Taxes!

[Osteomata]

I understand your incentive/disinsentive based argument, I just don't think its true because the data does not support it. It sounds good but doesn't actually play out in real life. With a more robust welfare system developing since the later 1930s, we have not seen an increase in the poverty rate, but rather a significant drop from the 1940s-1970, and it has held roughly steady at 14% since then, although the current recession has caused an upward trend. What I think we get from these various programs is a lack of starvation, mass malnutrition, gross illiteracy, and epidemics that your proposed solution would generate. You would get your two generation die off alright, just not in the way you mean.

I did use the bugs and animals concept on purpose. The driving dynamic behind the process is the same. Poeple and animals are very much the same at a base level, especially when it comes to survival. If you offer people something, such as foodstamps and welfare and so on, in exchange for doing nothing, then that is what they will do. The ants found a way to get free food and expend a minimal amount of effort. I took away the easy to get free food, the ants had to go find their food elsewhere. Its not like the majority were going from 6 figures to 15k in welfare. Those folks will work their *** off to gain their previous life style back and this is a temporary setback. The generational poor have always been poor and are therefore ok with always being poor. To say its not driven by ethnic triggers is ignoring a completely related cause for the sake of PC is ridiculous, the proof is in the pudding so to speak. Doing the same thing and expecting different results is insanity. We have to change their culture, wait the generation or two for the old to die off, and voila, everyone is happy! Ignoring the cultural shortcomings is going to result in the same poverty statistics for generations to come.

As for the 20 bucks a bottle, you're probably right, but if they are buying the Mccormicks at 4 bucks a bottle, they are probably not just drinking on Friday night and are still spending some bucks per week.

As for smokes, this is from Minnesota, so take it as just that:

"Seifert said the welfare recipients who use tobacco -- up to 40 percent of them, at a cost of at least $1,200 a year for a pack-a-day smoker -- could be offered cessation programs through the private Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco."

Here is a recent one from Arkansas:
"According to ATR, ?55 percent of smokers are 'working poor,' and one in four smokers lives below the poverty line.? Additionally, on average, smokers, whose median income is a little more than $36,000, make about 30 percent less than non-smokers.?"

Smoking seems to be more prevalent in the poor communities. Be it education or social culture, I have no idea. The can read the warnings on the pack just as well as I can. I quit smoking 10 years ago when I did my budget for when I got married. I was spending 50 bucks a month on smokes. I know smokes are way more expensive now, that is a chunk of change. A carton here in SC is 50 bucks. 100-150 bucks a month, thats half the rent in a crappy apartment. That would pay for my groceries if I went bare bones and so on.

[Marlin]

I understand your incentive/disinsentive based argument, I just don't think its true because the data does not support it. It sounds good but doesn't actually play out in real life. With a more robust welfare system developing since the later 1930s, we have not seen an increase in the poverty rate, but rather a significant drop from the 1940s-1970, and it has held roughly steady at 14% since then, although the current recession has caused an upward trend. What I think we get from these various programs is a lack of starvation, mass malnutrition, gross illiteracy, and epidemics that your proposed solution would generate. You would get your two generation die off alright, just not in the way you mean.

So we are stuck. We know the current system doesn't work, as evident by our current situation and the fact they are breeding their way to the top via numbers. My way is probably too callous and may result in many deaths.

So, what do we do now? I thought my short term assistance was fair. No lifers allowed. When I went out to Moab, I stayed a night in Salt Lake with a buddy's parents. His family were of course Mormon. They have some interesting practices. His dad was a roofer, fell off a roof and was injured. Rather than collect workman's comp and whatnot, his church pays his bills and helps him out. In exchange, he works out the church doing what he can. He does paperwork, cleans, helps with their lineage research and so on.
Once he was back on his feet, he began paying back that debt via a direct tithe. Makes sense to me.
Why can't our system work like that? Oh wait, thats because there is no exchange for their assistance. They do absolutely nothing for it!!!! NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING. I don't get it. If it doesn't cost anything, then it has no value to them. Why don't they have to do menial labor?! How about we chase illegals off and use prisoners and aid receivers? Bingo, farms get low wage workers, its not "unfair" because they receive a salary. They would hate their job, and therefore do anything they could to get out of it!

I am sure there are all kinds of pitfalls and its a violation of the civil rights to receive aid in exchange for work. The drug test would be an invasion of their privacy and all. (No one makes you go on welfare, I do drug tests all the time, my friends that work at Dupont do them monthly)

Let the US default, let the revolution begin, there will be some hard times for sure, but in the end it will be better for the nation.

