Regarding the popular view from the right that "everyone should pay something " when it comes to income tax...and for those who like to infer that welfare recipients are lazy and sponging off of the rest of us... here is an excerpt from today's NY Times that may give pause and inspire some charitable feeling:
"With states under pressure to cut their budgets and federal stimulus money gone, low-income working parents are facing a paradox. Just when they have to work longer hours to make ends meet, they are losing access to the thing they need most to stay on the job: a government subsidy that helps pay for child care.
Sheontay Smith, a single mother in Baltimore, and her son are among nearly 8,000 families on a waiting list for the subsidy in Maryland.
Ms. Smith, who works full time at the Baltimore Housing Authority, has been on a waiting list since summer. She applied because her son’s father stopped paying child support, and the monthly $520 she needed for her 3-year-old’s day care was more than her $22,000 salary could support.
She took her son out, but ended up losing half her paycheck in unpaid days off because her regular baby sitters, among them Ms. Smith’s grandmother, who is on kidney dialysis, fell through. The only way to get the subsidy, her caseworker told her, was to stop working and go on welfare. (In Maryland, someone on welfare is automatically eligible.)“Is the system set up for me to fail? Because that’s what it feels like,” said Ms. Smith.
Her son is now back in day care, at the expense of other bills. Her phone was cut off this week, and she is behind on her gas, electricity and car insurance."
the link to the full story is here
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/us/child-care-subsidies-drop-when-families-need-them-most.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw
“I’m sick and tired of hearing things From uptight-short sighted-narrow minded hypocrites All I want is the truth Just gimme some truth.” - John Lennon
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