Funding cuts leave many without home heating assistance in Macon

[DrPhil]

There is a reason why "food stamp" receipients cannot use them to purchase alcohol and tobacco products (among other things). One reason is that tax payers such as myself do not want the tons of tax payer dollars that go into food stamps to fund such nonnecessities as alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, crab legs and beef rib dinners, etc.. I firmly believe that people who wish to consume alcohol and tobacco or buy lottery tickets and eat crab legs need to do so on their own dollar that they earned without government assistance. There are certain "freedoms" that are lost when you do not have money.

As for the photo in this thread, the couple of people in this thread who find the photo ironic are not the only ones who see the irony in that photo. The comments section of that article says a lot. It also isn't impossible that the photographer and reporter took that photo with irony in mind. That happens.

People fall on hard times but it is also the case that the average person lives paycheck to paycheck with no cushion in case they are jobless for 1 year. That fact is what the Black community has been disproportionately struggling with to the point where BGLOs, churches and nonprofits sponsor financial literacy programs to teach Black folks that they need to build their wealth instead of spending most of what they have left at the end of the month on a flatscreen TV (even if it is on sale). It's the same thing that I see when I drive around the housing projects and see some residents with Dish TV and SUVs with rims. Sure, some of these people may have received these TVs, cable, cars, or whatever else as a gift or purchased it during more profitable times. However, the trend of poverty and overconsumption makes it more likely that these were not gifts but rather purchased in a paycheck-to-paycheck context instead of saving money. Again, that is not being judgmental, that is knowing the cycle of poverty that has disproportionately hit the Black community and speaking on it.

[If this was a white person in that photo, my response would be the same but it wouldn't be about disproportionate poverty. Despite the higher median income of whites, the average white person also lives paycheck to paycheck and there is a greater number of whites receiving government assistance than there are Blacks.]