Just how deep does the rabbit hole go?
Posts tagged benefits
Proposed Tennessee Bill Would Cut Welfare Benefits When Kids Fail At School…
01 month ago
Source: http://weaselzippers.us
Image credit: http://weaselzippers.us
I’m for anything and everything when it comes to getting people off welfare. Most people who eventually lost their benefits after welfare reform was passed in the late 1990s say their lives improved because they started working and were supporting themselves.
Via WaPo:
Education’s often seen as the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Do well in school and you’ll find a good job. Fail and you’re destined to a life of being poor.
So it’s understandable that a Tennessee lawmaker would back legislation linking school performance to welfare benefits — until you stop to think about the cold, hard realities of parenting a family under such circumstances.
Knoxville Republican Stacey Campfield proposed Senate Bill 132 in January. It would require up to a 30 percent reduction in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) — or welfare — payments to parents or caretakers with children who “fail to maintain satisfactory progress in school.”
Despite facing a firestorm of controversy after first suggesting the bill, Campfield has persevered. Rep. Vance Dennis, a Republican from Savannah, Tenn., sponsored the bill in the House. This past week, the bill cleared both committees and appears to be on its way toward passage and law.
Social Security Ponzi Scheme : Ripping Off The Next Generations
09 months ago
Source: http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com
Social Security is debt slavery for the young. Plain and simple , just one of the many failings of government, who simply is incapable of doing business and can only steal and borrow money in order to spend it.The reward for working hard is to have half your income taken through force and a significant portion of this money is given to those that will not work! If that ain’t killing entrepreneurial spirit then what it is . The funny thing is, you can invest your money in the same place as social security and get more back privately. In fact if you could opt out and invest it in the same place not only could you receive the money for the rest of your life, but your inheritors would actually get the remainder when you die (not just have it go back to the general fund). The stupidest group on the planet are the ones who think that government was meant to provide for everything, and is the answer to everything.In a Ponzi scheme pays off the first few investors. social security does not even do that.A Ponzi scheme is voluntary but Social Security is violent
US veterans face financial ruin waiting for benefits from overburdened VA
0Source: http://www.naturalnews.com
By: J. D. Heyes
We depend on them to protect our country, our lives, our freedom, our way of life. So why does our government continue to shortchange our veterans by chronically underfunding the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), especially at a time when our vets need the VA the most?
As lawmakers and the president continue to pour billions into social programs that help earn them votes, once again the nation’s veterans are getting the shaft. Take the case of Rebecca Tew, a 43-year-old psychologist who fought for seven years to get benefits due her husband, Duane Kozlowski, after he left the Army with brain damage and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) so bad he couldn’t hold a job.
Eventually she got them, but not before she borrowed $20,000 from family, ran up tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills for Duane, stopped paying on student loans and ruined her credit in the process. As of this writing, she was working on finding a landlord willing to rent to her, her husband and their five children.
“It’s basically been like a tornado,” she told BusinessWeek, regarding her dealings with the VA. “It’s wiped out our future. It’s wiped out our relationship with our extended family. It’s wiped everything out and we’re starting out again below ground.”
(more…)
7 little-known Social Security benefits
01 year ago
in Finance
Source: http://www.bankrate.com
By Jennie L. Phipps • Bankrate.com
That FICA guy won’t be your buddy
In the first season of “Friends,” Rachel Green looks at her first paycheck as a waitress and asks, “Who’s this FICA guy, and why is he getting all my money?”
That’s one hard lesson about Social Security. Another is that when it’s time to claim, you can’t depend on the Social Security Administration to be your personal adviser.
In an effort to save time and cut costs, Social Security employees generally don’t give case-specific advice. So that means you are on your own to make the most important financial decision of a lifetime. You have to read the rules and do the research yourself.
William Meyer, whose website, Social Security Solutions, gives Social Security advice for a fee, says you also can’t depend on Social Security to follow instructions you give them electronically. If you have a request that is not the most common choice, you’ll need to go to the Social Security office and make the request in person, he says.
Read on to brush up on Social Security benefits that are not commonly known.
