[quote="Gene Scarborough"]
A. I think the Food Stamp Program is a great example of a lack of ethics among the poor. It makes me mad when I stand in the grocery line to check out my meager basket of chicken and ground beef which I can afford and behind me is a person with all the finest meats and goods weighing 300+ pounds!
Ed: Gene they aren't allowed to buy Argentine beef nor Canadian Salmon with Food Stamps. That is supposed to protect the American farmers and fishermen. Food Stamp recipients even have to make sure any rice they buy has been produced domestically. Pineapple from Hawaii is OK but not from Australia
B. Now those same people are coming to our hospital and Physical Therapy Department requesting hip and knee replacements because they are so overweight it's hard to imagine! Diabetes is rampant. It all comes from escess and lack of integrity. The Bible calls it "gluttony!"
Ed: When you say " It all comes from escess and lack of integrity. " that os a bit of over kill. I also see folk paying with cash who I would suspect of gluttony.
C. am told many black churches spend the morning in worship on Sunday and the afternoon getting instructions on how to use Welfare to their advantage! What used to be a small building administering such programs in Rocky Mount, NC, is now a renovated large bank building with nice cars parked in the lot because those administrators are paid very well!
Ed: You are told of many such churches, can you confirm it? And what is a "nice car" and just how very well are the folk who work in that office paid?
State and county government workers pay in NC must have escalated since the last professional meeting I attended down in the tar heel state. IS there some reason churches (Balck or Wwhite) should not help folk learn to maximise their resources?
D. I sat on the first Title XX Funds Board in SC back in the mid-70's. Strangely, all the 80% black representation already had their programs typed up to present. Us 2 white men who represented Lee County (near Sumter / Hartsville / Florence) had no clue we were supposed to bring any proposals. Something was amiss in that all we knew was that Lee County of the Santee-Wateree region needed 2 representatives at the meeting.
Ed: As I said before when you brought this up, made you 2 whites look bad didn't it?
E. We were supposed to put all the programs on the table and then, by raise of hand, prioritize them to be funded until the millions allocated ran out. We funded programs which made it attractive to be poor. I told them in the beginning of the meeting that truely poor and hurting people needed help in a society wanting to hide the poor, but anything we did to make anyone want to stay poor and dependent was not wise. It's now almost 40 years and 4 generations into Welfare dependence and just how many are still dependent?
.F.I think we failed miserably!!!! Money DOES NOT change attitudes nor promote dreams, it just turns dreams into nightmares! Racial quotas destroys natural competition and gives an easy ride to people incapable of doing their job well.
Ed: Gene, I can agree that too many families have not not come out of the welfare cycle but I know also that the percentages for whites remaining in that cycle is just as high as for blacks. And I am persuaded that some of what ever race have broken that cycle in part due to government funded programs.
Can the record be improved I believe so. Some of the best administration of social programs in which I was ever involved included hands on activity and input form those indigenous to the neighborhoods being served. And yea I drove top of the line Plymouth's and Dodge Monaco's and a Magnum T-Top.
Never owned a Caddy until after I retired from the State. And as I have often said on these boards most of the the problems come from political appointees who know or care little about the need but use the programs to buy votes. I favor all program development and operations being in the hands of career merit service employees.