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At the same time I think it would be cruel to make people dependent on the govvernment dole and then just stop it with no transition.
don't forget that when Newt ended welfare as we know it, 70% just up and disappeared rather than work for thier money
Exactly. But again there was a transition. The people weren't told one day that there would be no more checks going out. They were advised that they needed to start making arrangements for when the checks would stop.
It is noted however, that there was no widespread neglect or hardship as a result of welfare reform any more than there would be widespread neglect or hardship if food stamps or other on going government subsidies were transitioned out.
I think the fall out would be harsh and brief...I think people would adjust much more quickly to life without foodstamps than they adjusted to life WITH foodstamps.
Because you have no choice. You can sit around and whine about it...but if they aren't there, you're going to get hungry and have to take some sort of action at some point before many days have passed.
And people do.
Indeed. And I agree with Franlin regarding making the poor uncomfortable in thier poverty as to force them out of it...
At the same time I think it would be cruel to make people dependent on the govvernment dole and then just stop it with no transition.
To me it is far more humane to gbive people a brief (maybe 30 days) of warning and instruction on where the food provisions could be picked up, and then transition out of food stamps into a limited number of government commodities that would ward off starvation but otherwise be so monotonous and unappealing that the people woiuld wean themselves off those fairly quickly.
I suspect only a fraction of food stamp recipients would go for the government food. but those who would really did need it.
And kudos for your resourcefulness KG. Currently, based purely on our income since we retired, Mr. Foxfyre and I could qualify for foodstamps which would be ludicrous because we eat quite well without them mostly because we have no debts and spend no money on tobacco or booze, eat out very sparingly, and don't engage in much recreation that costs anything. Mr. Foxfyre would hire at as a greeter at Wal-mart, however, before he would take foodstamps. So would I.
But when we were young, we pooled our food stocks with equally broke friends more than once when the paycheck ran out well before the end of the week. We know what that is like.
Speaking from experience here....currently merging food pantry resources with my son and his wife to get through the month for both of us. He just moved here and so is cash poor, I'm always cash poor...but between us and a lot of spaghetti, rice, beans and eggs, we'll squeak. No soda on the menu. No frozen pizzas (though I will make a homemade one..I have a lot of pepperoni/salami that I bought from grocery outlet), no cookies (unless they're homemade sugar cookies), no chips, no nuthin except what we have...
That's what we do when we don't have money. We improvise, plan, and work our butts off. We don't go stare in the windows of those who have more and wait for a handout.
Indeed. And I agree with Franlin regarding making the poor uncomfortable in thier poverty as to force them out of it...
At the same time I think it would be cruel to make people dependent on the govvernment dole and then just stop it with no transition.
To me it is far more humane to gbive people a brief (maybe 30 days) of warning and instruction on where the food provisions could be picked up, and then transition out of food stamps into a limited number of government commodities that would ward off starvation but otherwise be so monotonous and unappealing that the people woiuld wean themselves off those fairly quickly.
I suspect only a fraction of food stamp recipients would go for the government food. but those who would really did need it.
And kudos for your resourcefulness KG. Currently, based purely on our income since we retired, Mr. Foxfyre and I could qualify for foodstamps which would be ludicrous because we eat quite well without them mostly because we have no debts and spend no money on tobacco or booze, eat out very sparingly, and don't engage in much recreation that costs anything. Mr. Foxfyre would hire at as a greeter at Wal-mart, however, before he would take foodstamps. So would I.
But when we were young, we pooled our food stocks with equally broke friends more than once when the paycheck ran out well before the end of the week. We know what that is like.
Of course they shouldn't...but it has to start beginning with getting governmen't boots off the necks of the private sector/businesses through lessening taxation/regulation.
I'm talking of creating jobs...a few million have disappeared since Obama came into office never to return.At the same time I think it would be cruel to make people dependent on the govvernment dole and then just stop it with no transition.
To me it is far more humane to gbive people a brief (maybe 30 days) of warning and instruction on where the food provisions could be picked up, and then transition out of food stamps into a limited number of government commodities that would ward off starvation but otherwise be so monotonous and unappealing that the people woiuld wean themselves off those fairly quickly.
I suspect only a fraction of food stamp recipients would go for the government food. but those who would really did need it.
