Don't you just love the people who are constantly posting political shit on Facebook? I know I love them, especially the ones who put their kids on the public school bus and race to the computer to talk junk about medicaid and food stamps. They want to get rid of all of the "government handouts" yet trust that same government to educate and care for their children. They actually expect the same government who can't even balance a budget to balance their children's lives. I don't get it.
On average, it costs around $11,000 per student per year to educate each American student. Some states spend much less, and some spend way more. But still, ELEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. Thanks to this glorious shutdown we are experiencing, I can't produce the best links as many of our government websites are down. Here is one. We're spending $11,000 per kid and everyone wants to spend more, but they also want to cut spending. I'll write more about my ideas for budget cuts later, but this one gets to me.
Long story short: I'm working from home so I can educate my children. I could be making triple my current earnings if I worked a traditional job. My husband was working a pretty good job 3 years ago, but life happened, as well as a pretty bad accident involving partial amputation, and now that job is gone, leaving us with about half his old income. I'm also buying all of our educational materials out of my own pocket. Uncle Sam isn't giving my child an iPad, but then again, neither am I. Uncle Sam isn't buying my children their textbooks, building schools, or making photocopies for me. This is coming out of the money I could be using to pay for groceries, glasses auto repairs, clothing, or getting my cracked front teeth fixed.
I could put Kaiya in second grade at the local public school, put Ronin in the More at 4 program (rough estimate of cost here), and stick Tanith in a daycare, but I'd (theoretically) rather save the government $17,000 this year ($22,000 next year! Over $33,000 when Tanith starts kindergarten!) and DIY. I'll keep getting called trash and watching eyes roll when I pull out my food stamp card and I will accept a couple hundred dollars per month in help, never actually spending the full amount. I don't plan on doing this forever, but I paid into the system my entire adult life, so I don't mind temporarily benefiting from it.
You keep putting your children on that school bus and I'll keep swiping my EBT card. When you stop accepting the handout of public education, then you can say something about my dependence.
And before you even lift a finger to start typing a retort about the correlation between food stamps, Cadillacs and your cousin's neighbor's uncle who saw somebody buying his dogs steaks with EBT, no I don't own a frigging iPhone.
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