Election day 2024

[Byrd]

Byrd, I see that you are very worried about losing Social security.

Don’t worry, in fact, Trump will most likely save it.

Think of it this way: in my neighborhood, there are mostly Muslim, now Haitians (a lot of them), very few whites, the Mexicans never stay (they always move onto better). The only people I see working are/were are the Mexicans and a couple others, very few!

I speak to a lot of people daily, some have been very honest with me. This is what I have learned:

The amount of people coming to this country and eventually getting SSDI/SSI is staggering. Think about that! They are getting Americans money that was payed into SSI and never/barely paid into it. They get housing, so they can live off crumbs and are happy to do so. That is going to deplete SSI/SSDI. Also, I see a shtload of drug addicts who get it. Not only did they barely,if ever, pay into it, they wreak havoc on society.

I applied for SSDI over 7 years ago, due to several surgeries I had to have (torn meniscus being one), I was denied. While there I personally saw several non English speaking families getting catered to. It is not fair. This is what is going to take away your SSI. I’ve worked for over 35 years, and paid into it, and couldn’t get help. Thank God, I was able to get a job right away again, and let me tell you. Every time I saw some hoochie in line at a store buying false eyelashes and fake nails, then whip out their ebt cards for candy I wanted to throw up. Same jerks I might add that barked at their kids and won’t get them anything. Some have scabs on their faces from apparent crack/meth use.

That’s what’s going to bankrupt SSI/SSDI.

I really hope President Trump looks at these issues, and he’s smart so I know he will.

That wasn't me who was worried about Social Security... that's not my issue right now.  I was a government employee and I worked with Housing and Welfare departments (as a computer geek) so I know about benefits and how hard they are to get.  Friends who are disabled have struggled for decades trying (and failing) to get help.

In fact, when the food stamp program first started we were desperately poor (I picked up aluminum cans to sell so we could have macaroni for dinner) and we had a severely handicapped son -- and we were too poor to afford food stamps (in the first round, you had to buy the food stamps.  Never occurred to anyone that after rent and utilities and gas to get to work that you might not be able to buy food stamps.)

So, yes, I know that.  Our neighborhood is racially and religiously mixed, and unlike yours, we all help each other when there's a crisis.  

As a member of AARP, I've been supporting their fight for Social Security for quite some time since they've got the money for lobbyists and so forth.  If you qualify for AARP, you might want to sign up for the newsletter and support some of their efforts.

What the disabled need is more social workers and the social workers need better support and the program needs more funding.  I have a *huge* rant about that one... when I was getting my PhD (6 years ago), a dear friend had her mobility scooter catch on fire (yeah... yikes!) and it took a YEAR to get through the system here in Texas to get a replacement one although she's so disabled that she NEVER walked and she works as a telephone support agent.  I finished the degree about three days before she got her new scooter (and the new one failed last month... but they're dirt poor.)

Long term Covid has left a number of people disabled who might not have had problems if the pandemic hadn't hit.  With the smaller government that Trump and his allies want, finding help is going to be even more nightmarish, and any government agency workers out there are going to be even more overwhelmed with work.

So...not so much social security, as finding help for those who need it desperately.  Churches can't keep up with the demand (food banks are struggling.)  

We could fix a lot of the dollar problems if there were tax structures like we had back in the sixties and seventies (but not the society that we had then) with the wealthy contributing more and some of the large corporations being held accountable.  PARTICULARLY the corporations.  Did you know that T-Mobile, DISH Network, Netflix, General Motors, AT&T, Bank of America, Citigroup, FedEx, Molson Coors, Nike all made nice profits and managed to pay less than 5 percent tax while paying pittance wages to workers in other countries to do their work?

(this article talks about the profits of 342 companies making trillions of dollars and paying almost no tax)
https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance...le%20year.

Anyway, that's something for the legislature to get after.  Me, I'm going to get with some local grannies to sulk over a fancy-schmancy coffee and see what we can do to help our friends and families and which of our local Congresscritters and politicians we're going to support and which need to be poked to do something active to help grandmothers and grandfathers like ourselves.  We can do something locally, I'm sure.  Even if it is just for our own neighborhoods.