Text 14550, 66 rader
Skriven 2005-10-10 19:43:54 av Raymond Yates (1:3613/48)
  Kommentar till text 14538 av SHANNON TALLEY (1:275/311)
Ärende: forever in debt
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 ST> Hi Raymond,

 ST> It sucked 'being' one of those people with the shopping cart.  After I
 ST> had joined the service, I got married and had a kid.  This was back
 ST> during the Regan years and we didn't get paid very well (Very junior
 ST> people still don't get paid well).  I'll never forget applying for and
 ST> receiving food stamps. I was more or less forced to by circumstance
 ST> because  I couldn't pay the
 ST> rent, buy food, and pay for gasoline and utilities with as little as
 ST> the military paid us.  "Then", the Clinton administration (in it's
 ST> brilliance), decided that Military people didn't need food stamps and
 ST> took it away from us (it's been subsequently reinstated).  I had to
 ST> take a second job working evenings, while my wife worked nights (and
 ST> stayed up during most of the day with our baby).  I ended up taking an
 ST> assignment to South America where we lived in relatively good comfort
 ST> on my small income for 7 years.  When I came back to the states I was
 ST> a higher rank, and we had got more raises to compensate for all the
 ST> military folks leaving the service for the new booming IT industry.
 ST> We were better off.

Been here too, when I was in the service inthe 60's-70's. Starting pay was
$90/mo.. When I was a married E-5, I bought a LOT of 50 lb bags of
potatoes... <g> And hoped thay would last the month.. I could have easily
written the same things you did, save for the trip to South America.. <g>

Oh, and in the Nixon years and after, I don't think we were allowed to get
Food Stamps, either, I could be wrong on that though, as I never asked.

Much later when I was in KY, I was on the Food Stamp program, and I know how
that works, so, I know both sides of it.

 ST> Anyway, paying that extra -- just that $1 or $2 more is just too much
 ST> for some people.  I remember going to the store and trying to figure
 ST> out how to buy 1 weeks worth of food for $10.00.  What I usually did
 ST> was buy a sack of potatoes, some hamburger meat (in the prefrozen
 ST> cheaper section), a bag of frozen vegetables, and some milk and / or
 ST> margarine.  If they were on sale, we would buy some fruit or onions.
 ST> We would use condiments (packaged ketchup, salt, etc.) collected from
 ST> fast food restaurants (usually taken from desk drawers at work)
 ST> instead of buying them because we couldn't afford them. I would
 ST> examine the receipt, and OFTEN discovered I was being charged taxes on
 ST> items that shouldn't have been taxed.  That $1.00 at the register on
 ST> those taxes meant not getting something we needed to eat.

 ST> Sure, with this program one would get a check back, but that's "after"
 ST> people have gone hungry.  It's better for some to get the savings
 ST> right away, at the cash register, rather than waiting.

I agree, but in this case the check does not reflect what you actually spend,
but it's based on what the Gov't thinks you should spend (see below),
and comes whether you spend that much or not. In a manner of speaking, you get
the money before the month starts.. I hope that would help those who need it.
A lump sum like that each month, plus getting all you're supposed to get paid,
would really help a lot of people that are on the margin..

 >> I've had occasion to wait behind people with a Shopping cart with
 >> items that were both exempt and not from the Food Stamp program. I'd
 >> as soon not do that. pay the tax on it all, and get the money back
 >> you're supposed to get on the first of the month. As the bill is
 >> structured now (and it may change) the "prebates" range
 >> from $187.43/mo for a single person to $741.75/mo for a family of
 >> eight (larger than that, add $62.48/person/mo).


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 * Origin: Ray's Rocket Shop - Out to Launch (1:3613/48)