Glories of the Welfare State: British Mom Gets $125K Per Year Handout to Live in Mansion?
John Stossel finds an article in the Daily Mail about a woman receiving an eye-opening level of benefits from the government:
A single mother-of-six is getting more than £80,000 [$125,000] a year from the taxpayer to live in a £2million mansion in an exclusive London suburb.
Essma Marjam, 34, is given almost £7,000 a month in housing benefits to pay the rent on the five-bedroom villa just yards from Sir Paul McCartney’s house and Lord’s cricket ground.
She also receives an estimated £15,000 a year in other payouts, such as child benefit, to help look after her children, aged from five months to 14.
The four-storey house in Maida Vale has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double living room… two large flat-screen televisions …
It’s not fraud, if it’s true. (Well, it is the Daily Mail.) Stossel warns that President Obama has praised the “social safety net that exists in almost all of Europe that doesn’t exist in the United States.”
If this is what Obama wants to set up here . . . well, what could possibly go wrong? Let’s set up Octomom in the Hearst Castle at taxpayer expense!
Meanwhile, the EU is deciding whether to bail out Greece, a country that has engaged in profligate spending well beyond its means. Spain and Portugal may not be far behind, and the Germans are not thrilled:
“Just like Obama is not going to let a systemic bank fail, Europe is not going to kick the wayward out of the system,” said Josef Joffe, the publisher of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. But he added that the reason for that could not be kept from the voters.
“Europe has become a huge welfare state for everybody, for states as well as individuals,” he said.
It’s time to be concerned when German newspaper publishers see the problem, but our president doesn’t.
P.S. Read “Stossel’s Take” here. It seems to be a new blog, and will likely be a good one.
You ignorant red – necky gun – clingers are too inbred to understand what your betters in this administration are trying to do for you. Why don’t you STFU and let us do what we know is best for the well – being of your fellow citizens?
Dmac (799abd) — 2/16/2010 @ 7:31 amGod damnit, do not give them any more ideas…
Scott Jacobs (46e187) — 2/16/2010 @ 7:31 amLet’s give her an investment bank job.
imdw (72206b) — 2/16/2010 @ 7:34 amWow, that makes angry. Jamie and Lloyd taking in 9+ million a quarter thanks to my tax money doesn’t make me angry at all.
The ability of cons to be pissed at the money flowing downward to the lazy and not be pissed at the exponentially more money flowing upward (due to govt intervention) to the lazy and well-represented staggers the imagination.
THIS story isn’t even about OUR money, yet Stossel the halfwit is expecting us to get angry…Man, Reagan did a number on you people. 30 years later and you still can’t get over it.
I fully support the American Right’s mass exodus to Britain to make sure you stop those evil welfare cheats. Reminds me of Restaurant at End of the Universe.
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
timb (449046) — 2/16/2010 @ 7:52 amStossel has been blogging for a while, but the blog on Fox is new since he moved to Fox from a network that will remain nameless. (Why? Because they disappeared Stossel’s blog archives when he left.)
Mark L (cb0d62) — 2/16/2010 @ 7:55 amStossel has been blogging for a while, but the blog on Fox is new since he moved to Fox from a network that will remain nameless. (Why? Because they disappeared Stossel’s blog archives when he left.)
Mark L (cb0d62) — 2/16/2010 @ 7:55 am“Let’s give her an investment bank job.”
I’m not smart enough to follow your statement. Would she work here in the US as an investment banker? Who are the us that would give her the job?
Corwin (ea9428) — 2/16/2010 @ 8:15 amThe EU bureaucrats will promote a bailout, but Germany will steadfastly resist these weasels. Greece is about to become the next Iceland.
The current socialist Greek prime minister, Papandreou, has settled in to a pattern of whining and claiming victim status for Greece and himself, blaming not only the European Union for their advice to embrace austerity, but also blaming the previous Greek administration (2004-2009), which was center-right. (How do you say “I blame Bush” in Greek?)
However, the first time Greece hired Wall Street connivers to start hiding their debt with derivatives was in 2001, which was the previous time the socialist party (PASOK) was in power. They did it again after the Socialists came back into power in October 2009, this time with Papandreou.
Now the Greek government is being advised by lefty economist Joseph Stiglitz, a devout Keynesian who believes you can always print your way out of a mess. But Greece doesn’t own the printing press any more.
Official Internet Data Office (99772e) — 2/16/2010 @ 8:32 am*yawn* Happens in California too. (OK. the disclaimer. I worked with a guy, who’s neighbor was one of these.)
So, according to my former coworker, this is how the scam went (San Jose area). Apparently the state pays big dollars to families who will foster developmentally disabled children. My coworker’s (divorced) neighbor was fostering 8 of them at one time to a tune of $300? (IIRC) each per month (his figures, early 1990’s when I lived out there).
Daily it seems he would come in with the latest story…. about having the kids climbing the fence into his back yard…. or the van with the paper tags she’d had on it for two years…. or the lack of child safety seats … or leaving her pregnant daughter (18, also drawing welfare) in charge while she went out. He said complaints to the local child welfare department (I forget its official name) would ‘occasionally’ bring a visit where nothing would change.
His opinion was the state was so desperate to find someone willing to take children with these handicaps they were willing to overlook certain irregularities in following the law. Eventually, enough complaints by him and other neighbors forced the state to act….. they moved the whole problem to another area, out of his neighborhood.
