It is possible that he was only cashing one per month on purpose to keep his earnings under the threshold that allows these benefits rather than not cashing them because he needed them?

Here's the U.S. National Debt Clock - this may boggle yer mind!!!

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Click on top left to see how your State or Country compares!

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Nope. All his earnings were reported. He was tax exempt for quite a while because of his immigrant status. He actually showed me his pay stubs. I was the Shop Steward and his ride into work. I was called into the office by the management to try to find out why he wasn't cashing his checks because the accounting department wanted to know if he lost his checks. I sort of got guilted into taking his to work until he got his drivers license and a car. Nice kid and a hard worker until he got "Americanized", started smoking weed, getting sloppy with his work and started coming in late until they finally let him go. As the Steward I couldn't do anything to help him. Contrary to popular belief, bad union employees can be let go. Factory workers do not receive tenure like teachers. There is a grievance/arbitration procedure but you don't always win. It depends on how deep the company and unions pockets are. Not all unions are corrupt. Not even most. In the case of our union, we were always approached by corrupt politicians looking to line their own pockets, not the other way around.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

Tax exempt because of immigrant status...
How did I miss that one as a kid...?
There has to be more to it than that. As an immigrant myself, working for anyone or any company i worked for, wether it was by Uncle Sam when I was in the military or private corporation I was always taxed so something is highly amiss in your scenario...

Just exactly what was going on with the church..?

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

The kid was an immigrant and was not taxed. Don't care if you believe it or not. He was brought over by a church group. It was in 1983. Maybe you did miss something.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

The kid was an immigrant and was not taxed. Don't care if you believe it or not. He was brought over by a church group. It was in 1983. Maybe you did miss something. It was a Catholic Church, you tell me.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

the "problem" is not any of those mentioned. it is the Government and it's massive bureaucratic ginormousness 28% growth in less than 2 years healthcare is do-able if all of the money didn't have to go to another million bureaucrats and their staffs and the politicians on the endless committees and policy-making boards and all of their unearned pensions and 401ks and their special government employee insurance, all paid for with tax dollars provided by hard working Americans for lazy sorry useless do-nothing government employees and their equally non-productive families (generations of them I might add, it never ends and only can get worse with bigger government) so, before 1 patient is taken care of under the new health plan it has cost 4 trillion and the unions involved are already crying that they aren't making enough and more regulations and bureaucracy and higher taxes are needed. Americas problem=Government.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Can't wait till this party's over.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

Can't wait till this party's over. Maybe the government should hire all of us.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

You honestly don't believe that within the last two years everything became unmanageable...Do You
Let's get real...Our deficit is due to more than a couple decades worth of idiotic bookkeeping and we are actually all responsible. So you can't point fingers and kick the can down the road.
It is a capitalist system first and foremost and if everyone takes their hands off the wheel then all of a sudden the realization comes of a very large hangover.
Don't even suggest that the middle class didn't live large in the last couple decades. Maxing out your leverage ratio is not the same as being liquid.

So Let's not rant and rave and let's keep it to intelligent discussion on an adult level. If that is not possible than you do not get it.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

Absolutely not. To place full blame on the current administration is ludicrous. The system wasn't broken in two years and it can't be fixed in 6 months. This was caused by decades of abuse and no one in either the banking industry, government or big business is held accountable. The tax payers always suffer. By party, I didn't mean the Democrats or Republicans or the Teabaggers. Without term limits or line item veto it will always be the same.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

I was simply saying that if you keep spending money but never add any, that is an expense we never could afford( government produces zero but absorbs trillions in tax dollars which takes away from GNP, simple math not finger-pointing. the rant wasn't necessary I agree and nobody is interested in my opinion especially when I have a headache either, point taken or I get it ).

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Private health care in my opinion is only there to subsidise the fat cats and their families health care, we're told it will benifit us and the companies we belong too, ie quicker treatment, no waiting, back to work sooner etc etc first port of call anytime I got injured at work NHS ( national health) which isn't an option to opt out of, so you pay national insurance + private health = in my book SCAM, try taking that scenario onto a battlefeild " yes private where does it hurt, oops sorry first of all are you private or national health " we got the wrong guy here see ya buddy someone will be along shortly" health care for all should be one of the first priorities for any civilised country regardless of wealth colour race age religion etc perhaps if we stopped feeding these insurance companies and gave to the national health what we pay them then the national health would be far better off rather than redundancies and cutbacks announcements almost daily

Our government can,t run SS, or Medicare what would make anyone think they can run everyones Healthcare.

Gee Canadians worried about our debt? Sortta like going to war wirthout the French.