My Sister-in-law and her 4 kids were on Welfare and got Food Stamps

[HockeyMom]

Of course, she didn't fit what the Republicans think of as a Welfare Mother with different "Baby Daddies". She got pregnant in high school, and married the father of her baby in a Catholic Church at 19 years old. Way too young for both of them. Back in those days, they called it Shotgun Weddings. Following church teachings, they did not use birth control and had four children (twins).

While her husband had a good paying Union job, I suppose all that responsibility at such a young age was just too much for him. He started doing drugs, seeing other women, not coming home, or paying the bills. One day he just left. My sister-in-law's youngest was only a year old, the twins three, and oldest six.

A wedding ring solves all problems? Religion does? Guess not. So according to Republicans, she should just pull herself up by her bootstraps, and get a job? How? What was she supposed to do with her little ones? Leave them alone while she worked? With only a HS diploma, and had never worked, what kind of job was she supposed to get to be able to afford to pay her rent, bills, AND a babysitter or Day Care? So she got government services, until she could sue her husband for child support. She should not have done this? Whatever happened in their marriage, her husband was still the father of these children and should support his children, at the very least until they were a bit older, in school, and his wife could get a job, and get back on her feet. She never asked for alimony. That is exactly what happened. Without Welfare and Food Stamps, I don't know what she would have done.

These Republicans don't want to know anything like this, and certainly don't care. Heartless.

[BlueJazz]

1. I, as a taxpayer..don't mind one tiny bit about her getting help. I wish she got more.

This country is plenty rich to help the people who need help.

[etherealtruth]

2. As a taxpayer ....

I WANT MY TAXES TO PROVIDE A SAFETY NET FOR THOSE LESS FORTUNATE THAN I.

I am not all that well off, but, as a single mother I have been fortunate enough to be able to feed shelter and educate my children (still in the process of paying for that) ... I understand that anyone of us is just one catastrophe away from needing help.

[Warpy]

3. They especially don't want to know that the average welfare recipient

is now and always has been a divorced white woman with three children, at least one of them preschool.

I suppose they think(ha) if they abolish welfare, the women will take to the streets to feed their kids and drive down the cost of hiring a prostitute.

Of course, the pious ones think marriages will last longer if women are trapped in bad ones the way they were in the 1950s when married women were disqualified from most jobs. They are forgetting that back then a divorce cost a man alimony as well as child support.

[steve2470]

4. They always focus on the (AFAIK) very small incidence of welfare fraud and then...

use that to indict the entire system.

Boiled down, it's "you're a bad person and you fked up. I got mine so fk you".

Progressives and Dems need to do a better job of confronting the welfare fraud meme. It's very widespread.

[REP]

5. You know what? I don't care.

I don't care if she had a different partner for each kid or not. I don't care if she's religious or not. I don't care about anything other than Are they getting food? Do they have shelter? Are they safe? Because really, anything else does not matter.

Let's say she was a "cheat" (though she wasn't). How much money was she "cheating" out of the system to just barely hold on? Maybe $12K a year if she's lucky. Wow. For 5 humans to eat, live inside and wear clothes, that's nothing. To keep 5 humans alive, that's totally worth it, even if one of them is a "cheat." We can afford to bail out banks and corporations - I think we can damn well afford to keep actual human beings alive, sheltered, fed and clothed. And I think we should do a better job of it.

[shraby]

7. +1,00000...screw it, there aren't enough 0's to recommend.

There are basics that all humans should be entitled to just by virtue of being human...food, clothing, health care, heat, lights and a little jingle in their jeans..what is called "walking around money". Did I forget some?

[alp227]

6. Reminds me of this Salt Lake Tribune article I saw today

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56888040-90/average-utah-percent-national.html.csp

The annual American Community Survey shows Utah again has the nation’s biggest families, most households headed by married couples, youngest ages at first marriage, highest birth rates and most families where at least one parent stays home with young children.

The new data also includes statistics that seem to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. That includes one of the nation’s highest divorce rates...

Once again right wing politicians show how out of touch of the REAL WORLD they are. That whole Leave It to Beaver spiel...it's a fantasy. Idealism. A myth. Do they not understand peer pressure? The cost of a "pro family" culture is that many who aren't ready to marry/parent yet end up trying to start families...and failing miserably. Similarly, what about all those stories of accidental shootings or irresponsible gun owners in "pro gun" states?

[SheilaT]

8. Typical.

I want to point out that the father of those four children seems to have gotten away scot-free.

No matter what, no children get conceived without the the help of a man. And all too often the right wing conservatives seem to think that all the children of unwed moms somehow got here by some sort of immaculate conception.

While I'm not intending to trash the men who do take responsibility, it seems to me a though the women are almost always left holding the bag. Or raising the children.

No matter what the circumstances, it behooves us as a society to make sure that all the kids have a decent place in which to grow up.