And kudos for your resourcefulness KG. Currently, based purely on our income since we retired, Mr. Foxfyre and I could qualify for foodstamps which would be ludicrous because we eat quite well without them mostly because we have no debts and spend no money on tobacco or booze, eat out very sparingly, and don't engage in much recreation that costs anything. Mr. Foxfyre would hire at as a greeter at Wal-mart, however, before he would take foodstamps. So would I.
But when we were young, we pooled our food stocks with equally broke friends more than once when the paycheck ran out well before the end of the week. We know what that is like.
Of course they shouldn't...but it has to start beginning with getting governmen't boots off the necks of the private sector/businesses through lessening taxation/regulation.
Which I see as a separate issue. Excessive/unnecessary regulation and taxation is pertinent to the issue of food stamps only in the sense that getting rid of excessive/unnecessary taxation and regulation would likely provide more opportunity for people to work to buy their own food.
Setting aside your leftist rant that apparently is based on nothing but prejudice and perhaps indoctrination as you haven't provided a rationale for it, I will address the three coherent statement you made.
The last one is the easiest to address. That our greatest prosperity as a nation coincided with our greatest level of union membership is coincidental because even then, most of the people who were prospering were not union. Also most unions back then were very different animals, at least those that the mob had not infiltrated.
Your observation that it is not investors but consumers who create prosperity is short sighted on the face of it, because without investors, there is nothing to consume. And without consumers, there is no incentive to invest. So both are absolutely essential to a local, regional, or national economy and neither can exist without the other. And demonizing one or both is not constructive.
If free market policies are the best economic policies then we should have experienced the most robust growth in the world during this period. But this has not happened. We have been outstripped by our trading partners.
outstriped when we have 30% more GDP percapita than Europe despite liberals ruining entire industries (like health care), taxing our corporations the most in the world, liberal unions driving millions of jobs away, liberal illegals taking 20 million jobs, and liberal deficits preventing balanced trade with China and Japan. Are you smart enough to be here?
Setting aside your leftist rant that apparently is based on nothing but prejudice and perhaps indoctrination as you haven't provided a rationale for it, I will address the three coherent statement you made.
The last one is the easiest to address. That our greatest prosperity as a nation coincided with our greatest level of union membership is coincidental because even then, most of the people who were prospering were not union. Also most unions back then were very different animals, at least those that the mob had not infiltrated.
Horseshit. Unions back in the day were pretty ruthless. They really did beat the shit out of "scabs". Today, they've kind of wussed out. They show up for one day with a rat balloon and think they've made a diffrence. That's why they are losing.
It was hardly co-incidental. Quite the contrary, union membership created prosperity, even for the non-unionized, because the Shitty Assholes realized that if they didn't give their non-union guys a fair shake, they might form a union or quit for a unionized job. In short, they raised the bar, even if not everyone always hit it.
Your observation that it is not investors but consumers who create prosperity is short sighted on the face of it, because without investors, there is nothing to consume. And without consumers, there is no incentive to invest. So both are absolutely essential to a local, regional, or national economy and neither can exist without the other. And demonizing one or both is not constructive.
Quite. The problem is, Labor is the Superior to Capital, because there can be no Capital without labor. Oh, before you go whining about "leftists", this was not said by Karl Marx, but Abraham Lincoln.
The rest is typical Club for Greed bullshit, so I'll ignore it. Life's too short.
Speaking from experience here....currently merging food pantry resources with my son and his wife to get through the month for both of us. He just moved here and so is cash poor, I'm always cash poor...but between us and a lot of spaghetti, rice, beans and eggs, we'll squeak. No soda on the menu. No frozen pizzas (though I will make a homemade one..I have a lot of pepperoni/salami that I bought from grocery outlet), no cookies (unless they're homemade sugar cookies), no chips, no nuthin except what we have...
That's what we do when we don't have money. We improvise, plan, and work our butts off. We don't go stare in the windows of those who have more and wait for a handout.
Speaking from experience here....currently merging food pantry resources with my son and his wife to get through the month for both of us. He just moved here and so is cash poor, I'm always cash poor...but between us and a lot of spaghetti, rice, beans and eggs, we'll squeak. No soda on the menu. No frozen pizzas (though I will make a homemade one..I have a lot of pepperoni/salami that I bought from grocery outlet), no cookies (unless they're homemade sugar cookies), no chips, no nuthin except what we have...
That's what we do when we don't have money. We improvise, plan, and work our butts off. We don't go stare in the windows of those who have more and wait for a handout.
