Quote:
Originally Posted by JSH
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.
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The point is well made, but food stamps are more conspicuous and subjects people like me to make value judgements against people like the Russian gal I watched at Safeway the other day not care how much Coke she was getting for her food stamps, and then proceed to the scratch-off machine.
There's a certain discipline by trying not to be on the government dole that may not be economically wise, but perhaps spiritually significant. We don't believe in spiritual health though, because it's a material world and nothing matters.
I admit it's fairly arbitrary, but I too went through the process of qualifying for food stamps when I got out of prison, and then never took them because I didn't need it to eat. It's very tempting to focus on injustice and view oneself as a victim, but it was important to reframe as a conqueror of circumstance, not a victim of it. Denying some handouts likely was important in my trajectory.