How much should you give up?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-21-2008
How much should you give up?
352
Tue, 10-21-2008 - 8:35pm

My mother wrote an angry reply to a post on this board. It was deleted, from what I read in her email. I know you will ask how I got into her email, well, I have the password in case something happens to her. I went into it tonight because I was trying to figure out why someone as lovely and kind as my mother tried to take her own life today. In her email, I found a reply to her post. In that reply, she was asked how much this person should have to give to her out of her $250,000 a year. This isn't an attack, it's an answer from someone who knows and loves my mother more than anything in the world. No doubt this will be deleted as well, but here it is until then.

First off, none of what you will be "giving up" out of your $250,000+ dollars will come to her or to anyone like her. It will be going to pay off the deficit for your children, and hopefully for mine, so that they will not get to a point where they would rather die than lose everything they own at the age of 56.

You were talking about losing 12% of $250,000. That is more than my mother made every year. She lost her job, and is about to lose her house. She never had much, but what she had she has lost over the years due to having a chronic illness. She has no retirement, and has watched her home value plummet. If she sold her house tomorrow, she would make less than $30,000 on it. We all know that's not even a year's income, and she cannot collect SS for 6 more years.

So here's my answer to you. You should be willing to give anything necessary to save people like my mother. You should do it because you have it to give. You should do it because it's the right thing to do. You shouldn't begrudge anyone your 12% who has worked so hard, and given so much of her time and energy to others free of charge when they were in need.

My mother taught us to give. Every Christmas, we had to take one gift off of our "want" list (which wasn't very long, since we were poor), and give that money to charity, or to someone with less than we had. There weren't a lot of people who had less than we had, or so I thought. I learned from my mother that I was wrong. She took me to homes where single mothers who had been abandoned by their husbands sat shivering with their children, wrapped in blankets, because they could not afford heat. We gave her a used kerosene heater and a gift certificate for $30 for kerosene. It wasn't much, but she cried when she got it.

Our next stop was to an elderly black man who was blind from cataracts, and had lost his wife just a month before Christmas. My mother brought him a homemade mincemeat pie, because he had loved his wife's so much. She apologized to him, saying she knew it wasn't as good, but it was filled with love.

We gave shoes to children who had none, clothes to women in battered women's shelters so they could go to work, gas money to people struggling just to get to work, and food to families when the food stamps didn't last out the month.

My mother gleaned fields every year after harvest and donated the food to a soup kitchen, and she also drove over 100 miles around our county giving it to the poor and the elderly. She never asked for anything in return. She has literally given the clothes off her back, well out of her closet, to someone she thought needed them more.

Now she lays in a hospital room, fighting for her life, because when it came down to it, nobody would help her. We kids did as much as we could, but it wasn't enough, because we don't have much either. Social services turned their backs on her because she didn't have a job to go back to. She lost her car, and her utilities were going to be cut off. And nobody...NOBODY cared about this woman who has done so much for others during her lifetime.

You obviously don't understand the spirit of giving. That's sad, with Christmas coming up. Too bad you didn't have a mom like mine.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 1:41pm
Understand this! It wasn't yours until BUSH gave it to you, which he should never have done. We HAD a balanced budget until Bush went hog wild to help his wealthy friends who donated to get his sorry tail in office!
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2005
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 1:44pm

Understand this! It wasn't yours until BUSH gave it to you,


WHAT!? are you saying that the highly paid didn't earn thier salaries? that bush handed them money?


LOL


-Kristen

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 2:12pm

Huh? What wasn't mine? My income?

President Bush cut taxes across the board for everyone and as a result we have fewer taxpayers in general and of those remaining the top tier is paying a greater percentage than ever before.

So I'm not quite sure at what your wrath is directed?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2004
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 3:50pm
'
I also think that if things go as Obama plans that there will be less and less people getting college educations and trying to make something of themselves.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-09-2007
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 3:54pm
Personally I thought your post was heartless and very cruel.
Jess


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-09-2007
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 3:59pm

"I cannot believe what this country is coming to.

Jess


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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-07-2006
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 4:18pm

I think we should give up our stimulus checks and tax refunds that are more than the amount paid in. That is what I should give up. Alas, as long as they send them to my house my husband thinks we should take them. (although he does think they should stop sending them to us, lol) Unfortunately for the economy we don't go out and spend them.

To the OP, I am sorry about your mother and I hope she makes a full recovery.




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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2006
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 4:52pm
I

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-26-2007
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 6:20pm

One thing that I really don't think that many people realize is that those people making 250 a year already pay between 80 and 90 thousand dollars a year in taxes.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:00pm

"I totally agree with you. While I feel terrible for that poor woman who does not have her basic needs met, it is not the responsibility of people who work very hard for their money, who studied long and hard, who sacrificed who knows what, for their money to give it up. The money is theirs--they earned it. They should have the right to do with it what they want.

What we need to really do is to take away ALL govenrment assistance from people who REFUSE to work and dole it out to those who work hard but don't earn enough to cover emergency situations or hardships.

That would get the lead out of the freeloaders, free up the funds for the hardworkers, and make everyone happy.

To demand that someone who works for their money give it up--well that IS stealing!

When I get to that income level, I certainly want the money that I earned to stay in my bank account so I can help who I want to--not who I am told I have to. That's socialism, plain and simple."

While I agree everyone who can work should work, you cannot always generalize about those needing help. Children cannot work. For every person who is a "freeloader" there is a child in need. A person may indeed have children to remain in the system, which is terrible, but those children are no less in need because of the character of their parents.

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