So what happens when the balancing plates on the sticks stop spinning? What happens when the safety nets that have become trampolines of play time and exploitation for three generations are suddenly collapsed by the reality that we can no longer afford to pay for it? Well then .....you get poor disenfranchised souls like the one below who can no longer cope. They can no longer sustain themselves because the government can no longer sustain them.
I imagine that we are on the cusp of millions and tens of millions just like him. And then what happens then what happens to society? What happens when the sugar teat of our socialist fed society has gone dry and there is no more manna from Washington.
You do the math.
Poverty Spikes to 1960's levels.
The number of Americans living in poverty has spiked to levels not seen since the mid 1960s, classing 20 per cent of the country’s children as poor.
It comes at a time when government spending cuts of $85 billion have kicked in after feuding Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a better plan for addressing the national deficit.
The cuts will directly affect 50 million Americans living below the poverty income line and reduce their chances of finding work and a better life.
Before spending cuts kicked in on March 1st, 49-year-old Antonio Hammond became a success story for Catholic Charities of Baltimore - one of a multitude of organizations trying to haul people out of poverty.
In this Maryland port city, one of four residents is considered poor by U.S. government standards.
Hammond says he ended up in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin, living in abandoned buildings where "the rats were fierce," and financing his addiction by breaking into cars and stealing copper pipes out of crumbing structures.
Eighteen months after finding his way to Catholic Charities via a rehabilitation center, the Philadelphia native is back in the work force, clean of drugs, earning $13 an hour cleaning laboratories for the Biotech Institute of Maryland and paying taxes.
Kicked his habit: Antonio Hammond (pictured) says he ended up in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin - while living in poverty
Catholic Charities, which runs a number of federally funded programs, spent $18,000 from privately donated funds to turn around Hammond's life through the organization's Christopher's Place program which provides housing and support services to recovering addicts and former prisoners.
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