20 Signs You Might Be A Typical American Worker
01 year ago
in Finance, Unemployment
Source: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
Once upon a time, anyone that was relatively competent and willing to work hard could go out and easily get a job that would enable that person to financially support a family. Unfortunately, that is simply no longer true anymore. Well paying “middle income jobs” are being rapidly replaced with “low income jobs” and part-time jobs. As the economy crumbles, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the typical American worker to survive from month to month. The number of companies that provide benefits such as health insurance has fallen steadily over the past ten years, and paychecks have not been keeping up with the rising prices of food and gas. Average American families are seeing their budgets squeezed like never before, and many of them are going into huge amounts of debt in order to make up the difference. Sadly, this is a problem that has developed over an extended period of time and that is not going to be reversed overnight. Over the past four decades, the ratio of wages and salaries to GDP in America has fallen dramatically. The typical American worker is not as valued as much as he or she used to be, and if current trends continue even more of us will be working part-time jobs or “low income jobs” in the years ahead.
In America today there is a great deal of focus on the unemployed, but there are also millions upon millions of Americans that are working part-time jobs because that is all that they can find.
It can be absolutely soul crushing to go all the way through school getting good grades, spend a ton of money on an education, and then work for 8 bucks an hour doing meaningless work for some predator corporation that simply does not care about how talented you are.
Today, an astounding 48 percent of all Americans are considered to be either “low income” or are living in poverty.
According to the New York Times, approximately 100 million Americans are either living in poverty or in “the fretful zone just above it”.
A lot of those people actually do have jobs. Unfortunately, a part-time job that pays 8 or 9 dollars an hour just will not get you anywhere close to getting over the poverty line.
This is not the way that the U.S. economy used to work. Back in the old days, good paying jobs that would allow you to live “the American Dream” were plentiful.
But now millions upon millions of Americans are scrambling for anything that they can get. According to a recent survey conducted by Gallup, the percentage of Americans that are working part-time jobs but that would like full-time jobs is now higher than it has been at any other time in the last two years.
In this economy, a good paying full-time job is incredibly precious. If you still have one, you should consider yourself to be very fortunate.
Check out the following chart. It is a chart that shows the level of wages and salaries as a percentage of GDP in the United States since the late 1940s. As you can see, the slice of the pie being taken home by American workers has been dropping like a rock since about 1970….
Is that a clear trend or what?
And it is going to continue year after year as long as we continue to pursue the same foolish economic policies.
As our politicians continue to allow millions of American jobs to be shipped overseas, competition for the jobs that remain inside this country is becoming extremely intense.
Back in 1967, 97 percent of all U.S. men with a high school degree between the ages of 30 and 50 had jobs. Today, that figure is down to 76 percent.
As you read this, there are hordes of hard working American workers sitting at home staring at their televisions as they wonder why nobody will hire them.
Right now, if you gathered together all of the unemployed people in the United States, they would constitute the 68th largest country in the world.
That is absolutely insane.
But even if you do have a job that does not mean that you are in good shape. The percentage of “low income jobs” just continues to climb. Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
Many Americans work as hard as they can and still find that they must turn to the government for financial assistance. According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.
And that number is just going to keep climbing unless we change what we are doing as a nation.
Ron Paul Issues Open Letter to President Obama Concerning Cuts to Veterans’ Benefits
11 year ago
Source: http://www.marketwatch.com
Calls on Obama to keep stated promise to vets
LAKE JACKSON, Texas, Sep 20, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign today released the following Open Letter from Dr. Paul to President Barack Obama:
“Dear President Obama,
“As a Doctor, an Air Force Veteran, and Congressman, who serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee and has always fought for the best interest of our troops, I was deeply concerned to learn that our military retirees are now facing benefit cuts under your proposed $1.5 trillion dollar tax hike.
“Our military men and women have fought bravely. In exchange, our country made a promise to them, and we must honor it.
“There are trillions of dollars in unwise and unconstitutional spending we must cut. There are few other leaders in Washington willing to cut spending as deeply as I am and truly balance our budget. But, we must make sure we take care of our Veterans who fought to take care of us.