[Ldub]

But I'd like to know why...

I have to provide a clean urine sample to get most any well paying job.

Yet those who receive the benefits of my labors, through socialist govt programs, have to provide nothing more than a signature & a pulse...

Someone PLEASE splain it to me...

[Osteomata]

It is a fair question, and I am not particularly hard over on the issue, nor especially well versed in the argument. Three things spring to mind, let me run them up the flag pole:
1. The majority of the high paying jobs you are referring to are in the corporate/private sector. I think it is one thing to enter into voluntary contract with an employer in which they pay you hefty salary in exchange for standards of conduct of all types, and quite another to cede to the State yet another power over personal privacy and actions for an ever widening sector of the populace.
2. Food stamps versus a high paying job? No contest. Lots and lots and lots of people would trade the first in favor of the second.
3. Given that these programs dramatically impact the children of the poor to an even greater degree than the adults, are you not simply stigmatizing poverty rather than merely government assistance?

But I would like to know

I have to provide a clean urine sample to get most any well paying job.

Yet those who receive the benefits of my labors, through socialist govt programs, have to provide nothing more than a signature & a pulse...

Someone PLEASE splain it to me...

[Ldub]

It is a fair question, and I am not particularly hard over on the issue, nor especially well versed in the argument. Three things spring to mind, let me run them up the flag pole:
1. The majority of the high paying jobs you are referring to are in the corporate/private sector. I think it is one thing to enter into voluntary contract with an employer in which they pay you hefty salary in exchange for standards of conduct of all types, and quite another to cede to the State yet another power over personal privacy and actions for an ever widening sector of the populace.
2. Food stamps versus a high paying job? No contest. Lots and lots and lots of people would trade the first in favor of the second.
3. Given that these programs dramatically impact the children of the poor to an even greater degree than the adults, are you not simply stigmatizing poverty rather than merely government assistance?

Emphatically NO!!!...I NEVER said HIGH paying, I said well paying, as in $8-9.00 an hour, yeah, you heard me right. I've had to piss just to do menial labor on the bagging floor of a sunflower seed processing facility, I've had to piss for the privilege of doing carpentry work, from framing to finish, & most disciplines between the foundation & the shingles, I've also had to submit to a test of my precious bodily fluids for the right to work WAY too many 0000-0800 shifts as a security guard...LUCKY F-N me!
All done under the guise of lower insurance rates...
A couple of those jobs included the option of purchasing medical/dental & vision coverage, my current job has no such option.
You will probably reply that it's my choice to work in these capacities, & due to a few bad choices in my mis-spent yoot, I probably should have gotten a better education after graduating high school...at the time, it wasn't a real option, & i'm OK with that.

In the mean time, organizations such as lutheran socialist services continue to bring "refugees", from third world $h*# holes around the globe, into our community, to place an even larger burden on all aspects of local & federal social betterment programs.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...I live from check 2 check, make just slightly too much to qualify for any type of government assistance, & DREAD having to sell my truck & guns & what not, to cover whatever medical emergency/procedure (priced a colonoscopy lately?, or having a tooth pulled/filled?, or maybe even a splenectomy, or the removal of a gall bladder that's gone on the fritz?) that may well blip the radar after reaching the age of fiddy.

Why yes, there are a few of "them" who are fine upstanding citizens, & I have more than a few friends who qualify as "upstanding them", including friends from Sudan, Usbekistan, Somalia, & Bosnia.
However, there are an equal, if not greater number of "them" who are out most evenings cutting cats off parked vehicles for the recycling $ (I know, industrious, creative, & eco friendly), burglarizing homes, & just being $h*# heads in general...you're damned right there are a lot of home grown, hard working, well armed SOB's out here in the heartland wondering why they've gotta go PP in a cup to support all this crap.....

Oh, & lest we forget all the children...HELLO...if you're already impoverished, & receiving every conceivable form of govt assistance, the logical thing to do would be:

1 - get the unit, (on either mom OR pop (if you know who that might be)) fixed.(prolly won't co$t much...y'all welcome, that's something I wouldn't mind helping to finance...)

2 - practice some other form of birth control ( I happen to know that this option is available at little or NO cost through various organizations, such as planned parenthood or community health (MUCH cheaper for those of us paying the bills than another mouth to feed, clothe, educate, etc)

OR...

