For a moment, let's step inside someone else's shoes, shall we? How about if those shoes were disabled...let's say for now, mentally challenged and possibly suffering from a fatal brain disease. Hey, even better...you are all of 24 years old. You have behavioral problems due to the disease and cannot make decisions for yourself, so you have someone assisting you in everything you do. You cannot work so you have to be involved with the programs offered to you to survive. Now: HAPPY DAY! You receive a check for $17,000 from the government. They say it's a back payment of money THEY owed you.
The CLINCHER: You must spend it in 6 months so it does not effect your current benefits. Hmmm $17,000. Since your time is very limited due to your fatal disease, your trusted worker helps you to take a vacation...a cruise, something for you to enjoy in the moment because you have basically no memory of even the past 5 minutes. So you go have a good time with your worker, come home...spend the money paying your bills and doing what the government said: Spend the money in 6 months.
Now, months later, here it comes: We were mistaken, so you MUST pay back every cent of the $17,000.
Sounds incredible, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's true. This is just ONE more thing that is wrong with our precious government. They dangle the carrot knowing you have no choice but to take it and eat it to its entirety. Someone is waiting for the right moment to come and say..."Hey, you shouldn't have eaten that...now pay for it." How do you teach people to take responsibility for their own actions when the government doesn't? The programs are in place for a reason...but instead it's a part of a greedy plan. The person in question is a client in the agency I work for and it so disgusted me. I hope they fight it because it is just plain WRONG. Here's the government mantra: If it's your fault, you shall pay us. If it's our fault, you shall pay us.
Another Case: One of my clients, before I worked with him, was awarded somewhere to to tune of $1400 from the government...back pay from SSI. My co-worker who worked with him at the time, was very smart. As we are his payee, she did not allow him to access it because she knew they would come back at some point, wanting it back. Sure enough, he received a letter stating he MUST pay it back, THEY were wrong. So she mailed the check. In return, SSI sent her back a RECEIPT that stated: "Keep this paper as your receipt." Late last year, my client received a letter stating there WAS NO RECORD YOU HAVE PAID THIS DEBT.
WHAT? I probably posted about this earlier, as it totally disgusts me. So then the woman in our agency, Linda, who deals with payee things and balances the checkbooks, got on the phone with the local social security office and also the federal one. The federal office actually told her, "It doesn't matter that you have a receipt or even the cancelled check."
How bad is the world (and the USA) coming to when being right doesn't matter?
As it turns out, the local office did not communicate with the federal office, so again....the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. Hmmmmm.....how shocking.
You know, there ARE good things the government does. There are good programs to help people who cannot help themselves. There are those regular people who can use these programs to improve their lives and be self-sufficient. There are those who will NEVER be self-sufficient but have to survive in some way. What do you do when the help you are giving someone is tainted with your own greediness and thoughtlessness? Even evil is not beyond the realm of possibility.
As people....members of this society, this country that everyone professes to love SO much, we should be able to trust our government.
How can you trust a wolf in sheep's clothing?
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