Again, I have no personal knowledge of this, only the seemingly daily rants of my coworker, so it appears to be a bit of a strawman. My observation (having a sister now in DCFS in another state, and a friend who adopted 11 of his foster charges (did I mention he had money?)) would be the circumstances are not that far fetched.
Which brings this around to the (story behind the) base story: What DOES the state do with unwanted, developmentally disabled, crippled, or otherwise “damaged” children? There used to be “homes” and “institutions” and ‘sanitariums” and the like, all now closed to better “mainstream’ and “integrate” them into society….. and for budgetary reasons.
Joec (6d7364) — 2/16/2010 @ 8:50 amMy first problem with the welfare state is a principled one. My second, its execution of its perverse mission.
It always end up the same — those who have real need like the elderly are told no and those who are young and make bad choices are coddled.
HeavenSent (c3c032) — 2/16/2010 @ 10:42 amA friend was visiting from the UK recently and he and his wife foster kids, and this is what he told me. Many parents “drop off” their kids on an annual basis when they go on vacation as they do not want to take the kids with them, or pay for them. They do it year after consequence free year. They also like to drop them off around Christmas so that they don’t have to buy gifts. But, it gets worse. The welfare state will often supply new clothes for the kids, up to around £500 (about $750) which the parents promptly sell upon picking up the kids. Nice, huh?
Gazzer (fe2281) — 2/16/2010 @ 2:44 pmThe ability of cons to be pissed at the money flowing downward to the lazy and not be pissed at the exponentially more money flowing upward (due to govt intervention) to the lazy and well-represented staggers the imagination.
Yeah, we ALL are ecstatic that Obama’s sugar daddies Dimon and Blankfein took home million dollar bonuses. Thanks for sharing your ignorance.
You wanted the current Eunuch-in-Chief, you got him.
Another Chris (35bdd0) — 2/16/2010 @ 3:14 pmInteresting. The rules vary by locale, but apparently The UK government has determined how big a house a family should have.
Each person or couple over 16 in age gets a bedroom.
No more than two under 16’s to a room.
Between 10 and 16 you can share a room with the same sex
Under ten you share with any 1 other.
Plus, you need living-rooms:
* one if there are 1-3 people living there
* two if 4-6 people live there
* three if more than 6 people live there.
So if your actual rent is more than what they consider you can afford, you can apply for benefit to make up the difference, up to the some bureaucratically determined “appropriate rent for the area” amount. If you already have “income assistance” and your rent is less than the target for that size house, you might get all of the rent covered.
It all started in the 19th century and really got going in the first world war because so many of the poor were too frail to be fit for military service.
So I suspect that the reason the subject of the article feels entitled to a house with that many bedrooms is because the “citizens advice bureau” and the council housing office told her she was entitled to that size house. And they probably told her that there were no “below market rate” housing association homes of that size available, and no “council houses” of that size available. So she found one on her own.
So lets not blame Microsoft the individual for taking advantage of the tax laws welfare laws as they are written. If we have a problem with it we should work to change the law. After all, each corporation person tries to provide the best returncircumstances for their shareholdersfamily that circumstances allow.
Douglas2 (62fec6) — 2/16/2010 @ 3:43 pmTimb – apparently you’ve missed the seething anger at TARP, the Bailouts, etc, etc, etc. Don’t mind the truth.
Carry on.
Vivian Louise (643333) — 2/16/2010 @ 3:47 pm6.Stossel has been blogging for a while, but the blog on Fox is new since he moved to Fox from a network that will remain nameless. (Why? Because they disappeared Stossel’s blog archives when he left.)
Comment by Mark L — 2/16/2010 @ 7:55 am
— Why nameless? Isn’t that what ABC stands for? Admitted Bias, Censorship.
Icy Texan (33337e) — 2/17/2010 @ 12:43 amComment by timb — 2/16/2010 @ 7:52 am
The ability of cons to be pissed at the money flowing downward to the lazy and not be pissed at the exponentially more money flowing upward (due to govt intervention) to the lazy and well-represented staggers the imagination.
— Who the hell says that we support bailouts of corporations & large banks?
THIS story isn’t even about OUR money, yet Stossel the halfwit is expecting us to get angry…Man, Reagan did a number on you people. 30 years later and you still can’t get over it.
— So a welfare-world-state is just fine & dandy with you? Okay, forget about the Euro & the Amero; let’s just create the Worldo (how do you say that in esperanto?) and give the UN control over all of the world’s mints and be done with it!
I fully support the American Right’s mass exodus to Britain to make sure you stop those evil welfare cheats. Reminds me of Restaurant at End of the Universe.
— Yes. What goes on in the rest of the world doesn’t really affect us that much, does it? And our current president, he never looks to Western Europe for inspiration and direction, does he? Oh, we’re in rare form today, timmah.
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
Icy Texan (33337e) — 2/17/2010 @ 12:59 am— Feel free to not bait that hook next time, Stashiu.
[…] From Patterico, a single British mother is getting about $125,000 per year in welfare to live in a mansion. She is a stay-at-home mother to five children. Aside from the issue of procreating no less than five times and not having a man to help with child-rearing*, this woman is living better than taxpayers, at the expense of taxpayers. Her children are not going to die if they have to live in a three-bedroom apartment (rather than getting their own rooms), nor will her family implode if she were to take them and move to a less expensive area of town – or even out of London entirely. It’s not like she would be leaving a job. […]
A Science-y Smorgasbord at Haemet (3bcabb) — 2/21/2010 @ 5:14 pm