3 - keep popp'n em' out every 10-11 months, thereby insuring a continuous flow of free $ until the last one is "out da house", & the aged "hoo-hoo" won't put bread on the table no more.

To say that you (anyone in disagreement) & i see things differently would be a safe bet, & that's OK by me...you're still one of my VX brethren &/or sistren...

Stigmatizing poverty?...yeah, you got me...... I AM poverty, with no freebies.
Why NO...I don't have cable, a cel phon, or food stamps. I use as many coopn's as I can get my hands on to reduce the grocery bill...wonder how many "on the dole" use coopn's... Got any stats on that?

And this is not to brag, just fact...I do my be$t to give back, by shopping at/donating excess items to thrift stores that benefit childrens organizations (dakota boys & girls ranch)
And LENDING money to friends/co-workers who might not be in as good a $hape as I currently am. My most recent borrower just repaid 3 franklins, that he borrowed before Christmas, so he could get his heat back on.

Hefty salary... yeh b1tc4es, I'm kick'n it LARGE...

Sorry all, rant over...

[Osteomata]

That's quite a lot of pissed offedness for what you have to admit is a pretty understandable word assumption based upon some sort of expectation that I can psychically determine that when you say "well paying" you mean nearly minimum wage. But you sound exactly like the type of person who would dramatically benefit from a modernized and fairer medical insurance system, one that provided coverage for these health tragedies while controlling overall costs to the public, such that our medical costs in the US were not nearly twice that of other OECD countries while providing inferior basic care. It is why I insist on calling certain programs a safety net rather than welfare, because they protect normal citizens against the vagaries and unpredictable tragedies of fate. Immigration seems to be your hobby horse, and it was not my intention to get into that. But how noble it is that you will acknowledge "a few" of them are decent. Do I take it that that means the vast majority are not? And yet statistics suggest that the overwhelming majority are in fact decent people, working to make a life, paying taxes and social security even when they will not be permitted to collect on several big categories of the benefits. Many of our lowest crime rate cities are the ones with the highest Latino immigration rates.

As too birth control issues, I agree! But that is absolutely not a problem exclusive to immigrants, who in fact dramatically reduce birth rates within a generation of arrival. Continued ability to distribute birth control, funding of planned parenthood, and provide something other than the demonstrably worthless abstinence only sex ed are but a few ways to help deal with the staggering costs associated with excessive teen and unwed pregnancies.

Emphatically NO!!!...I NEVER said HIGH paying, I said well paying, as in $8-9.00 an hour, yeah, you heard me right. I've had to piss just to do menial labor on the bagging floor of a sunflower seed processing facility, I've had to piss for the privilege of doing carpentry work, from framing to finish, & most disciplines between the foundation & the shingles, I've also had to submit to a test of my precious bodily fluids for the right to work WAY too many 0000-0800 shifts as a security guard...LUCKY F-N me!
All done under the guise of lower insurance rates...
A couple of those jobs included the option of purchasing medical/dental & vision coverage, my current job has no such option.
You will probably reply that it's my choice to work in these capacities, & due to a few bad choices in my mis-spent yoot, I probably should have gotten a better education after graduating high school...at the time, it wasn't a real option, & i'm OK with that.

In the mean time, organizations such as lutheran socialist services continue to bring "refugees", from third world $h*# holes around the globe, into our community, to place an even larger burden on all aspects of local & federal social betterment programs.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...I live from check 2 check, make just slightly too much to qualify for any type of government assistance, & DREAD having to sell my truck & guns & what not, to cover whatever medical emergency/procedure (priced a colonoscopy lately?, or having a tooth pulled/filled?, or maybe even a splenectomy, or the removal of a gall bladder that's gone on the fritz?) that may well blip the radar after reaching the age of fiddy.

Why yes, there are a few of "them" who are fine upstanding citizens, & I have more than a few friends who qualify as "upstanding them", including friends from Sudan, Usbekistan, Somalia, & Bosnia.
However, there are an equal, if not greater number of "them" who are out most evenings cutting cats off parked vehicles for the recycling $ (I know, industrious, creative, & eco friendly), burglarizing homes, & just being $h*# heads in general...you're damned right there are a lot of home grown, hard working, well armed SOB's out here in the heartland wondering why they've gotta go PP in a cup to support all this crap.....

