Sunday, December 01, 2013

On the question of welfare...

I have a friend with a catastrophic disease. The medicines that keep him alive run $2.5K/month. He works as hard as he can, but can barely afford to eat, let alone pay for prescriptions. Thanks to our buddies in congress, and the voters who think all poor folk are lazy, his benefits have been repeatedly delayed and whittled down.

I agree that there's far to much abuse of the system and there needs to be sweeping reform to prevent it. But cutting everyone for over-generalized opinions hurts children, elderly and the weakest members of our society. And that damages our nation as a whole.

Wise old Ben never intended that we turn our backs on those whose lives depend on us. He taught that those who CAN work MUST work. And that's where reforms should start. Not all poor are lazy. Not everyone on food stamps is an addict. Without our help, my friend and others like him will die. Instead of lumping them all together and slamming doors, we must weed out the users and take better care of those who really need us.

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