Originally Posted by kane

But should it be? If you live next door to someone and you decided to build something in your backyard that they will be required to either help maintain or at the very least pay some money towards should you not at least ask their opinion about whether or not you should build it? Or should you just build it then walk over and tell them you will need $30 a month for their part of it?

To me it is the same thing. I got in an argument with a woman in a grocery store once over welfare (well more like it was me asking questions and her screaming). We are waiting in line because the register was down and they were fixing it. There was a woman behind me who was pregnant and had another kid that was around 3-4 years old with her. She is talking to her friend about how tight things are right now, but when the baby comes her check will go up and that will help. Eventually she says something like, "My welfare will almost double when I have the baby which is nice but the section 8 will go up a little and I might lose a little in food stamps so it is actually more like my check will go up about 60%." I say nothing because I don't know her or her situation, maybe her husband/boyfriend just walked out on her or something and she is stuck. Then she starts explaining to her friend that they can't find the father of the 3-4 years, but she wanted another baby so this kid will have someone to play with and won't be an only child so she met a guy and he knocked her up then disappeared.

I couldn't bite my tongue anymore so I simply asked her, "Do you think it was a wise choice to have another kid when you can't afford to the take care of the one you have?" She got pissed and told me she takes care of her child. I responded, "Well, you said yourself you are on welfare, section 8 and food stamps and that you don't work. We are all paying for your kid. If we are paying for you to stay home and do nothing I think we should have a say in whether you have another one or not." She lost it and started screaming at me that I couldn't tell her how to live her life and I had no right to say these things. She starts yelling for the manager. I shut up and just stood there. When the manager got there everyone in line took my side, thought I made a good point and asked a valid question and she flipped out so he took her aside and made her calm down.

It was kind of sad to me. But I guess I think if we the tax payers are going to pick up the check for raising a kid, we should at least get a say in either how the kid is raised or whether the kid is born at all.