“We have put our troops in harm’s way, and we must honor our promises. And, our troops have paid a heavy price these past ten years. Over 5,000 have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, 40,000 have seen crushing injuries, and hundreds of thousands more suffer from brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder.
“Failing to meet the promises we have made to our troops would be unjust and immoral. The cuts you announced yesterday, combined with the rumored cuts in benefits reported in publications like Army Times, have our soldiers and Veterans deeply concerned.
“Mr. President, instead of cutting our Veterans benefits, I call on you to support our troops. Support them by bringing them home to our shores, to protect our borders and defend our country. Ensure that they are rested and equipped to repel any real credible attack. Re-unite them with their families. And, make sure they no longer play policeman in dangerous foreign civil wars.
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas
“Cutting the benefits of our Veterans benefits while we subsidize the security of other wealthy nations like Germany and Japan and play World Policeman makes no sense. The money we would save extracting our fighting men and women and our equipment from overseas conflicts and regions will more than offset the savings you seek by upending the manner in which veterans receive care.
“Bringing our troops home would ensure that we keep the promise to our Veterans, strengthen our national defense and secure our borders.
“Do not mistake me for a pacifist or a person solely focused on the economics of the unsustainable global security and state-building that has helped our country arrive at the shores of financial ruin. On the contrary, I consider my military service as an Air Force flight surgeon during the Cold War to be among my highest personal and professional achievements.
“Authentic, Constitutionally-sound national security — a strong national defense — begins with guarding our borders and not the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
“Mr. President, I call upon your to support our troops, honor our Veterans, and ensure our wounded get the care they deserve. To do so, we must end these protracted, trillion-dollar wars and bring them home.”
In Liberty,
Ron Paul
[CIM Comment: Photo added to original post]
Rule: ‘Martial Law’ – Obama To Use Dictatorial Powers To Raise Debt Ceiling If Need Be
01 year ago
Source: http://theintelhub.com
The U.S. debt is totally out of control — now sitting at $14.3 Trillion, raising the debt ceiling will only buy a little more time until a massive crash takes place and total chaos ensues (economic and physical), a total fall of the republic.
The agenda seems to be to push for raising the debt limit ceiling to save this once great nation’s AAA credit rating — but what does a AAA credit rating mean if you go totally broke later and fall even harder?
The 14th Amendment states: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
This is the new tactic that the powers that be plan on using to obtain their goal (create more debt).
Obama can also use PDD51 or other Executive Orders provided to him under Pandemic Level 6 (which was extended by Obama until March of 2012) to raise the debt ceiling.
Pandemic Level 6 gives them all they need to do what ever they want, we are technically in a silent martial law.
Obama stated the other day that “Any solution to avoid the default must be bipartisan, supported by both parties and the American people, not just one faction.”
But yet one faction (Obama and the powers that be) will use Executive Orders to get this passed.
Doublespeak at it’s best.
Listen to this FOX News clip of a public threat being made (just as The Intel Hub eluded to last Sunday in the viral article titled: Pentagon To Deploy 20,000 Troops In CONUS For Civil Unrest, Possible Threats To Populace) where they hint (threaten) martial law;
This is what the staged spectacle has come to, so predictable we called it nearly a week ago.
There are also threats of canceling Social Security, Veterans benefits and more as we spiral into the abyss.
One person (or should I say sheep) said, “The country had a perfect credit rating and now they want to ruin it”.
But what would extending the debt really do, but bring us more into debt, more into trouble as stocks and paper money dwindle to nothing.
The DOW fell as the Tuesday deadline approaches. Investors worried about the countries AAA credit rating.
Expect to see even more of a staged circus sideshow in the coming days and possibly some type of major staged event.
This is a work in progess, a self learning tool and fun little project. Please excuse the slow development as it seems the needed proper time is always lacking. It is my hope that the combination of content and links to other sources of information in this simple blog may help awaken a few of the sleeping masses and encourage and inspire others to initiate their own research, ultimately for each person to be a light to help awaken others. Opinions expressed belong to me, myself and I. Also, a big thank you to all that take the time to visit, it is appreciated :)
