As I write this week’s column, I am sitting in a hotel room along the North Carolina coast. I finally took a break from working on a project for my employer. I am a technician for a large multi-media and entertainment company. Sometimes I put in long hours, sometimes I travel, and sometimes during my travels, I have to stay the occasional overnight (or several nights).
It is part of my job to work long hours when needed. More than that, it is part of my ethic to do so. There are limits, though. I will have a life outside of my job and I will have extra-curricular activities. For instance, I volunteer with a local Cub Scout pack in Smithfield. There was a feeble attempt to start a new pack in Selma a few years ago, for which I offered to become involved in any needed capacity. Since that work never materialized, I became involved along with my eight-year-old son in the existing organization. I am sure that I will have to go through it all over again in four or five years with my toddler when he is old enough to get involved in Scouting. Then, when the “bun in the oven” is born and is old enough, he or she may well get involved in Scouting and Dear Old Dad will probably be involved then, as well.
Last week I had a weekend off from work. I got a phone call from a co-worker asking about a technical problem he was having. The technician on call had already been on the road that day and I was one of the few people who knew about the technology in question. So, I got drafted into working on a Sunday afternoon. In so doing, I had to blow off my commitment that day with Cub Scouts. That was the “season opener”, so to speak, for this year’s Cub Scout activities. I was not at all happy about it, but it was something that had to be done. After all, my employer supplies me with the job and salary that pays my bills.
On the way home, after working on my day off and missing my beloved Scouts, I had to stop by the friendly, local grocery store and pick up a few items. I took my less than twelve items to the express checkout lane, which was misnamed at this point. The young man behind the counter was obviously new. He had to constantly get help from other checkout staff no less than four times on one transaction. I don’t blame him for the problem and long wait. I do blame the company for putting such an untrained newbie at the register. I also blame something else.
As I was waiting in line for the incredibly long transaction, I could not help but notice that the couple getting the small amount of groceries and tendered the payment that caused the debacle most likely did not speak English as their native language and were probably from a land south of our nation’s border. They were using a WIC voucher as payment. It was the voucher processing that gave the young cashier such a problem, only because it was new to him. As I looked over at the next register, I saw a middle aged man paying for his cart full of groceries with a government issued food stamp debit card. I was less than thrilled to know that I was paying for their grocery purchases as well as my own.
In this present economy, I understand that a lot of people may be out of work. It is frustrating, however, to work as hard as I do and see my tax dollars supporting so many others who are not. I know people who have never worked in their lives but are collecting food stamps, Social Security benefits, disability benefits, or other forms of government subsidy. For those who do want to work, the government created the high unemployment situation with their own policies, and many just can’t keep up with the cost of living life with no job.
To make it worse, President Barack Obama is trying to push through yet another stimulus spending package and tax hike under the guise of a jobs bill. As I was explaining to a friend of mine the other day, this bill follows a pattern. I said to him, “Step one: institute plans that will financially injure the country and cause job loss. Step two: create a so-called solution to the problem just created with more of the same strategy that caused the problem to begin with. Step three: take an increasing amount of control over the population in the name of remedying the now increasing problem caused the solution to the problem originally created.”
I realize that this so-called jobs bill probably won’t pass through Congress, but I have a feeling that things are still going to get worse before they get better and I am going to see a lot more WIC vouchers and food stamps at my neighborhood grocery store. Maybe at least the nice but inexperienced grocery clerk will get better at what he does.
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Friday, September 23, 2011
Friday, October 08, 2010
Column for Oct. 7, 2010
I am sure that there are a lot of you are like me in that you know of someone who has been out of work for some time now. I stand by my earlier assessment that the economy was not as bad as many people made it out to be. Unfortunately, just as with the Great Depression at the end of the 1920's, government intervention that was intended to help had just the opposite effect. But that is a different subject for a different column.
There are two people in my family who lost their jobs in the past couple of years. Both of them were long time employees of their respective employers. Both ended up being laid off and receiving unemployment benefits while they applied for new jobs. Neither has found new employment to this day. One finally reached the proper age for retirement, so he started drawing on his retirement savings. The other decided to just become a stay-at-home mom full time rather than re-enter the workforce.
Both of these people ended up being "overpaid" in their unemployment benefits. The elder of the two was the first one laid off and ended up paying back about a thousand dollars (as I recall) to the state. The younger of the two was amongst the 38,000 people who recently got nastygrams from the North Carolina Employment Security Commission saying that she owed the state.
As a matter of fact, this young lady received a total of four letters saying that she owed the state money. Three of those letters all arrived on the same day. You may have read, seen, or heard about this story in recent newspaper articles, on television, on the internet, or on the radio. I heard numerous stories about it. It was even national news.
Every one of the people that received nastygrams from the government allegedly received benefits above which they were entitled. The state knew that over payments were being made as far back as January but did nothing about it then. They waited until September to do something about it and put pressure on the poverty-stricken to repay money they did not have.
