I would rather be dead or in jail
Sometimes I go over them in my mind: the great American quotes...
Give me liberty or give me death-Patrick Henry
Four score and seven years ago...-Abraham Lincoln
Today (echo)...I consider myself...the luckiest man...on the face of the Earth-Lou Gehrig
Then there is the old time sarcastic classic, attributed to no individual but said by so many in times of great travail, as a symbol of fortitude and stick-to-itivness...
I would rather be dead or in jail
As of this week, this old time classic has a whole new and very special connotation.
I love Saturdays. Maybe I look at life through rose colored shades, but everything's better on a Saturday. The sun is shining, nobody's whining, it really is all good.
It's so good in fact, that money's falling from the sky. Luckily, living in the richest nation on Earth we have so much excess wealth, that we can not only bestow upon the unfortunate but also on those who are no longer with us .
Apparently, 72,000 payments of $250 a piece ( roughly $18 million total ) went out to people resting comfortably in the dirt beneath our feet. The total number of payouts rises to 89,000 when we account for the 17,000 (another $4.3 million ) jail birds who can now buy an iced-out pair of wings for their favorite soap-on-a-rope chain.
This on the heels of last month's great news that $800,000 is going to wash genitalia all over Africa.
This my friends is proof that the economy is on sound footing and that the Great Recession has been squashed. Great American minds, hearts and bowels are churning away at record pace.
As I look out of my window and see the flag waving, I inhale deep and proud.
It ain't the the fresh air I smell. Say it with me one more time, friends:
I'd rather be dead or in jail
Honestly, who gives a fuck? Do you really think it is worth our time to worry that a whole EIGHTEEN MILLION DOLLARS went to someone who was deceased? According to that article, it seems the likely cause of most of the error was that people died or were incarcerated between the time of their eligibility and the time at which the payment was sent. If $18m is all that is falling through the cracks, that is one fucking well run system.
Is that all that is falling through?
Based on the title, I thought this post was going to be a focused on a rap lyric. I'm sure a lot of people here can relate to this one:
If I ain't rich by 26, I'll be dead or in jail - 50 Cent
I tried to find this article the other day Midas but failed so I am glad someone did. I think the fact that the prevailing stance on this is that 18M is not something to be upset about is a symptom of a larger problem. Any amount of waste should infuriate any taxpayer. Midas said it best, do you really think this is all the waste there's been? Furthermore, this incident in particular was COMPLETELY avoidable. It's not hard to find out if someone is dead or in prison. VH1 does it every month for their stupid where are they now shows for fuck's sake.
PS Anthony, waiting on you for some back up here dude
It's undoubtedly true that it's possible to figure out if someone is alive, dead, or incarcerated. It is also true that doing so takes time and money. I don't have the numbers to hand, but I'd be willing to bet that if the Federal Government had to verify if everyone they pay money to was free and alive before cutting a check, that would cost a hell of a lot more than $18m dollars. So, I guess you have a point; it's clearly better to waste a lot of money on something that doesn't make for good headline fodder, than to waste a piddling amount of money on something where half of the money was returned anyway. Good to have thoughtful, considerate insight that goes beyond the level of a knee-jerk reaction.
Thats a fair and valid point. That being said, I can't speak intelligently as to the cost of determining whether a person was alive, dead, incarcerated etc. but I feel like a simple check of their SSN would remedy 90% of these situations. Having a system in place that ran the recipient's social before the check was sent may have a decent upfront cost, but long term it could solve a fair amount of these issues.
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