Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 01, 2014

Rat-hood could count as a disability, except it’s everyone around him who suffers from it.:Happy ’14!

Comments section is about to get all political in a big hurry.

Merry New Year. Pastis going all Bloom County on us.

Steph, a very Happy New Year to you, all your denizens and devotees!! May 2014 be spectacular!

That deaf, dumb. and blind Rat sure plays a mean welfare fraud!

Suddenly, Rat desperately wants to qualify as a 25 percenter.

Amazing only one unthinking attack on disabled people so far. Pastis has a deep south political upbringing up no doubt.

COUNties

After yesterday’s lame gay jokes, a disability is in order. Oh, wait! It was Pig making the jokes, not Rat!.Someone mentioned yesterday that the characters were out of character yesterday. Usually, when Pig makes comments like that, it is pretty clear that he is blissfully unaware of what he is saying. That didn’t appear to be the case yesterday..In fact, yesterday, Pig was doing a pretty good Rat!.Which is why I started out thinking that was why Rat was laid up in the hospital bed!

Funny – up to readers to decide how they want to view what is essentially a fact setting up a joke for Rat.

The problem is defining “disability”.

I am OFFENDED! Horribly offended. I am offended by anyone who has, is, or will make any comments about the insensitivity of this comic. It’s a comic strip, for goodness sake. Now that you have offended me, by your own rules, you are no longer allowed to speak your opinion on the subject. Thank you for your cooperation.

With an aging population, it makes complete sense that more people would be on disability, doesn’t it?

Years ago, at work one of the guys would come in with a neck brace, remove it and go to work, and going out the door at the end of the day replace it, felt so sorry for him, didn’t.

going to mcdonald’s to get some coffee – anyone coming?

Counties; West Virginia has the one Rural county that has 25% of the working age population on SSDI. One Doctor/Lawyer group in particular is responsible for that. The Mayor of the largest town says the local economy would collapse if SSDI went broke (which it will).

We’ve all heard stories about individuals scamming the system and it undoubtedly costs us millions but, I think to get to billions you would have to focus on retail and healthcare institutions.A bounty might not be necessary though… it might be enough just to protect the whistle blowers who expose these problems.

" … checks (cheques ??) from the government."

This is the U.S., so it is “checks”.

I agree, Taco. I used to work as a Voc Rehab counselor, and saw some really pathetic cases of people who could not get disability after years of applying. Of course, there were cases of fraud, too. The problem, of course, is deciding who is which.

Happy MMXIV, “Pears before Swine” readers.

This joke brought to you by the Teapartiers and FoxNews,

I worked until I could barely move 16 months ago and have had to fight SSDI for every dollar since then, yet people “can’t work” because they’re sad or have a hangnail. I’ve said many times I’ll give up my SSDI if it means welfare, unemployment, and cheap SSDI all go away with it.

It’s not as cut and dried as goat makes it out to be. Remember, the Welfare Reform Act REQUIRES welfare recipients to work. Of course some people are going to claim disability in order to avoid work, but as someone pointed out, the population is aging.

Rat’s brain must have an “activate/deactivate” button.All the best for 2014 everybody!xxx

I can see FAUX News having this as one of their lead stories!

Yeah, right…If only!

Let’s ignore the fact that we have been at war since 2002 – and that many of the disabled are veterans of foreign wars. Nope. Let’s just assume it is people being lazy.

Oh – and let’s ignore the number of people who are on disability from chemically toxic work conditions in factories and coal mines. Nope. Much, much easier to assume it is people being lazy.

The longer any system remains in play, the more people will find ways to take dishonest advantage (government, yes, but also computer software and almost any other thing that can be an HONEST benefit) all are used by people who have no work ethic and no sense of right and wrong to unfairly profit.

What we REALLY need are more honest, good people.

HAPPY and HEALTHY 2014 TO ALL!

Is that milk?…

Just caught up on this strip, and had to comment. Who does Stephan Pastis think he is? I am on disability, after numerous tries in the workforce. I am not a malingerer; I have medical problems that make it impossible to hold down a job. Stop trying to be political, Pastis, and go back to your pathetic puns.

Goat is reading the “Buffalo News” in panel 1 and “Las Vegas Sun” in panel 2