A Government Who Doesn’t Care About Their People

[Harriet]

I want to tell you the story of a young man, at least to me, who has inspired me to write this. He’s actually in his early fifties and he has had cerebral palsy since birth. He was born premature and back then they had not quit figured out the level of oxygen to maintain in the incubation chambers so he basically had his entire body burned at the cellular level, including his brain by the excessive oxygen. His IQ is also well below average, his legs are shorter than average and they are deformed making it difficult for him to walk. He has poor balance to boot so he falls quite a bit, mainly tripping over stuff and his legs to weak to catch up.

A good friend had the same thing happen to him as a newborn which resulted in his eyes and hearing damaged, with one eye requiring replacement with an artificial one and the necessity of a fairly expensive hearing aide. He cannot hear at all out of one ear so he is totally deaf without the aid.

We will call this man BD because we had nicknames him this, out on the organic farm where I met him, because we had two David’s on the farm.

BD drives 120 miles back and forth to work each day to the farm and makes minimal wage of $8.05 but is paid $80.00 additional dollars a week for travel expenses. He was hired out of nine months of prison for selling small quantities of marijuana in Georgia. Interesting enough, they sent him to the State Prison in Georgia instead of the minimum security prisons like the drug cartel bosses go when they are caught. His girlfriend whose idea it really was and who was actually the one running the operation didn’t get any time at all. Funny how that is. He was also fined $5,000, even after hiring an attorney to represent him which he really couldn’t afford. He brings baloney sandwiches to work and tell me he can’t afford that high of quality of food probably contributing to the crones disease. His sister bought him a home and he pays the $650 a month mortgage payment and his utilities.

BD has only been on Social Security Disability since the year 2000 so most of his life he had paid into Social Security and even had his own janitorial business for a while, what he says he really enjoyed.

His job at the farm is mowing the fields and cleaning up the various work places.  It’s a 17 acre farm and they use a Field and Brush Hog, meaning that it isn’t a riding mower.  He has to walk behind the machine.

He just found out he has colon cancer, has had the crones and now has a second hernia. So if you think you have problems, think of DB.

Now here’s the kicker.  According to current Social Security guidelines, BD can only make $15,780 a year up and above his Social Security Disability (SSDI) of $1280 a month.  Apparently he made to much money a couple of years ago and he is having to pay back some money he received. You have to pay back $1.00 for every $2.00 received when you run over the $15,780. No wonder he tried selling drugs to offset his income.  So now BD only gets $1080 a month because they are garnishing $200.00 a month from his SSDI check.  He can only work so many hours a week because he can only make $303.46 a week to keep him under the amount of $15,780 annually which is $1315 a month.  So BD has to live on $2,395.00 a month. He just had to get another car because of the miles he puts on them but getting a job as a convicted felon isn’t easy especially one with his disabilities.

This is BD’s money he put into the system all those years and yet his current affairs are partially a result of bad drug and Social Security laws. $200 would make a considerable difference to BD but Noooo, we can’t let people make too much money when they get older, we have $billions in foreign aid payments to other countries we have to make and a military industrial complex that spends more money on warfare than the next seven largest spending countries combined.

If government really cared about the people it would take better care of the less advantaged and stop stealing peoples hard earned money from their labor and spending it on weapons. Government in reality has always been more of a confiscatory cartel then a system set up to enhance the welfare of the majority, as those in government like to claim. For the small level of benefits we receive from government, the costs, both monetarily and socially are enormous. The IRS can create a Levy and take money from you without even notifying you. I know this because it just happened to me. There is a reported Tax Levy now against me, according to the person at the Social Security Administration I spoke with, apparently with the IRS Notices going to a P.O. Box in Denver, Colorado. Of course I have never lived in Colorado and have lived for the last forty+ years here in Florida. We shall see how this turns out.