Justin Case

What Has America Come To?!?

    Remember way back when..... when--pretty much--all Americans were self-sufficient?!? Sure, people lost their jobs; had a turn of bad luck; had an injury of some sort--either on or off the job. I started working at 15-after school and on Saturdays. I set type by hand for a printing 'job-shop (anyone who knows; it's "bottom-side-up'n'backwards!")' This was an 'under-the-table' job in the early 1960s in a small, little 'burg' in New York's Southern Tier. From that time until now, I've been working steadily--with one 26-week period of unemployment after The Gunlocke Company downsized some admin/engineering staff in the mid-1980s. There also was the 6-week period that I 'lived-under-a-bridge' in the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri.
    Now-a-days, anybody who's got "a-fart-crossways" goes on welfare, on disability, on some sort of wealth re-distribution. We now have 35% of the American adult population on some sort of wealth re-distribution payment , be it welfare, unemployment, SSI, or some form of private disability insurance. HOW SAD IS THAT?!!? Thirty-five percent of the adults you might meet on the street don't have the gumption to "get off their dead-asses and on their dying-feet" and get a job!!
    'Then, along came Jones....' ....er.... Johnson!!  That's Lyndon Baines Johnson!
All of them; Senator Johnson, Vice President Johnson and President Johnson, ever the idealists, may very well have had the best interests of minorities and the impoverished in mind when he was developing 'The Great Society.'  The reality is:  Mr Johnson's programs did very little to raise the economic or equality status of those he hoped to elevate.
    After the Kennedy assassination, President Johnson was elected to the presidency in his own right; garnering 61% of the popular vote in 1964 and upon inauguaration, his democRAT party controled more than 2/3 of each house of Congress--much like the Congress of 2006-2009.  Neither congress would bode  well for the American taxpayer, who was called upon to finance these fiscal boondoogles; nay, demanded by the IRS to provide the money!!
    Suffice it to say;  Lyndon Baines Johnson is the father of America's current 'dependency class!'  His 'Great Society' originated many programs--most of which did little more than throw money at the poverty problems--"feel-good" solutions to problems better served by job-creation programs.  Most of the programs centered around Johnson's "War on Poverty;" The Jobs Corps, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, VISTA, the Model Cities Program, Upward Bound, the Food Stamps program, the Community Actions program and Project Head Start.  While all the programs had the best of intentions; ALL would prove to be dismal failures in their intended objectives!
    The two most dismal failures had the best of intentions in mind at their inception:  Medicare and Medicaid.  Medicare--the American version of European socialized medicine--provided benefits to anyone over age 65, regardless of need.  Medicaid is a means tested, health care program funded jointly by state and federal governments.  Both programs are fraught with fraud and political 'gamesmanship!'
    "Slick-Willie" Clinton--in his infinite (arguh!!) wisdom--promised all kinds of crap during his first campaign for president.  His 'greatest hit' was to "end welfare as we know it!"  What "Slick-Willie" actually did in 1996--in his usual 'left-handed' way--was to shift the bulk of recipients off welfare and onto Medicare, Medicaid and SSI!!
    Again, with the greatest of presidential intentions, President George W. Bush promoted and signed into law-the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.  This act created a boondoogle of untold proportions:  a universal entitlement of unknown cost for prescription drug coverage within Medicare.  The only true benefit for the American taxpayer to come from this legislation is the Health Savings Account (HSA).
  Is anyone besides me seeing a recurring theme here......?!?  Appearances can be deceiving, but it appears that the socialists, marxists, fascists, progressivists are so intent on giving the country away--they care not the affects of their give-away on the intended recipients; their VICTIMS!!
Til Nex'Time....