My family member was rather unhappy with the demand for money back since she, like tens of thousands of others in North Carolina, is still out of work. She received the alleged overage money through no fault of her own. She showed me the letters and they were as confusing to me as they were to her. She told me that every time her unemployment benefits were supposed to expire, she would get an extension of benefits letter. After getting these four letters saying that she owed the state money, she got yet another letter informing her of yet another extension of her unemployment benefits.
I am glad to say that Governor Beverly Perdue did the right thing by stepping in and making sure that the people who received any overage did not have to repay it. I am not much on government entitlements, but unemployment benefits are a bit different than welfare, WIC, food stamps, government housing, and other such programs. People pay into the system, as do employers for benefits during such cases of unemployment.
As I was told about the fun that my family members had in dealing with a state agency, I could only marvel at the gross inefficiency. The same state that knowingly overpaid unemployment benefits and failed to correct the problem is the same state government that tries to run our education system. The same state government that sent duplicate letters to 38,000 unemployed people is the same state that is ruthless in collecting back taxes from its citizens.
Look at this on a larger scale. If a state government can be so inefficient with unemployment benefits for 38,000 people, imagine how inefficient and wasteful the national government is with all of its giveaways and entitlement programs. I imagine that it is 50 times or more as bad as North Carolina.
When I think about government inefficiencies like this, I wonder why in the world we agree to depend upon them for retirement income programs, for running the mail service, for income for the elderly and infirm, and for medical care. Is the government that knowingly did not make correct payments to the unemployed then tried to demand the money back, the same government that you want taking decisions for your children's education or for your health care? Not me.
There are two people in my family who lost their jobs in the past couple of years. Both of them were long time employees of their respective employers. Both ended up being laid off and receiving unemployment benefits while they applied for new jobs. Neither has found new employment to this day. One finally reached the proper age for retirement, so he started drawing on his retirement savings. The other decided to just become a stay-at-home mom full time rather than re-enter the workforce.
Both of these people ended up being "overpaid" in their unemployment benefits. The elder of the two was the first one laid off and ended up paying back about a thousand dollars (as I recall) to the state. The younger of the two was amongst the 38,000 people who recently got nastygrams from the North Carolina Employment Security Commission saying that she owed the state.
As a matter of fact, this young lady received a total of four letters saying that she owed the state money. Three of those letters all arrived on the same day. You may have read, seen, or heard about this story in recent newspaper articles, on television, on the internet, or on the radio. I heard numerous stories about it. It was even national news.
Every one of the people that received nastygrams from the government allegedly received benefits above which they were entitled. The state knew that over payments were being made as far back as January but did nothing about it then. They waited until September to do something about it and put pressure on the poverty-stricken to repay money they did not have.
My family member was rather unhappy with the demand for money back since she, like tens of thousands of others in North Carolina, is still out of work. She received the alleged overage money through no fault of her own. She showed me the letters and they were as confusing to me as they were to her. She told me that every time her unemployment benefits were supposed to expire, she would get an extension of benefits letter. After getting these four letters saying that she owed the state money, she got yet another letter informing her of yet another extension of her unemployment benefits.
I am glad to say that Governor Beverly Perdue did the right thing by stepping in and making sure that the people who received any overage did not have to repay it. I am not much on government entitlements, but unemployment benefits are a bit different than welfare, WIC, food stamps, government housing, and other such programs. People pay into the system, as do employers for benefits during such cases of unemployment.
As I was told about the fun that my family members had in dealing with a state agency, I could only marvel at the gross inefficiency. The same state that knowingly overpaid unemployment benefits and failed to correct the problem is the same state government that tries to run our education system. The same state government that sent duplicate letters to 38,000 unemployed people is the same state that is ruthless in collecting back taxes from its citizens.
Look at this on a larger scale. If a state government can be so inefficient with unemployment benefits for 38,000 people, imagine how inefficient and wasteful the national government is with all of its giveaways and entitlement programs. I imagine that it is 50 times or more as bad as North Carolina.
When I think about government inefficiencies like this, I wonder why in the world we agree to depend upon them for retirement income programs, for running the mail service, for income for the elderly and infirm, and for medical care. Is the government that knowingly did not make correct payments to the unemployed then tried to demand the money back, the same government that you want taking decisions for your children's education or for your health care? Not me.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Column for March 25, 2010
There are some things that government can do well. Just this morning, my wife was remarking about how efficient the Town of Selma is about picking up yard debris and other items left at the side of the road. This weekend we did a lot of needed yard work. We also have moved furniture, boxes, limbs, etc. to the curb and they were quickly removed.
Compare that to the road kill that never seems to get picked up along side the highways of North Carolina. I have literally seen deer carcasses rot away to nothing after laying around for a month or two. The state, it seems, is not as efficient at managing the minutia as a small town. This is true of most things the higher up you go in levels of government.
