Larry K--

You may "work with" low income folk.

However:

1)   You say you "know the poor". Not likely.

"The position many of them take is that there are no jobs and it is up to government to provide them with money"

Nobody denies that some of the poor do this. The question is whether it is "many" or, as you imply in your post, "most". "Most" is dead wrong, "many" is totally subjective on your part and carries no weight--especially against the experience of Janie, who has a more substantial sample to draw from. It sounds like with you it's back to the good old days of Mr. Reagan's welfare Cadillac--a handy stereotype to beat the poor and justify your own selfishness.

2)   You had 2 stents put in. Had you had no health insurance, which is prohibitively expensive to many self-employed or working poor--and a major problem for them-- you would have had huge expenses. Any argument here? Many of the self-employed or working poor would have been bankrupted by the cost.

3) You rail against government and tell us constantly taxes should be lower--i.e. government should be smaller. Who pays for your talks to low-income people? You obviously give a lot of them. It sounds as if it would be reasonable to suspect you derive some income from them. Perhaps your company derives a tax benefit from the service. Is there no government funding involved, directly or indirectly?
"Human Services Agency", for instance.   "Legal Aid Society" certainly receives some government funding. The Wall St Journal editorial page, one of your happy hunting grounds, has fulminated often enough against the evils done by legal aid societies (e.g. aiding and abetting class action suits) and many times advocated cutting off all funding.

Unless I miss my guess, your connection with the "Legal Aid Society", and possibly others, makes you a hog slopping at the government trough---and just possibly, a hypocrite.