Behold American "Poverty"
No wonder class warriors such as John Edwards and Barack Obama are so incensed. Just look at the absolute squalor now spreading across America:
Lori and Steven Siravo earn $56,000 a year and say they can’t afford health insurance.They consider themselves lucky to live in New Jersey, where the family’s income isn’t too high to qualify their 16-year-old daughter, Carlie, for U.S. government-subsidized coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
…
Steven, 49, drives a Chevrolet Caprice Classic that’s almost 20 years old, and she drives a 5-year-old Chevy Monte Carlo. The above-ground pool out back is 17 years old, bought when “we had money” before Carlie was born, Lori said.The one luxury is a full-size pinball machine Steven bought for his wife on her 40th birthday.
The family’s monthly bills consume most of their take-home income. Pulling out her checkbook, Lori said there’s the mortgage ($1,500), utilities ($743), phones and Internet service ($200), car insurance and gasoline ($205), property taxes ($230), basic cable television ($48), food ($600) and credit-card payments ($325) on an outstanding $11,000 balance. That’s $46,212 a year, not including clothes, school books and extra-curricular activities for Carlie.
…
There’s also $352 a month on a home-equity loan the Siravos took out to send Carlie to a private Catholic high school.
Read that again: Apparently “poverty in America” now means having “only” two cars, “only” basic cable, “only” an above-ground pool and “only” a private education. Oh, and “only” one pinball machine.
If that’s your (deprived) lifestyle, then you are, to SCHIP apologists, “poor” and in need of health insurance welfare underwritten by other people’s taxes.
This is what Democrats decry as “poverty in America.” These are the people to whom President Bush is being “cruel” by threatening a veto of SCHIP expansion. These are the miserable, contemptible, utterly hopeless forty-something whiner-brats who lay claim to other people’s income, insisting that — their words — “life is stressful enough without worrying about your health.”
Or, apparently, worrying about being middle-class leeches on other taxpayers.
—
UPDATE: Just to be clear, this family is not “uninsurable.” They have access to typical, ordinary private health insurance. They choose, however, to opt — immorally if not irrationally — to enroll in SCHIP for less than one-third the cost of private, middle-class health insurance. Behold “enlightened” socialized medicine schemes — corrupting otherwise reasonable people into becoming welfare bums.
Madness. Sheer madness.
(Via Cato@Liberty.)
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"Utilities ($743)"
What? Phone, Net, and cable are listed separately, so they spend >$700/month on electricity, heat, and water, on average throughout the year?
Obviously, not only do they have an above-ground pool, they keep it very warm.
I make a little bit less than they do (within 10%) and can't imagine paying $1500 for a mortgage. I know that I live in one of the least expensive metro areas in the country, and NJ is probably one of the most expensive, but still. If my lender had said "here's a loan for $1500 a month, and you're still on the hook for property taxes" I'd have laughed in his face and said "OK, now show me a loan that I can afford." And I'm one person. No kids.
Also, in the article there's a bit about how their income went over the SCHIP limit for about 4 months. Why do I get the feeling that they're intentionally keeping their income lower so they can still qualify?
I'm willing to bet the wife (a hairdresser) doesn't turn in all of her pay, either. At the least, she likely doesn't turn in her cash tips. So they're doing a little better than noted.
They are not living in the lap of luxury. And, of course, their lives are not without worry. Anyone who lives paycheck-to-paycheck has similar worries. But that doesn't entitle them to anyone else's money.
While I don't think any person has claim to another person's money, I'm at least willing to forgo/rationalize away this belief when the person receiving the money got a really bad break in life – born with a disability, stricken with some illness that wasn't his fault, etc.
I live in San Francisco and earn under $200,000 per year! That means that I'm struggling.
I have NO above ground pool. My apartment only has one bedroom and no yard. I own only one small car — not two. I cannot get a mortgage to buy an average home in San Francisco since my income is too low.
And I don't have a pinball machine — nor room enough in the apartment for one.
Where's my gummint cheese?!?