The national government is good at doing a few things. They seem to be good at fielding a military that is quite capable of blowing things up and killing people. That is what I want a military to be able to do. The government seems to be good at building roads, which is good for all citizens.
The national government is not, however, efficient at running people's lives for them. The Social Security system is about broke. The Post Office is broke. The Medicare system is broke. And yet the same government that has run these institutions into the ground now expects us to trust them with our health care system.
I went to bed in a free country and woke up in a socialist nation this morning. "Welkum to Amerika, Comrades" is my greeting to you all. 219 men and women who are either willfully ignorant of or blatantly disregard the Constitution of the United States have voted for and passed sweeping health care legislation that is sure to be signed into law. Forget the fact that most of them have not read the bill much less understand it.
Just about every week, I have joined two friends of mine and taught on the US Constitution and read line upon line the notes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Nowhere can I find a single line or even a hint that the government should assist with much less regulate how you seek medical care. For that matter, I do not see where the Social Security system or Medicare is legal, either.
In order to buy the votes of some so called "pro-life" Democrats, President Obama has issued an executive order (also nowhere to be found in the Constitution) prohibiting the use of federal tax dollars to fund abortions, even though such a provision exists in the law. Sorry, but law trumps a presidential edict. So much for being pro-life.
There are a couple of other things I found that government does well. First, spend money. I do not have a problem with the government spending money on principle. I do however, believe that the spending should be parsimonious, legal, and done with great wisdom. Waste, fraud, and abuse are rampant in our state and national governments. Unconstitutional spending abounds at the federal level. I am convinced that if the national government would just cease all spending not permitted by the US Constitution, our national debt and budget would diminish to a fraction of current status.
Second, government excels at taking away freedom. Whether it is Selma's attempt at controlling land outside its town limits with an extra-territorial jurisdiction expansion and forced annexation or the federal government regulating your health care options, government is good at chipping away at your liberty.
James Madison said, "All that seems indispensable in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former." That is exactly what we have been doing in this nation since The New Deal under Franklin Roosevelt and further broadened under Johnson's Great Society. Now we have Obamacare and profligate spending with job bills and stimulus spending packages.
There is no way that we can continue this degradation in Amerika. We can not afford to go the way of socialized medicine, profligate spending, and redistribution of wealth. They have failed everywhere else in the world that they have been tried, so why, comrades, do we go down this same path here in Amerika?
Compare that to the road kill that never seems to get picked up along side the highways of North Carolina. I have literally seen deer carcasses rot away to nothing after laying around for a month or two. The state, it seems, is not as efficient at managing the minutia as a small town. This is true of most things the higher up you go in levels of government.
The national government is good at doing a few things. They seem to be good at fielding a military that is quite capable of blowing things up and killing people. That is what I want a military to be able to do. The government seems to be good at building roads, which is good for all citizens.
The national government is not, however, efficient at running people's lives for them. The Social Security system is about broke. The Post Office is broke. The Medicare system is broke. And yet the same government that has run these institutions into the ground now expects us to trust them with our health care system.
I went to bed in a free country and woke up in a socialist nation this morning. "Welkum to Amerika, Comrades" is my greeting to you all. 219 men and women who are either willfully ignorant of or blatantly disregard the Constitution of the United States have voted for and passed sweeping health care legislation that is sure to be signed into law. Forget the fact that most of them have not read the bill much less understand it.
Just about every week, I have joined two friends of mine and taught on the US Constitution and read line upon line the notes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Nowhere can I find a single line or even a hint that the government should assist with much less regulate how you seek medical care. For that matter, I do not see where the Social Security system or Medicare is legal, either.
In order to buy the votes of some so called "pro-life" Democrats, President Obama has issued an executive order (also nowhere to be found in the Constitution) prohibiting the use of federal tax dollars to fund abortions, even though such a provision exists in the law. Sorry, but law trumps a presidential edict. So much for being pro-life.
There are a couple of other things I found that government does well. First, spend money. I do not have a problem with the government spending money on principle. I do however, believe that the spending should be parsimonious, legal, and done with great wisdom. Waste, fraud, and abuse are rampant in our state and national governments. Unconstitutional spending abounds at the federal level. I am convinced that if the national government would just cease all spending not permitted by the US Constitution, our national debt and budget would diminish to a fraction of current status.
Second, government excels at taking away freedom. Whether it is Selma's attempt at controlling land outside its town limits with an extra-territorial jurisdiction expansion and forced annexation or the federal government regulating your health care options, government is good at chipping away at your liberty.
James Madison said, "All that seems indispensable in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former." That is exactly what we have been doing in this nation since The New Deal under Franklin Roosevelt and further broadened under Johnson's Great Society. Now we have Obamacare and profligate spending with job bills and stimulus spending packages.
There is no way that we can continue this degradation in Amerika. We can not afford to go the way of socialized medicine, profligate spending, and redistribution of wealth. They have failed everywhere else in the world that they have been tried, so why, comrades, do we go down this same path here in Amerika?
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