Shutdown concerns
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Jamie Gardner
I’ve read many comments over the past week or two about the reported government shutdown. Not sure why we are still paying taxes to a federal government that is reportedly not working. Maybe some of our members of Congress can explain this.
Many comments have been made in the past week or two about SNAP/food stamps. There are a lot of people dependent on SNAP, some 42 million Americans. There are also many who should receive the benefits of SNAP. I know many grandparents who are raising their grandkids and trying to do it on a fixed income. People in this type of situation probably deserve the benefits from SNAP. There are also single mothers or fathers out there who need a hand up and a little temporary help. We’ve all probably been at a point in our lives when we needed a little help. If you’ve never been in that situation, you are very fortunate.
However, we’d be kidding ourselves thinking there are able-bodied individuals out there, capable of working, who are taking advantage of the system and taxpayers. I witnessed a girl a few nights ago, on a video, talking about how she receives thousands of dollars from the system, and she didn’t know what she was going to do during the supposed government shutdown. She certainly appeared to be more than capable of working.
I still see businesses begging for employees. There are still many jobs available right now… where are the workers?
This seems to be a growing problem in our society. It seems as if these young generations believe they should make $20.00 per hour right out of the gate with little to no work experience. They don’t want to put in the sweat-equity to become a valuable employee for a company. Look around. A lot of the jobs where you might consider seeing a younger person working are now being taken by older workers, even retirees. I was in a chain hardware company store a few days back, and I noticed the people working in the store were 50 and older. There were very few young workers in the store. Why?
We have got to get back to teaching our children that a good day’s pay deserves a good day’s work. Most employers I talk to lately are just happy if an employee shows up to work. How did we get to this point, and how do we change this attitude towards an honest day’s work? Again, I believe we have got to pass on a better work ethic to our younger generations.
When Jacob was a young teenager, I would pay him to mow the grass at our offices. He enjoyed making his own money and it taught him some valuable lessons. A lady stopped me and said, “I can’t believe you are making that baby work.” I didn’t say anything back to her out of respect, but I was thinking to myself, “Lady, I was in the tobacco fields at five and learned the value of hard work.” Cole and Jacob both learned the value of hard work, and to this day, Amy and I are proud to say our boys are not scared to work hard.
I am hearing that the democrats may come around this week to passing a clean spending resolution. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. The shutdown is in its 34th day, as of writing this column on Monday, and is approaching becoming the longest shutdown in history.