Back when we were really tight on money, I was so grateful to have been raised by Depression-era, hillbilly parents. Talk about a group of people who knew how to make Broke Food! I hadn't even considered until then how many of my favorite recipes learned in childhood were actually originally created to feed people who lived in poverty. I can feed my family for a week just on the staples I normally have on hand.
Liberals use race for political gain. Period.You are obtuse. Reagan created as much debt in 8 years as all the previous president...COMBINED.
Paul O'Neill - George Bush's first Treasury Secretary
The president had promised to cut taxes, and he did. Within six months of taking office, he pushed a trillion dollars worth of tax cuts through Congress.
But O'Neill thought it should have been the end. After 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, the budget deficit was growing. So at a meeting with the vice president after the mid-term elections in 2002, Suskind writes that O'Neill argued against a second round of tax cuts.
"Cheney, at this moment, shows his hand," says Suskind. "He says, 'You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.' O'Neill is speechless."
"It was not just about not wanting the tax cut. It was about how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society," says O'Neill. "And I thought the weight of working on Social Security and fundamental tax reform was a lot more important than a tax reduction."
Did he think it was irresponsible? "Well, it's for sure not what I would have done," says O'Neill.
Now that the black Democratic President is ringing up the debt just as good as Bushes and Reagan did, all of a sudden, its a huge issue for the right.
Its funny how they have no problem electing fiscally irresponsible Presidents that are white.
Of course - standards always change when the blacks show up. Now all of a sudden its bad for a President to take a vacation and even bad for him to bother the people for the secret service he takes along - and now, all of a sudden, every Presidential candidate should submit a birth certificate, whereas before the People depended on the Electors and Congress to prevent inelgile candidates from winning.
That the President is black seems to be a big issue to you guys on the Left since you're the only ones who ever bring it up.
The unsupportable spending and mounting debt was a big issue for us during the Bush administration which is why the GOP lost its majorityi in both the House and Senate in 2006 and Obama was elected in 2008 based on his promises to address irresponsible spending and deficits as candidate Obama. At least under Bush, until the housing Bubble burst, the deficit was coming down each year and a big chunk of the deficit in 2008 was TARP that Obama and the Democratically controlled Congress supported.
Well Candidate Obama turns out to be a huge liar and you're damned right the more than trillion dollar deficits every year he has been in office and stretching out as far as the eye can see with the President calling for even more spending and bigger deficits is a huge deal.
It should be for you too. How come it isn't?
Which reminds me again why arguing with liberals is so frustrating.
Setting aside your leftist rant that apparently is based on nothing but prejudice and perhaps indoctrination as you haven't provided a rationale for it, I will address the three coherent statement you made.
The last one is the easiest to address. That our greatest prosperity as a nation coincided with our greatest level of union membership is coincidental because even then, most of the people who were prospering were not union. Also most unions back then were very different animals, at least those that the mob had not infiltrated.
Horseshit. Unions back in the day were pretty ruthless. They really did beat the shit out of "scabs". Today, they've kind of wussed out. They show up for one day with a rat balloon and think they've made a diffrence. That's why they are losing.
It was hardly co-incidental. Quite the contrary, union membership created prosperity, even for the non-unionized, because the Shitty Assholes realized that if they didn't give their non-union guys a fair shake, they might form a union or quit for a unionized job. In short, they raised the bar, even if not everyone always hit it.
Your observation that it is not investors but consumers who create prosperity is short sighted on the face of it, because without investors, there is nothing to consume. And without consumers, there is no incentive to invest. So both are absolutely essential to a local, regional, or national economy and neither can exist without the other. And demonizing one or both is not constructive.
Quite. The problem is, Labor is the Superior to Capital, because there can be no Capital without labor. Oh, before you go whining about "leftists", this was not said by Karl Marx, but Abraham Lincoln.
The rest is typical Club for Greed bullshit, so I'll ignore it. Life's too short.
And while there was and remains a role for good unions that work with labor and industry to reach acceptable contracts for both, labor can and does exist quite nicely without unions. When unions advance their own leadership at the expense of free market principles, unions can be a very bad thing.
Again, labor, union or not, cannot exist without people with the ability and need to hire people. You cannot have one without the other.
Quite. The problem is, Labor is the Superior to Capital, because there can be no Capital without labor. Oh, before you go whining about "leftists", this was not said by Karl Marx, but Abraham Lincoln.
