned down a pretty good job. It seems he calculated that he could make more on unemployment, and besides, it really wasn't the job he wanted anyway.
  I often wonder just how hard unemployed Americans would look for work, and just what kind of jobs they might take, if, the government were to suddenly announce that all government benefits were going to stop in a month. I don't know, but I have a feeling places like Walmart and various fast food places, would have a sudden increase in job applications. Look I realize that there are sincere, hard working people who are seriously looking for work, but for everyone of those you find, I bet you could find ten folks who could work if they would settle at least temporarily, for the job they could get, as apposed to the job they wanted. I know there will be those who will disagree with my conclusions, but as always my friends, these thoughts remain, just some words to think on.                                                                      

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