July 20, 2008
I'm sure it was more poignant on radio
National Public Radio, the reliably left-wing news propaganda radio show (paid for with your tax dollars), recently ran a piece on All Things Considered documenting the havoc being visited upon America's poor as a result of the faltering Ohio economy.
The segment focused on one family's plight.
A generation ago, the livelihood of Gloria Nunez's family was built on cars.
Her father worked at General Motors for 45 years before retiring. Her mother taught driver's education. Nunez and her six siblings grew up middle class.
Things have changed considerably for this Ohio family.
Nunez's van broke down last fall. Now, her 19-year-old daughter has no reliable transportation out of their subsidized housing complex in Fostoria, 40 miles south of Toledo, to look for a job.
Nunez and most of her siblings and their spouses are unemployed and rely on government assistance and food stamps. Some have part-time jobs, but working is made more difficult with no car or public transportation.
Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree. She says a car accident 17 years ago left her depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job. Instead, she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.
Hernandez received her high school diploma and has had several jobs in recent years. But now, because fewer restaurants and stores are hiring, she says she finds it hard to find a job. Even if she could, she says it's particularly hard to imagine how she'll keep it. She says she needs someone to give her a lift just to get to an interview. And with gas prices so high, she's not sure she could afford to pay someone to drive her to work every day.
People tell Nunez her daughter could get more money in public assistance if she had a child.
"A lot of people have told me, 'Why don't your daughter have a kid?'"
They both reject that as a plan.
"I'm trying to get a job," Hernandez says. "I just can't get a job."
Hernandez says she's trying to get training to be a nurse's assistant, but without her own set of wheels or enough money to pay others for gas, it hasn't been easy.
Most of their extended family lives in the same townhouse complex. The only employer within walking distance is a ThyssenKrupp factory that makes diesel engine parts. That facility, which employs 400 people, is shutting down and moving to Illinois next year.
The only one with a car is Irma Hernandez, Nunez's mother. Hernandez says that with a teenage son still at home, the cost of feeding him and sending him to school is rising, and she can no longer pay for the car.
She's now two car payments behind.
"I'm about to lose my car," she says on her way to pick up one of her daughters to take her to Toledo. "So then what's going to happen to us?"
So Nunez and her daughter are mostly stuck at home.
The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third fewer bags of groceries — $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries, but now it's more like seven or eight. So they cut back on expensive items like meat, and they don't buy extras like ice cream anymore. Instead, they eat a lot of starches like potatoes and noodles.
I can only assume -- given the ever-so-serious way liberals view the social injustice inherent in the capitalistic system -- that NPR was speaking without irony when they titled this piece:
And then ran this picture below the headline:
Angelica Hernandez (left) and her mother, Gloria Nunez, struggle to make ends meet on a very limited budget.
How shall I put this?
Let me be as sensitive as I can possibly be.
BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Good gravy! I'd have had a hard time mustering sympathy for two welfare queens who refuse to pull up stakes from their taxpayer-funded digs and head to where the jobs are if I had only listened to this on my radio, but let's just say that the photo really supersizes the stupidity of the piece.
My heart turned to stone when I read that the mother had NEVER HAD A JOB, but the thought that they're going to give up meat -- and presumably go ... hungry -- is rich.
I'd like to thank NPR for providing the most succinct argument for abolishing Social Security benefits and food stamps I've ever seen.
We have Asian refugees fleeing tyrannical Communist regimes land on our shores, neither speaking nor reading English, moving to whatever city offers economic opportunity, throwing themselves into the workplace, opening businesses, raising families, sending kids to college, and making the most of the American dream.
On the other hand, we have this gal, who has taken every advantage given to her by her hard-working father and turned it into a lifetime of indolence and sloth, paid for and supported by cash earned by people unwilling to dedicate 40 years to producing nothing.
Hell, this woman is being supported by some of those immigrants who arrived on our shores with nothing, other than their pride and willingness to work.
This is what we get for telling people there's no shame in being on the dole.
Only in America.
Only on NPR.
Posted by Mike Lief at July 20, 2008 11:28 PM
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Comments
There is another (liberal) way to look at this. As long as these two are on the dole and holed up in their crappy little apartment, I don't have to see them or put up with them in my society.
I have always felt that anything under 4% unemployment was a bad thing. It puts people into the workforce that I cannot deal with.
I'll pay their damn welfare, just make sure my burger order is right.
Posted by: Brent Smiley at July 20, 2008 11:47 PM
OMG! WTF! It reminds me of when I was in law school and supporting my daughter and how concerned I was about the unhealthy side of us taking full advantage of 29 cent cheeseburgers at Mickey D's (they freeze well). I guess 40 years of 29 cent cheeseburgers takes its toll.
Posted by: Thin Ice, Sr. at July 21, 2008 06:17 AM
OMG! This is probably an isolated incident..right? This never happens in California...
BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The one on the left could sub in for Shamu a couple days a week--who would know.
Somethin' for nothin'...typical. Leno would have a field day with this.
Posted by: Schmedly at July 21, 2008 05:10 PM