The rest is typical Club for Greed bullshit, so I'll ignore it. Life's too short.
Puhllleeeeze spare us the kneeling at the union altar crap. Nobody want's listen to anyone whine about the good old days.
Here's the inescapable facts. First, labor is a commodity. Supply and demand.
Next and most importantly, without capital to create jobs, there is no labor.
Thus the existence of the marketplace.
You are correct, the market must be able to create capital which then creates commerce which requires labor and consumption.
Unionism however seeks to create superiority for labor. That sets up an imbalance. Nobody wins.
Now you will raise the issue of management's abuse of labor. Acknowledged. Again, an imbalance. Nobody wins.
Quite. The problem is, Labor is the Superior to Capital, because there can be no Capital without labor. Oh, before you go whining about "leftists", this was not said by Karl Marx, but Abraham Lincoln.
The rest is typical Club for Greed bullshit, so I'll ignore it. Life's too short.
Puhllleeeeze spare us the kneeling at the union altar crap. Nobody want's listen to anyone whine about the good old days.
Here's the inescapable facts. First, labor is a commodity. Supply and demand.
Next and most importantly, without capital to create jobs, there is no labor.
Thus the existence of the marketplace.
You are correct, the market must be able to create capital which then creates commerce which requires labor and consumption.
Unionism however seeks to create superiority for labor. That sets up an imbalance. Nobody wins.
Now you will raise the issue of management's abuse of labor. Acknowledged. Again, an imbalance. Nobody wins.
I agree there should be a balance. I will even agree, in some industries, unions have created an imbalance.
but in the macro economy, with outsourcing, right to work, at will employment, the imbalance has gone too far the other way.
And when firing people for people who will work for less or work harder for less money is the fast track to poverty. Because if everyone does it, sales go down, people get a little more use out of old stuff.
And there is the jist of it. In order to change we are going to have to accept that the standard of living is going to decrease. Simple as that and there is nothing we can do to avoid that. Unfortunately, Americans have become pampered whiners and do not want to accept that fate.Our "prosperity", our "standard of living", has been an illusion.
You mean like the way anyone receiving public assistance is a welfare cheat and all union workers are lazy, overpaid slobs?
I've never seen a conservative claim everyone on welfare is a cheat or that union workers are lazy. However we now have the highest percentage of people taking government entitlements than ever in our history. Do you really believe nearly half the population cannot provide for themselves any longer without hand outs?. . . .
And here we have one of the most frustrating issues of all when it comes to discussing these things with liberals.
The conservative knows how much the entitlement mentality is making whole groups of Americans dependent on government charity, is creating whole groups of permanently unemployed and too often unemployable, and eroding American virtues of self reliance, personal responsibility, accountability, and initiative. But when the conservative points out the truth of that, complete with examples and evidence, including the fact that the union mentality/activity in modern times is hurting more people than it helps, he or she is almost immediately confronted with the ignorant and hateful statements that we see all welfare recipients as cheats and all union workers as lazy.
How can you have a decent discussion when dealing with that?
And there is the jist of it. In order to change we are going to have to accept that the standard of living is going to decrease. Simple as that and there is nothing we can do to avoid that. Unfortunately, Americans have become pampered whiners and do not want to accept that fate.Our "prosperity", our "standard of living", has been an illusion.
And there is the jist of it. In order to change we are going to have to accept that the standard of living is going to decrease. Simple as that and there is nothing we can do to avoid that. Unfortunately, Americans have become pampered whiners and do not want to accept that fate.Our "prosperity", our "standard of living", has been an illusion.
Or we can just demand an equal and reasonable division of wealth.
The thing is, there is plenty of wealth to provide a good standard of living for everyone. It's just that 1% owns about half of it.
And that's the problem. Right Wingers have made it easier for the 1% to take more, and they've created the exact kind of government dependence they decry.
And there is the jist of it. In order to change we are going to have to accept that the standard of living is going to decrease. Simple as that and there is nothing we can do to avoid that. Unfortunately, Americans have become pampered whiners and do not want to accept that fate.Our "prosperity", our "standard of living", has been an illusion.
Or we can just demand an equal and reasonable division of wealth.
The thing is, there is plenty of wealth to provide a good standard of living for everyone. It's just that 1% owns about half of it.
And that's the problem. Right Wingers have made it easier for the 1% to take more, and they've created the exact kind of government dependence they decry.