Oh, & lest we forget all the children...HELLO...if you're already impoverished, & receiving every conceivable form of govt assistance, the logical thing to do would be:

1 - get the unit, (on either mom OR pop (if you know who that might be)) fixed.(prolly won't co$t much...y'all welcome, that's something I wouldn't mind helping to finance...)

2 - practice some other form of birth control ( I happen to know that this option is available at little or NO cost through various organizations, such as planned parenthood or community health (MUCH cheaper for those of us paying the bills than another mouth to feed, clothe, educate, etc)

OR...

3 - keep popp'n em' out every 10-11 months, thereby insuring a continuous flow of free $ until the last one is "out da house", & the aged "hoo-hoo" won't put bread on the table no more.

To say that you (anyone in disagreement) & i see things differently would be a safe bet, & that's OK by me...you're still one of my VX brethren &/or sistren...

Stigmatizing poverty?...yeah, you got me...

Hefty salary... yeh b1tc4es, I'm kick'n it LARGE...

Sorry all, rant over...

[Marlin]

As too birth control issues, I agree! But that is absolutely not a problem exclusive to immigrants, who in fact dramatically reduce birth rates within a generation of arrival.

WTF fairy tale country do you live in?! Did you not see in the news the other day that there are more latino toddlers than there are are white toddlers? Yet there are almost a 3 to 1 ratio of white adults to latino adults? That means that latinos are having 3 babies to our 1? http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/pim09st.pdf Blacks are 6 times more likely to be incarcerated and hispanics are 3 times more likely. Do not give me some BS excuse that we treat them unfairly, if that statistic held to whites, we have thousands of violent crimes each day across the nation that cops turn their heads from.
How many mexicans do I see at walmart with 6 little kids running amok in the store? I rarely see a white family with that many kids, hence the fact that we are being bred out of majority.
And yes, I used the term breed and bred. Do not forget that we as humans are animals, candy coating it with some ***** footing word does not change its meaning, crap or ****, its got the same flies buzzing around it. That is a whole nother rant, PC BS. It is not against any law to offend someone, and I don't care if someone is sensitive.

As for Ldub, I don't get it either. Dupont is a factory, 10-12 an hour, yet they piss monthly. Once again, not a high paying job. My dad makes his guys piss in a cup and does random drug tests. That is for 8-10 range as well. His is a matter or of principal, and get this....insurance! Seems to me that sober employees are more dependable and less likely to get hurt than high employees. Kind of like drug addict welfare parents are more likely to stay on welfare. How about this. No one makes them go get welfare. They have a choice. How about they make the sacrifice to do whats best for their kids and give them up(the drugs or the kids, take your pick). There are about to be a plethora of newly wedded same sex couples that would love to adopt! (sorry, couldn't help it, personally I couldn't care less, but we are back to why the church can't take care of the problems. The church no longer matters in our society. Morals are gone. Moms started working outside the home, divorce is considered ok as the norm rather than the exception, people stopped going to church, and so on. Although I am not religious, I get the concept, important in its role to teach morals, which contributes to stable society. Seems that the homos that make the news are flamboyant and downright immoral. Ever seen a gay parade or festival? I had the great pleasure of living in Orlando for gay disney days. Its like a sinful porno in public. What you do in your home is your business, don't take it to the streets under the pretense of civil rights....sorry, way way way off topic.)

You seem to think the best of people Osteo, and that is ok. Naive, but it is undeniably your right. Unfortunately, people aren't inherently good and honorable as you seem to think. We will kill each other for a deal on a tv, shoot each other in the back for a pair of shoes, burn you alive because of religious views, and so on. We are merely intelligent animals. Honor has to be taught to you by your parents or your social environment. You have to be held to that standard. Our social coddling system does not do that, in fact, it does just the opposite, we encourage the use of the programs, make it cool even, when it should be shameful. Not many things that drive people to do well as efficiently as shame. Is it the nicest, nope, but it gets the job done. Kind of like bright orange or pink prison jumpsuits. In this aspect, the ends justify the means. We should discourage people from using these safety nets, after all they are there for an emergency.

Ldub-I use coupons religiously, find the BOGO or clearance items and double up. I would estimate I save 150-200 a month in coupons. I spend hours sorting and perusing sale ads, but its worth it. That is a good question, can't say I have ever seen someone using their food stamp card submit coupons to the cashier. But why would they, it cost them nothing, its not even their money!!

[Ebenezr]

But I'd like to know why...

I have to provide a clean urine sample to get most any well paying job.

Yet those who receive the benefits of my labors, through socialist govt programs, have to provide nothing more than a signature & a pulse...

