As a taxpayer, what is the definition of "need?"

As our country continues to spiral into a more modern version of the Germany in the 1920's, where the dollar, long the economic bastion of the world, is replaced by some other currency... and we find ourselves like this:

1923 Hyperinflation in Germany: A woman burns German marks in the furnace to heat the home during the peak of the Weimar Germany hyperinflation. The currency had devalued so much, it was cheaper to burn the German mark than to use it to buy coal or firewood. So their currency was more valuable as mere paper (to be burned) than as a money (to be spent). Today's "digital" currencies will not have even that much value as they likewise collapse, because you cannot burn something that does not really exist.

...I've got to ask: what, precisely, does the word "need," really mean?

This is the future, sooner or later, that Obama has wrought.

It's not a matter of "if," as much a matter of "when," as we devolve into a nation where John Kennedy's words ("Ask now what your country can do for you...") are but a distant memory, to be shown occasionally on the History Channel, in between the vitally important shows of "Swamp People," the necessary aspects of "Pawn Stars," and, of course, "American Pickers."

The words which tell us we're doomed to repeat history if we're ignorant of it, shine truer now than ever before.  And we raise additional generations of ignorant children because our history isn't nearly as important as starting up "health clinics" (I.E., birth-control/abortion facilitators) so most kids graduating from high school have roughly the same amount of knowledge of our history as they do quantum mechanics

That brings us to the original question: what, precisely, is "need?"

I do charity work.  One of the things I'm involved in is a small food bank operation.

You see a lot.  You meet a lot of people.

When I see a family of 6 come in and every child has a cell phone (texting all the while) I've got to ask myself: are they really in need?

When we're spending billions on free and reduced lunches, breakfasts and so forth in our schools without doing a thing to verify the frequently bogus claims of low-to-no income, I've got to ask myself: are they really in need?

When you drive by every gas station, and they have an EBT HERE sign up,  I've got to ask myself: are they really in need?

When I'm at WINCO, checking out, and I see 2 half racks of beer in the food cart, at least partially paid for by EBT card, I've got to ask myself: are they really in need?

When a welfare recipient gets on, and stays on, "the dole," when they do drugs (now made easier here in the great state of Washington,) when they spend a relative fortune on cigarettes, alcohol, cell phones, computers, internet and the like...  I've got to ask myself: are they really in need?

Of course not.  So, why are those of us honest in our financial assessments.... who actually work...hard... for what we have (Remember, kids, I was homeless in 91, 92, 93 and part of 94... and now own my own home and business... all without one dime in any "program," so I know poverty) required to pay for those who CAN work, but are being trained for a life of government dependence. requiring a shrinking pool of those with the wherewithal to pay for, among other things, the ever-increasing pool of those who's respective faces, individual and corporate, are buried in the trough of taxpayer dollars?

How about, for example, THIS idiocy?

January 9, 2013 at 10:05 pm

Nissan launching production of Leaf in U.S.

• By David Shepardson
• Detroit News Washington Bureau
• 112 Comments

Washington — Nissan Motor Co. said it will begin U.S. production of its all-electric Leaf on Thursday in Tennessee as part of a $1.4 billion government loan.

The Japanese automaker won an Energy Department loan in 2010 to build a battery plant in Smyrna, Tenn., and to retool to build the Leaf at its assembly plant next door.
The Leaf will be built alongside the company's gasoline-powered products.

Nissan says it is the only automaker that manufactures its own electric vehicle batteries, at the biggest lithium-ion automotive battery plant in the United States.

The Leaf's sales have struggled and the automaker failed to double sales in 2012 as it had predicted and instead sold about the same number as in 2011.

Last year, Nissan sold 9,819 Leaf EVs in the United States — up 1.5 percent over 2011.

More:

Why is OUR government loaning OUR money to a FOREIGN CAR MANUFACTURER?

It's this kind of thing that makes me ask the original question.

I do support providing for those who cannot provide for themselves.

But I just as strongly oppose support for those who WILL not provide for themselves, and at a minimum, anyone wanting from me... from us... should be required to prove that need... and anyone owning a cell phone, anyone who smokes, drinks, does drugs, has the internet, cable or satellite TV does NOT, in fact, "NEED" me to subsidize their choices.

Just saying you're poor ain't good enough.

Our country is in a fiscal death spiral.  Anyone looking can see it.

And where this must be addressed.... no one, regardless of party... seems to care.