You are on Welfare

You are Angry.

You saw the woman in front of you buying junk food with food stamps and now you are on a rant about the welfare parasites ruining your country. You claim the solution to all of our deficit problems is to just stop the welfare.

Now please...take a breath and the mood altering pill of your choice (legally prescribed by your doctor of course) and take a look in the mirror.

Can we all agree that the definition of welfare is receiving financial assistance that you haven't earned? Are you 100% certain that you pay your own way without help from a socialist goverment? Let's take a look. I'm going to pick on Utah for one example because I know the state well, have many friends there and believe that you have one of the more fiscally prudent states in the country. But even as efficient as you are it still costs about $7,500 per pupil per year to educate your kids. So 2 kids for 13 years means that taxpayers (including you ) have spent about $180,000 to educate those two kids. Double that for four kids and triple it for six. So before I believe that the government isn't taking from others to redistribute to you, I'll need you to show me proof that you will ever pay that back in your life time. If you aren't going to pay that back then you have received financial assistance from others to educate your kids.

Your house is the same value as your neighbors, but you are paying a mortgage to a bank and your neighbor is paying rent to a landlord. You get a big interest deduction worth a couple thousand that he doesn't get. You may not consider it welfare but your neighbor probably does.

You live in a state that gets more money back from the federal government than you pay. My friends in Utah get back $1.07 for every dollar they pay. If they feel bad that in Colorado we only get $0.83 back for every dollar collected, I'll let you send me a check for the difference.

If you are 60 something, you are likely collecting some sort of welfare.

If the fire department ever responded to a fire on your property, then you have probably collected more from safer taxpayers than you will ever pay back. Your church provides you with a social safety net and they use roads and infrastructure but they don't have to pay taxes for them. If you have a college degree from a state college then you were subsidized by the taxes of the hard working masses who didn't go to school.

If you have a mortgage, if you have children, if you collect social security, unemployment, belong to a church, have gone to college, work for the government (including schools) then you are benefiting from some sort of redistribution of wealth.

So please stop whining that the single mother in the check out line in front of you bought cheetos and coke with "your money"!