What does government owe you?

[TheMercenary]

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Robinson: Close the government buffet

GEVERYL ROBINSON | Sunday, July 12, 2009 at 12:30 am
Contextual linking provided by Topix What the government owes poor people.

Recently, I asked a group of college students if they believed poor people in this country were owed anything from our government.

Initially, they said the government should provide for those who are less fortunate. However, when I stressed that the question wasn't whether the government should provide for them, but rather if the government owed poor people anything, the students' opinions changed.

I found it interesting that these young people, many of whom grew up in poverty or classified themselves as poor, overwhelmingly stated that the government does not now, nor has it ever, owed anything to anyone.

The lone exceptions were military veterans (FREE healthcare for life), the elderly and people who are seriously disabled, either due to a debilitating or mental illness. These people, students said, should receive health benefits and a monthly check for living expenses and food.

Several students told their own stories of struggle and survival. One has been unemployed for over a year and just received a job last week.

"Try making it on $275 per week," he told me, and that's before taxes are withheld. "But, I did it," he said with pride.

Another student came to my office and said he'd never given much thought to how the government should provide for those living below the poverty line.

"I have two opinions about it," he explained, "but I still keep coming back to the fact that no one is really owed anything." He then went on to tell me how he's managing to provide for his family (wife, two kids) on an annual salary of $30,000. His wife is from another country. He told me her parents had to pay cash for their home because there was no such thing as credit.

"Maybe the reason we have so many poor people," he later added, "is because we have so many plastic people. If we didn't use so much credit, maybe we'd have more money and fewer poor people."

I broached the subject with the students because it seems many in this country either believe the government owes something to those who are less fortunate, or those who are less fortunate believe they are owed something from the government.

It's gotten to where we have literally bankrupted our country trying to care for a vast majority of people who are perfectly capable of caring for themselves.

Next weekend, I'm flying to Florida for my grandmother's 99th birthday celebration. She remembers how things were run in our society before the inception of welfare.

"We didn't depend on anybody to do anything for us because we knew no body would," she once told me. "And the only reason welfare was started was because of the Great Depression."

Until 1960, only the elderly and disabled were allowed to receive benefits: the elderly and the disabled, the people who can't work. "If you were grown," my grandmother told me, "and you were big enough to walk, you worked."

And back in her day, churches and the community pitched in to help those in need as well too. My grandmother began helping out on her father's farm when she was a little child, and even now, she sews and instructs sewing to anyone willing to learn.

I'm not saying we should begin putting 5 year olds on assembly lines. But I am saying is that no able-bodied person has any business receiving all of his or her income from the government because we are the government and we are paying for their laziness.

I do not owe someone who has every opportunity afforded to me, and everyone else, anything at all, especially my hard-earned money.

There is a Chinese proverb that states, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." The government has been giving too many people fish for far too long, so much so that these people believe they are not capable of survival without the government lifeline.

Our government has gone from providing fish to providing filet mignon, all at our expense. It's time to shut down the government buffet because this "free meal" costs way too much.


Geveryl Robinson, formerly of Savannah, lives and writes in Knoxville. Geveryl@gmail.com

http://savannahnow.com/node/751188