Shocker: Welfare Money Runs Out In Iraq

Shocker: Welfare Money Runs Out In Iraq Scotty Starnes | November 22, 2010 at 9:30 AM | Tags: Iraq, Iraqi farmers, Iraqi widowers, Iraqis, Liberal, politicians, welfare, welfare check | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-3zC

From the Associated Press:

BAGHDAD – Iraq has run out of money to pay for widows' benefits, farm crops and other programs for the poor, the parliament leader told lawmakers, who have collected nearly $180,000 so far this year in one of the world's most oil-rich nations.

In only their fourth session since being elected in March, members of Iraq's parliament on Sunday demanded to know what happened to the estimated $1 billion allocated for welfare funding by the Finance Ministry for 2010.

"We should ask the government where these allocations for widows' aid have gone," demanded Sadrist lawmaker Maha Adouri of Baghdad, one of the women who make up a quarter of the legislature's 325 members. "There are thousands of widows who did not receive financial aid for months."

Another legislator said farmers have not been paid for wheat and other crops they supplied the government for at least five months.

The cause of the shortfall was unclear, but officials have worried that the deadlock over forming a new government since March's inconclusive election ultimately would lead to funding shortages. Whatever the cause, the welfare cutoff has been felt among Iraqis.

"We are sick people and others are old, and not getting our welfare puts us in a financial crisis," said Fatima Hassan, 54, a widow who lives with her four children in Baghdad's Sadr City slum.

"How can we pay for our daily needs and for our medicine, or to cover the needs of my children? Where are the revenues of our right in our oil?" said Hassan, who stopped receiving government payments more than four months ago.

Oh shit. That sounds like an American liberal. Iraq is doomed. How could this possibly happen?

...Even though parliament has hardly met over the past eight months, lawmakers have continued to pull in salaries and allowances that reach $22,500 a month — as well a one-time $90,000 stipend and perks like free nights in Baghdad's finest hotel.

"They kept our millions in their pockets," said Mizher Abdul Majeed, 49, a farmer in the northern town of Mosul whose bank refuses to cash the Iraqi Trade Ministry-issued checks that pay for his wheat. "How can we prepare for the coming planting season?"

Welcome to our world Iraq. Here in the US, we have politicians that spend more money than we have, but still receive their checks from us taxpayers. This is how democracy works. The politicians who create the problems are the same ones who will claim they are there to solve the problems they created.

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