This story was making the rounds on facebook a while back and got under my skin pretty fierce. So I fired back and want to see what you guys think.
"I recently asked my neighbors’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, are liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?’
She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’
Her parents beamed with pride.
’Wow…what a worthy goal.’ I told her, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that! You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.‘
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ’ Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50? ‘
I said, ‘Welcome to Conservatism.’
Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.
-Mr. Conservative [email protected]"
My response on facebook:
For everyone that posted that absurd article with the narrator giving some "child with liberal parents" a lesson on becoming a Republican by telling an absurd story about a homeless man in a supermarket...read this:
http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_13_a_murray.html
You're probably saying "That has a lot of words, I don't wanna!"
Tough. You posted something so stupid it nearly gave me an aneurysm.
The article equated all homeless people to basically being lazy-f$%ks who are a drain on the system. Guess what? It ain't that simple. The vast majority of homeless people spend <2 days as a drain on the system (aka going to homeless shelters). That means they become homeless, they get their act together, they get a home. The problem lies at the end of the distribution of the chronically homeless end of the spectrum (the people you typically think about peddling for money). They constitute a much smaller proportion. They can be helped. How? Give them a home.
"But that costs me more money."
You didn't read the article. Did you?
The average chronic homeless person can run up medical bills over the course of a year that can top $1 million dollars. Who fits that bill do you suppose? The taxpayer.
"Let them die"
You're an ass. Those people get sick, a lot. They go to the emergency room, or the drunk-tank. That costs you money. It turns out that the guy costing us a million a year can cost us a heck of a lot less if they are put up in an apartment with a yearly rent of <$17,000. That even leaves, oh, about $983,000 to hire more social workers and case managers to check-in on them and help them stay with the program.
"But that costs me more money"
No. You don't use all of it by doing it this way, and it creates jobs, isn't that a good thing too?
Fixing it isn't easy. It won't work for some. For those that it does work for, they will be productive members of society, they will cost you less money, they won't be on the streets begging for money, their families won't have to worry about where they are or if they are dead.
"This sounds like a bunch of socialist propaganda"
Absurd. Look at it as a capitalist then. Give them a home and supervision, you save money. Let's say it costs on average $800,000 per chronic homeless person per year (medical bills + shelters + soup kitchens + etc). Give them an apartment at $16,000 a year + a social worker who has let's say 4 people they check-in on (average salary, ~$40,000) so divide that by 4 = $20,000 a year. So let's see, that is a savings of $780,000. Not chump change. You help them get a job and they start to take over a portion of their rent? Cut the rent cost in half and save another $8,000 a year per person.
"Still sounds like socialism to me"
Pick your knuckles up off the ground, read the article, and realize that tingling sensation behind your ears is something we call "thought."
I typically leave politics alone, but this simplified version of propaganda and bullshit pissed me off. Especially with the government shutdown over one extreme end of one group's ideology.
"I recently asked my neighbors’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, are liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?’
She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’
Her parents beamed with pride.
’Wow…what a worthy goal.’ I told her, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that! You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.‘
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ’ Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50? ‘
I said, ‘Welcome to Conservatism.’
Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.
-Mr. Conservative [email protected]"
My response on facebook:
For everyone that posted that absurd article with the narrator giving some "child with liberal parents" a lesson on becoming a Republican by telling an absurd story about a homeless man in a supermarket...read this:
http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_13_a_murray.html
You're probably saying "That has a lot of words, I don't wanna!"
Tough. You posted something so stupid it nearly gave me an aneurysm.
The article equated all homeless people to basically being lazy-f$%ks who are a drain on the system. Guess what? It ain't that simple. The vast majority of homeless people spend <2 days as a drain on the system (aka going to homeless shelters). That means they become homeless, they get their act together, they get a home. The problem lies at the end of the distribution of the chronically homeless end of the spectrum (the people you typically think about peddling for money). They constitute a much smaller proportion. They can be helped. How? Give them a home.
"But that costs me more money."
You didn't read the article. Did you?
The average chronic homeless person can run up medical bills over the course of a year that can top $1 million dollars. Who fits that bill do you suppose? The taxpayer.
"Let them die"
You're an ass. Those people get sick, a lot. They go to the emergency room, or the drunk-tank. That costs you money. It turns out that the guy costing us a million a year can cost us a heck of a lot less if they are put up in an apartment with a yearly rent of <$17,000. That even leaves, oh, about $983,000 to hire more social workers and case managers to check-in on them and help them stay with the program.
"But that costs me more money"
No. You don't use all of it by doing it this way, and it creates jobs, isn't that a good thing too?
Fixing it isn't easy. It won't work for some. For those that it does work for, they will be productive members of society, they will cost you less money, they won't be on the streets begging for money, their families won't have to worry about where they are or if they are dead.
"This sounds like a bunch of socialist propaganda"
Absurd. Look at it as a capitalist then. Give them a home and supervision, you save money. Let's say it costs on average $800,000 per chronic homeless person per year (medical bills + shelters + soup kitchens + etc). Give them an apartment at $16,000 a year + a social worker who has let's say 4 people they check-in on (average salary, ~$40,000) so divide that by 4 = $20,000 a year. So let's see, that is a savings of $780,000. Not chump change. You help them get a job and they start to take over a portion of their rent? Cut the rent cost in half and save another $8,000 a year per person.
"Still sounds like socialism to me"
Pick your knuckles up off the ground, read the article, and realize that tingling sensation behind your ears is something we call "thought."
I typically leave politics alone, but this simplified version of propaganda and bullshit pissed me off. Especially with the government shutdown over one extreme end of one group's ideology.
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