Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
As an aside, my dad as the only income in the family never made more than $35k in a year working at Safeway. That was about 15 years ago. I had an excellent childhood despite a relatively lean upbringing. He never got food stamps despite qualifying for them. Back in the day, there was a certain amount of pride in being self-sufficient to the degree possible. What little of that value that existed then has long since eroded away. We see corporate fat cats getting bailed out and then give up trying to live honorably.
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I've never understood this logic. It doesn't make anymore sense to me than refusing to send your kids to public school, not checking the box for the standard deduction on your income taxes, or refusing to file for Social Security. It is just choosing to pay more in taxes due to pride.
My brother did something similar when he was laid off (because he very foolishly gave his boss 4 months notice he was going to quit). My brother refused to file for unemployment because he didn't need "government money". Of course unemployment is funded by a roughly 1% tax on every dollar he made in his life. But when it was time to get a little bit of that money back he was too prideful to take the money because it came in the form of a government check. He went without health insurance instead.
Had a friend in Alabama that refused to buy a BCBS medical insurance policy on the ACA exchange and collect the subsidy. Instead he paid full price for the same policy outside of the exchange and then complained to everyone that would listen that insurance was too expensive.