no kidding man. I don't know about the Taliban, but I had some friends that went over there. It was like 70 to 120k for six months, all tax exempt from USA taxes, cold hard cash. It wasn't Halliburton, but it was somebody like them. one guy did a six month stint, and came home, then his wife did a six month stint. Here they were, just poor truck drivers with a totally paid off house. And that was back when houses were really expensive actually truck drivers make really good money, if you know what you are doing but just like everything else, most are total dumbshits, they were born poor, they think poor, and will always be poor
1) There is no "free" money 2) It's MY money they're getting and MOST of them don't deserve it. I used to play golf with a guy who was on disability for years. My daughter-in-laws ex boyfriends girlfriend is on disability. Both were/are perfectly capable of working. They just don't want to.
It a contributing factor to our country's financial demise. http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html National debt $16.755 TRILLION and growing. We can't afford to pay able bodied people to do nothing.
I hear ya, at one time I had a wife that waited tables one time I looked at her pay stub, and there it was $720 to the federal government and at the same time, the New York Times or some other bullshit newspaper published the wine bill for a Whitehouse dinner. and it was like $720 per table so she worked 7 months just to pay for one wine service at a Whitehouse dinner
I don't know if this is a state by state thing but in delaware alcoholism is considered a disability. So we are essentially enabling addicts. My sister in law gets medicaid and disability. She recently got the shit beat out of her and was in the hospitalfor 3 weeks and had surgery on her skull. I would imagine this would cost somewhere in the six figures. Would we all be better off if she was just left for dead?
financially, yes. morally, no. The great dilemma? What did other great empires of the past do in the situation of the rising cost of public welfare?
I think some of the motivation is realizing you can't find a job or just a shitty job so why not explore other options like disability.
I think in the case of my neighbor it made more sense to get disability. He is in his early 60's and probably wouldn't pass a truck driving physical with his medical issues. His only other choices in our area would probably be temp work at 8 bucks an hour and no benefits. That works out to 320 dollars a week and probably 294.00 after payroll tax. That's 1274 bucks a month HOWEVER you still have to get to & from the job (gas/wear & tear on vehicle) and there is no health insurance. A guy on disability is going to get around 1100 bucks a month and free health care. The decision to be "disabled" seems to be a better choice all around. Would I do it? I can't say because with my neighbor being so close to retirement age he is probably finding it impossible to find ANY kind of work.
You can not qualify, legally, for SSA disability because of either alcoholism or drug addiction. However some adicts, possibly many, can eventually get a mental disease diagnosis which qualifies them, usually after a long delay and much paper work. Medical documentation is required, but incentives for physicians are probably not well aligned with SSA interests. There are lawyers all over the country specializing in getting their clients on disability for a cut of their disability checks (yes, this is apparently legal). The lawyers know the rules backwards and forwards and counsel their clients on what to say and what not to say at their disability hearing. Another serious problem is that in some states, maybe all, i'm not certain, a single person with no dependents can not qualify for medicaid no matter how little income they have, unless they qualify for disability. Some of these have dire need for medical care beyond the emergency room stop gap visit and typical public clinics for the poor (if any are accessible). Thus these people have an incentive to try and qualify for disability so that they can access special medical and dental care. This is something that should be fixed soon with the ACA kicking in. The SSA puts up hurdles that must be got over to qualify for disability. It isn't as easy as some have implied, and for those truly in need the rules can leave them in a desperate situation while they are waiting to qualify. At the same time there are undoubtedly a lot of fraudulent claims being made and assisted by unscrupulous attorneys. The incentives are misplaced. These problems are, in the main, fixable. But then most problems are fixable,as the solutions are well known. Of course, that does not mean they will be fixed, as fixing them often is thwarted by special interests. The problems encountered by SSA in regard to disability qualification stand as a nice example of the "Enlightenment Fallacy" -- ideas and logic won't necessarily triumph over special interests, even in the long run.