An Update...

Well...

I think the man in the basement has a job.  From what he tells me, he got his old job back making $40 - $50,000 or so (not sure) per year working for his former company. 

That's nice.  His old boss liked me and is telling him to stop making things so complicated at home because I'm a pretty lady. 

How cute is that?

He and his office mates went out for his first guys' night out in fifteen or so years.  He spent the night holding some one's hair back and trying not to lose it at the smell of vomit.  He spent hours recounting the experience to me: it must have traumatized him.  I'm so glad he never became a musician, he'd see that crap all the time!

His hours are perfect, they'll allow me to do the job I was doing when he asked me to stop to care for the kids.  Now, all I have to do is find the money to try to get my old office back. 

Something seems a little fishy about this whole thing but I'm not going to complain. 

He did say something about being motivated by the demand the county made of me.  He didn't like how the food stamp office was going to force me to take an unpaid 30 hour per week job that would cost the family money (e.g. transportation, daycare) while not improving my ability to find a job for a net gain of less than minimum wage (< $400 food stamps). I guess that could force a man to get serious about getting a job; he will lose the free labor he's getting at home; he'd have to wash his own socks and make his own bread. 

Part of me wonders if he had this job all along and was hiding the money; it's bizarre that he magically got his old job back when I declared war on the county. I still don't have access to the savings account.  There are times when I realize that I don't know who this person is, only that he wants me to stay at help with the kids. I seriously don't know what to do.   

Here is the deal.  He signed up with the county, not I.  I have never seen any benefit from his signing up for food stamps and I've made damn sure that nothing he brings home from them is utlized.  The county says it doesn't matter who signed up, the fact that I live in this house with him here makes me responsible for meeting their criteria.  Bullshit, just cut the household off from food stamps; he's not cooperating with me.  I'm not cooperating with you.  Cut him off!!!  Besides, I am no one's indentured servant.  They want me to work for the community...alrighty then...sure thing...I know where I'm going to start. 

I told the supervisor what I do for fun.  I am an activist who once had a mayoral candidate declare in front of 100 our so onlookers that I want to destroy the government, fire all the government employees, and force people to fend for themselves because I hate taxes so much.  Yep, I'm scary and I want to talk to the person in charge.  Think I'm full of shit?  Google my name!!

What the politician said about me is not true.  I want our money to be used in a fair and honest fashion.  I want the best use of our tax dollars!  Spending hundreds of dollars on paperwork and social services due to neglected kids whose mommies went off to unpaid 'workfare' to earn $1 worth of food stamps per hour really is not in the best interests of the taxpayer. 

Now, if workfare consisted of allowing moms to work in daycare centers while teaching them new skills (that's important) so they can get real work while allowing the kids to use the services for free, I'd bitch a little less.  That would be more like a co-op.  Or, better yet, we can cut taxes on the first $20,000 or so in income: there have been studies that show that people working under the table get of welfare quicker than those who take legitimate jobs. 

Workfare is a way to force the poor into indentured servitude, and to lower wages for working men and women who compete with these free workers.  In some states, professional city jobs are being replaced with workfare workers.  These people aren't thinking.
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Yes, I admit it.  I do get all up in arms when I visit Craigslist or get emails from other counselors asking for food for clients who cannot get food stamps.  I got such an email today.  I really can't afford to feed my household yet people are asking me to fund the turkey dinners of poor people who qualify for food stamps but cannot jump through the damned hoops set up to make them give up and starve. 

I shouldn't have given up my business...that is what put me in this mess.  I have started to re list my recordings online to sell and am giving a portion of the funds to the local interfaith food bank.  It is really the only thing I can think of doing that makes sense. 

We'll see where I stand in a week.  One week can change my outlook. 

I'm so damn pissed that our tax dollars are not being used to help the needy, only to fund the paper pushers in the office who exploit and undermine the labor of poor women.  I think people gladly pay into the system thinking the system will be there when loved ones need it.  It's not. Politicians whine and cry that they need to raise taxes to help the poor, help the downtrodden, help the children but then they give that dough to corporations or use it to provide free labor to them!!  I'm sickened ....

I'm not going to let my tax dollars go to harming people who need the safety net.  People who pay taxes their entire lives can't get access without destroying their ability to find work or neglecting their children.  This is wrong. 

It is, sadly, time to gut the program and make it easier for people like me to start food charities. 

I'm getting ready to be called a teabagger again.  I hate that.  There is nothing worse than having to explain to an older man why that is such an offensive term.  I think these dirty old men know what it means but they get a kick out of me describing the act to them.

Some people are such damn pervs.

Hope things are going better for you.  Thanks for your prayers.

Love ya,

S.