This week all my songs are about being poor. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson started what was known as The war on poverty. The Republicans on the other hand started their war on the poor. In the last verse of this song:
well, they passed a law in ’64
To give those who ain’t got a little more
But it only goes so far
The law this song is referring to is The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Conservatives of coarse call it the Welfare Act. Just like they call The Affordable Care Act Obamacare. Just like Obamacare they don’t have a clue how welfare really works.
One way Conservatives show, almost daily, that they don’t have a clue how welfare, as they love to call, it works. All I have to do is look at Face Book and see post after post most are from people I currently or in the past go to church with. There are a lot of different posts but they all basically say that “illegals” as they love to call them, they claim these “illegals” are on welfare. However they never have any facts to justify their posts. My question would be; Which state is giving out all this “welfare” to non US citizens and more important which state is handing out all this money to people who are not legal residents of this state? Again this proves they don’t know what they are posting about. Welfare benefits are not “given out” by the Federal government, rather it’s each state’s Department of Human Services that gives out any Welfare payment. So which state are they talking about in all this posts they want you to share? However there is one benefit that the Federal government does give to “illegals” so I guess that must be what they are posting about. Yes they must be posting about giving emergency Medicaid benefits. I’ll give an example; an “illegal” is walking down a road and fell among thieves who beat him, stripped his clothing leaving him half dead. Then your pastors happens by the same road and sees the man almost dead on the side of the road, but your pastor says to himself “That man looks like an “illegal” to me so your pastor passes him by going all the way in the other lane. Then, as it turns out, your Sunday School teacher, who is also your church’s Chairman of Deacons passes by clearly sees the man but he also says to himself “This looks like an “illegal” to me so he got what “he deserves” and he leaves him just like his pastor did. But the Federal government steps in and pays the ambulance to take the man to the hospital, then pays the hospital and the doctors to take care of him saving this “illegal’s life”. Yes all with the tax money paid by the pastor and the Chairman of Deacons hard earned money! Your Conservative, Trump supporting pastor may say “I think I may have heard something like this story before”. When I was little and I was taught the story of the Good Smartian I didn’t believe how a preacher and a deacon (that’s what I was taught the Levite stood for) could just do nothing to help the man wasn’t that what preachers and deacons suppose to do? But in today’s world it’s clear that Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said it was a priest and a Levite that passed the man and did nothing to help. Could it be that the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are just as important today as when he said them? Will your pastor and Deacons say Jesus was not talking to them? I’ve already did a song, Half-Bred by Cher, that pertains to Obamacare and now The Good Smartian also is an example of how Christians, or those people that claim to be Christians, should treat “illegals”.
What do people say that depend on “Welfare” for the place where they live, for every meal they eat, for every pill they take. Well here’s an idea just go and ask them what right do they think they have to take your tax dollars for their very existence. Their really easy to find all you have to do is go to your local nursing home, in fact any nursing home, and you will find all kinds of people that Medicaid is paying for. That’s right Medicaid what Conservatives call “Welfare”. Some nursing homes have their Medicaid residents, that’s what they call them their not patients they call them residents, entire halls full of Medicaid residents to separate them from “paying residents. Other homes will not take Medicaid residents at all. I learned a lot about nursing homes from my dad. Daddy had a second career becoming a nurse and worked at nursing homes for over 15 years. He his later years he had an office and worked with the families of the residents. It’s amazing how little people understand about nursing home care. People who come into Daddy’s office and say we have insurance, then it would turn out their insurance they had was just health insurance which, of coarse doesn’t cover nursing home care. Some people really believe that you don’t have to pay to put Grandpa in the nursing home, they believe it’s some right everyone has and I have no idea what these people think, but as it turns out they quickly learn that has to pay. If you ever visit an emergency room in a hospital there’s always a sign on the door or somewhere that quotes the federal law that the hospital is required to provide emergency care to everyone. Apparently there’s a lot of people that believe this law also includes nursing homes, well no it doesn’t. If Grandpa is admitted to the nursing home where Daddy worked and Grandpa became violent and hit a CNA or a Nurse then Grandpa would be removed from the facility. The family would come to Daddy and complain but there was nothing he could do they did not let violent resident stay in their facility they, the family, would have to find somewhere else to place him in, a facility that would admit violent residents. I could go on about more things most people don’t understand about nursing home care, but now I will focus on the residents that are on Medicaid. Most of these residents are old, in fact some are old enough to live in the Great Depression or at least during the war years. They know what “hard times” are really like. But as it often happens over time they become arrogant, proud of themselves and all the money they earned over their lifetime. If you talk to them, they will tell you about those sorry, lazy people on welfare without a clue that they are on welfare and they will die on welfare.
I got a lot more to talk about and tomorrow I’ll have another song about being poor.