A Help up

There is a growing debate in many local state and federal offices about budgets. With record numbers of jobless claims rising everyday, due to the economic state of our country. Governments are sharply cutting budgets to stay in alive, and keep from falling. The other issue is the social service system taking on record numbers of new cases everyday.

 The question has come up about people who have been receiving the governmental assistance for years and have other generations on the system as well. I often wonder if they are set up for failed results, through poor schools. A lack of education, and programs that do not teach adequate self sufficiency could be the reason. It is a job to get a job, but if you were not raised in a working house hold where you see all the able body people going to work everyday, then you would get the concept of working everyday. This has lead to some people believing that they are owed something, by society and they should not have to work for anything. I witnessed this while in a family shelter. Not being mandated to actively pursue work is causing lasting effects.
Looking forward this can not continue, and will continue to cause deficits in other area’s that carry over into fiscal years to come.

The results are showing up with cuts in education budgets, from classroom staff reduction, to bus routs in suburban areas. For immigrants the lack of English for students that speak other languages at home. Other cuts are with fire departments, and police forces. In some inner city areas police presence need to be increased, do to the hike in violence in summer months when youth are out of school.


Possible solutions:

Because government assistance is for 5 years in most places, an audit should be conducted to check eligibility.

The next thing is when governments issue businesses contracts; they should be made to find staffing from public assistance rosters. This will do 2 things; first it would absorb some of the financial strain off of the local governments. The other is that it would put money back into the local economy such as local retailers and taxes.

When you have a baby and apply for governmental assistance, you are allowed to stay home for a year. Now some have had babies just when there year is up, which keeps them off for another year (see my point). I sat in a class and a woman stood up and said that she did not know how to use a computer, because she had not worked in 15 years. She was raising her children. She had her first child I believe at 15 she was 30, but this is not an isolated situation. It is very common in a lot of areas; it is just not resolved and overlooked.

My thoughts:

We all have times in our lives where we fall short, and we get back up. Productivity is like working out, if you never work out your body can’t run marathons. In life it is not what happens to you, it is how you recover. Failed circumstances will not overtake you, as long as your will to succeed is strong enough.