Someone PLEASE splain it to me...

It's real simple Dub, your living in a country of idiots.

[Ldub]

It's real simple Dub, your living in a country of idiots.

Yeh...bleeding heart idjutz.

Then: YAY...no child left behind...

Now: OK, let's lower the bar a bit, & just leave a few behind...

Amazing how economic reality can change this or that...

NEVER the compensation/benefits of the powers that be, just those who may have been stupid enough to put them there...

[VXR]

But I'd like to know why...

I have to provide a clean urine sample to get most any well paying job.

Yet those who receive the benefits of my labors, through socialist govt programs, have to provide nothing more than a signature & a pulse...

Someone PLEASE splain it to me...

Just kidding X2

[Osteomata]

Why are we stuck? I don't think the current system is particularly broken. In exchange for moderate assistance, we preclude a significant chunk of our society from ending up in prisons (expensive), diseased (dangerous to the herd) or further destabilizing our country do to rampant illiterate unhealthy starving mobs. it also provides quite a number of people the opportunity to get back in teh game rather than end up in an every spiraling cycle towards grinding poverty. The flaws in our social safety net system, which by industrialized world standards is pretty conservative, is not these limited cost provisions that worry you so, but rather the structural aspects of the three big ones (Medicare, Medicaid, SS). Food programs and dozens of other lower scale programs make us all a bit safer and our nation more stable.

And as a minor recommendation for your future discussions with people more sensitive than me: it just sounds a little odd to refer to them as "breeding" their way to the top." Its that whole animal thing again. Take it or leave it. Besides, if minority representation in our country has been growing steadily, and yet the poverty threshold has held steady, does this not refute your assertion that these breeding minorities are endangering our future?

As for just hoping that churches and what not will take over that responsibility: nothing is stopping them now! Nothing Nothing Nothing, as you would say. Government programs do not exclude the participation of churches and the religious in charity work outside of a few very narrow and socially contentious areas like adoption agencies. What we know from the historical record is that exclusive church/philanthropic based charity is grossly insufficient and unevenly applied, to say the least. Besides, for every anecdote you can provide about the white guy in Moab, do you think I can't come up with an equally compelling story of a black guy in Baltimore or Hispanic guy in Miami that got himself back on his feet, or was able to transition out of poverty to college, first in his family etc etc due to a gov program? Anecdote anecdote anecdote. Which is not evidence.

Every single program that is in any way broad and semi-comprehensive will have cheaters and various levels of abuse or inefficiency, but the presence of such issues does not mean the program as a whole is wrong or a net negative impact on our country, particularly given the alternatives.

Immigration is a hole nother issue and would only further derail us for sure. But for the drug testing thing: for someone so distrustful of government programs, you seem might quick to render yet another intrusive power to the State. No way that would be abused heh? No way it would steadily spread beyond a few select aid programs, all in the name of "won't someone think of the children" or "terrorism" or the "war on drugs" or whatever, into ever broadening, unevenly applied, deeply abused authority by multiple levels of government.

So we are stuck. We know the current system doesn't work, as evident by our current situation and the fact they are breeding their way to the top via numbers. My way is probably too callous and may result in many deaths.

So, what do we do now? I thought my short term assistance was fair. No lifers allowed. When I went out to Moab, I stayed a night in Salt Lake with a buddy's parents. His family were of course Mormon. They have some interesting practices. His dad was a roofer, fell off a roof and was injured. Rather than collect workman's comp and whatnot, his church pays his bills and helps him out. In exchange, he works out the church doing what he can. He does paperwork, cleans, helps with their lineage research and so on.
Once he was back on his feet, he began paying back that debt via a direct tithe. Makes sense to me.
Why can't our system work like that? Oh wait, thats because there is no exchange for their assistance. They do absolutely nothing for it!!!! NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING. I don't get it. If it doesn't cost anything, then it has no value to them. Why don't they have to do menial labor?! How about we chase illegals off and use prisoners and aid receivers? Bingo, farms get low wage workers, its not "unfair" because they receive a salary. They would hate their job, and therefore do anything they could to get out of it!

I am sure there are all kinds of pitfalls and its a violation of the civil rights to receive aid in exchange for work. The drug test would be an invasion of their privacy and all. (No one makes you go on welfare, I do drug tests all the time, my friends that work at Dupont do them monthly)

Let the US default, let the revolution begin, there will be some hard times for sure, but in the end it will be better for the nation.