Reckless Spending
The
government is a complicated system that appears well put together because of
their authoritative stance, but many know that the government is far from
productive. The problem with the government is it’s disorganized system that
wastes the taxpayers’ money. I personally know dozens of stories of people who
receive benefits, but do not deserve/need them. The problem is the government
doesn’t have enough manpower to review every case of disability close and
frequently. Over all, the government should spend our tax dollars more wisely.
Firstly the United
States government is comparatively young as apposed to the governments in other
countries like England, Germany, and China etc. Since the United States
government is still developing, their processes are extremely flaud.
Unfortunately the government has inadequate information on every person living
within the 50 states. When people apply for disability benefits the government
wants to help the needy and doesn’t make it hard for people to apply and
collect; but the error in that judgment is people lie all the time to cash in
the governments money when they are completely able to work and are just lazy
and take advantage of the governments good nature.
The government knows
that people are taking advantage of them and even have programs to try and stop
the many ways that people are committing fraud. Dayna Bowen Mattew talks about in
his article “ In 1993 the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the
Inspector General (OIG), the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the
FBI and the DOJ all combined efforts to ”focus on fraud and abuse.””(Mattew
440) After the Clinton administration heard that Medicare and Medicaid fraud increasing,
they needed to take action. Currently they are also cutting down on food stamps
to the truly needy. Now if people apply for food stamps they need very good
reasons, and even if they do need them they may have a limited amount. Only the
disabled are secure with their amounts, but the problem with that is
disabilities range from severe to manageable.
I personally know
of people with disabilities that are completely able to work but don’t because
they don’t have to with their benefits for not working. Bipolar with
medications is very manageable, yet I know a woman with the mental illness that
doesn’t work and gets a social security check every month. The worst part is
that her husband makes more than enough for the both of them and their two
children that depend on them. Why should the hard working taxpayers let these
people continue receiving benefits? I thought this was fraud at first, then she
explain how she told them her husbands salary. All they did when she told them
was reduce her monthly social security check by $200, she now gets over $400 a
month for watching Netflix and playing computer games all day. I also have a
sister who receives $900 a month for doing nothing, she worked a little last
year (under the table) but she got tired of it and since she is living rent
free at my grandfathers she has plenty of money, yet she still frauds people of
money online by creating a phony charity for herself.
The government
doesn’t have enough time and manpower to keep an eye on everyone who receives
benefits, and because of that there are many cases of abuse. In the article “Boomers
Go Bust”, the author William Murchison writes “Projections have it that, to
meet obligations, nearly 40 percent of American workers’ wages in 2050 will be
needed to finance Social Security and government healthy-care
programs.”(Murchison 1) The author then goes on to talk about after we pay for
Social Security and the health-care programs, there will be little to none left
to pay for our military and national parks. Our nation needs to save and
properly spend every penny it has, or else face major problems down the road
that our country may not be able to fix.
Now a good
question is, how is the government going to hire more people if they don’t have
any money to spend on jobs? My response to that is if the government is
providing jobs, it will help the economy. When people make money they will
spend it, hopefully locally. Plus if the government beings a system to only
give money to the truly needy we will save and spend the tax dollars better.
The government should also revise what it means to be disabled; it is true that
some people cannot work because for medical conditions, but some disabilities
include bipolar and other mental illnesses that can be manageable with
medication. I am not saying we should make people work jobs they don’t want to
work; but everyone else has to work at dead end jobs, so why is it fair that we
pay for them not working by chose? The people who don’t want to work can sit
around all they want, but I say they can’t use my dollars just because they are
just lazy.
If the day ever
comes when the government hires more people to take control over this epidemic,
I think the they will start seeing how much money they are wasting on people
who can work but choose not to because the government will pay them a decent
amount for not moving a muscle. There is a saying that the more people the more
complicated, but with more case workers on the watch of the government dollars
they will find the most at need individuals/families that deserve help from
their great country of America. Currently the government evaluates their
dependents every ten years, and to be honest I know people who go in and act
dumb and incompetent so they receive their benefits no questions asked for
another ten years. With more observation and surprise check-ups, the people who
are committing fraud will not make it very far.
Same with
communication with other states, people can just hop around states and use
benefits from other states. The system between states is inexistent, the governments
of other states aren’t connected and because of that people can collect
benefits in different states than the one they live in. The reason people
collect from other states benefits is because the governments don’t have an
easy way of communicating; when people move they need to call their former
state’s government, get a letter stating their benefits in the previous state
were canceled, then finally they can walk in and apply for benefits in their
state after a one to two month waiting period. People who really need those
benefits can’t wait that long, this just goes to show how disorganized our
government acts. Hopefully one day there will be a computer system that links
to all states and then people only have to do to reapply in a different state
is go and talk to their local government agency and they can canceled a
previous states benefits and apply in their current state without the suffering
lag-time.
Our government is
very young and has a long way to go before it becomes efficient. We need to
reform our way of living before it is too late. It is not fair to create so
many problems with our economy and leave our future generations to deal with
the consequences. If we don’t stop the reckless spending there will be no money
left and we will end up working and giving most to all of our money to pay for
government programs that pay the lazy people to not work. I believe that the
government means well and I believe that the needy are lucky to have a
government that helps them out so much, but the until the moochers stop aiding
to our countries deficit I don’t feel comfortable giving my hard earned money
to government who will just use it carelessly. The government knows it has
problems with fraud of benefits and the Social Security crisis we will have
with the baby boomers, we just now need to act on what we know so we can work
on solving the problem before it becomes catastrophic.
Works Cited
Matthew, Dayna Bowen. "An Economic Model To Analyze The
Impact Of False Claims Act Cases On Access To Healthcare For The Elderly,
Disabled, Rural And Inner-City Poor." American Journal Of Law &
Medicine 27.4 (2001): 439. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
Murchison, William. "Boomers Go Bust." Human Life
Review 33.3 (2007): 23-30. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
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