MetaFilter posts tagged with hopelessness

Paging Mr. Dickens...

dejah420 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:39:18 -0800

When welfare benefits the rich, and starves the poor: Despite soaring unemployment and the worst economic crisis in decades, 18 states cut their welfare rolls last year, and nationally the number of people receiving cash assistance remained at or near the lowest in more than 40 years. The American tradition of guaranteeing cash assistance to the poor came to an end with the signing of legislation in August 1996. Since then, states get block grants, and state and local governments decide how to spend the money. For example; fewer than 2,500 Georgia adults now receive benefits, down from 28,000 in 2004—a 90 percent decline. Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois have each dropped 80 percent of adult recipients since January 2001. Nationally, the number of recipients fell more than 40 percent between then and June 2008, the most recent month for which data are available. In Georgia last year, only 18 percent of children living below 50 percent of the poverty line—that is, on less than $733 a month for a family of three—were receiving aid. States are spending the TANF block grants to plug budget holes[PDF], fund property tax rebates, [google book excerpt] and other discretionary spending. Because there is no federal oversight anymore, it's become a real challenge to find out where all the money goes, once it leaves the feds hands. One thing is for sure though...it sure doesn't seem to be getting to the poor.

Then I'll get on my knees and pray ... we don't get fooled again. No, no...

ZenMasterThis — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:12:18 -0800

Straight Talk Is Cheap: How John McCain became the capo of the new, reformed campaign finance syndicate. "McCain isn't breaking any campaign finance laws. He wrote them so he wouldn't have to. But he's guilty of campaigning in exactly the manner he asserts is harming our nation. Senator McCain isn't reforming Washington. He is Washington."

Scots/Irish in America and War

thedailygrowl — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:06:16 -0800

They fight OUR WARS Revenge of The Mutt People", by Joe Bageant is a striking essay about the hopelessness and pride of the impoverished decendants of Scots/Irish stock found in rural America. More information here. -from rigourous intuition-

Stuck Like Chuck

AlexReynolds — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 17:47:06 -0800

Stuck Like Chuck - A Philadelphia writer's sad, brief but captivating observations of another's seemingly constant return to self-destruction; in turn, unflinchingly relating his own struggle.