It is not "compromise" if you start your debate with utterly ludicrous positions and abandon some of the more absurd and tangential of them, leaving a massive core of crazy. You aren't compromising, you are insisting on gross authoritarianism, and continuing a view of those less fortunate (i.e., the poor, the unemployed, and the working poor) characterized by by disdain, disgust, and something close to apparent hatred. Further, you are actually making these programs unnecessarily complex, and therefor costly and prone to government abuse through petty beauracracy. Compared to your program, a straight and unrestricted cash payment would be vastly superior.

As for the time thing: Hey, guess what you can do while the pizza is heating? OTHER THINGS. Guess what you can do while cooking rice or beans or all the "from scratch" stuff you now require? A lot less. This is but a tiny example. The point is that things add up. The bus takes three or more times as long as the car due to wait time, transfers, and stops. Food is more expensive if you can't get to the big box stores and have to shop at the bodega. It takes up part of the day to get to the office where you have your brown shirts checking tats, drug testing, checking off pay stubs, and reviewing all those regulations to see if you are allowed to buy item X. Working a government road crew precludes the search for another job. All you have done with your proposals is put up barriers and inefficiency.

To pretend that the sum of your restrictions are merely reasonable is a joke. Fortunately, I don't need to "compromise" with you because your positions are unworkable and beyond unrealistic. I can worry about what actual policy and legislation is proposed and works it way to a floor vote. I can worry instead about the much more helpful discussion about important entitlement program reform, such as increasing the SS age, adjusting the SS annual cost of living formula, means testing Medicare, etc. These are realistic non-draconian ideas that are not part of someone's authoritarian the-poor-are-scum fantasy world.

Quote Originally Posted by Marlin View Post
Now we are getting somewhere. Our current system is not working. I have been giving them money, in exchange for nothing, for generations, yet they are still poor. So obviously that does not work. My way, or rather, my proposed way is too extreme. I acknowledge that. When you barter, you never start at your lowest price, then you have nowhere to go. In the spirit of bipartisanship, you have to leave something to give. So, I will give up nicotine,alcohol, and tats tracking. In exchange, I want to limit what food they can buy. It takes 15-20 minutes to heat a frozen pizza. It takes about the same to cook some rice or beans and some beef or chicken. The very idea that I am limiting their employment time because I am taking away the convenience of prepared meals is in the least, ludicrous. Even if they work 9 hours a day, that leaves 15 left. 1.5 hours of total cooking for the meals is more than enough.
I am also willing to give up mandatory sterilization, but I will downgrade it to "incentive based contraception". You get your tubes tied, we give you 500 bucks. You get snipped, we give you 500 bucks.
As for the barracks, not gonna budge on that. You want to live under my roof, you can live by my rules. At this point, they have proved that they cannot make good decisions on their own and they need guidance. Remember, this is all for long term recipients. If you are down on your luck and lose your job or whatnot, you get 3-6 months to bounce back. We can negotiate the time length later.
You can do whatever you want, as long as you pave your own way. Don't expect others to do it for you. Just because you are in America does not mean you are entitled to all of the wants that are out there. It just means you are entitled to have the chance to earn those wants.
I am not racist, if you make them sell their 22s, which costs thousands by the way, you can take some of that money to give them OEM wheels and tires and still have cash left over. We will also take the "trailer trash" big mud tires and do the same deal. All is fair....although I have to admite I have never seen a "rent a mud tire" store, yet there are 3 "rent a wheel stores" within 10 miles of where I sit right now. I went in one last week to get a box to ship RickOKC a wheel. I had to dig through their boxes to find an 18" rim box. They had one. All the others were 20s or bigger. Go figure, anecdotal I suppose.
As far as government control, I realize that the government is not likely to ever give up its powers. You're right, its a fine line between regulation and tyranny. There would not be gangs going door to door inspecting your tats and whatnot. That would only be if you are long term aid recipient. There must be repercussions for your actions. We are not talking about a screw up one time, this is more along the lines of "3 strikes your out".
See, I am willing to compromise. I am sure we can meet in the middle somewhere, and we can all be unhappily happy.