From the AP:
…The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965…
The AP, being an MSM outfit, naturally puts part of the blame on a “fraying social safety net”, totally ignoring the fact that in real dollar terms we are spending vastly more on social programs than we ever did before.
Be that as it may, this is the final proof that Big Government welfare programs don’t work. Of course, this has been easily demonstrable for several decades, now, but I don’t see how liberals can escape (save by flat out lying) the bald fact that their programs have failed. This is it. Its done. Welfare doesn’t work. No argument can be made that people would actually be worse off if we never started the War on Poverty, while plenty of arguments can still be made that we will be better off once we start dismantling this Big Government monstrosity.
Blogs For Victory 
The “war on poverty” and the “war on drugs” almost echo each other in failure. Government has never done any good overall. It is not government that will lead us from these issues no matter ones belief or lack thereof, but rather the individuals that will prevail.
war on poverty = democrat wet dream.
moral of the story = DEMOCRATS – FAIL again.
The question is – how many union government bureaucrats benefited from the war on poverty? I would wager to say that a lot of government bureaucrats have benefited much more from the war on poverty than those who are actually poor.
Personally, I think the problem of poverty in America lies largely with the fact that an awful lot of people have learned how to live a relatively good life being poor, and without working, or without working very hard. That’s not to say that we don’t have poor Americans who are living in squalor and are truly miserable, but millions have learned how to game an easily gameable system — a dynamic that shouldn’t be all that surprising when other people’s money is being “spread around”. As Margaret Thatcher so aptly pointed out, “the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money”. As long as the Fed can just print more money, we’ll never completely run out, but, at some point, what we have won’t be worth a bucket of warm spit.
Spook, there is also the fact that we now import our poor. The number of illegal aliens in the United States is very close to the number claimed to be living in poverty.
Take the bird feeder approach to illegal immigration—the setting up of an attractive feeding station for poor and desperate people—and then give them a quality of life far better than they have ever had before even though they may statistically be considered “poor” and you have a guaranteed source of reasons to raise taxes, increase the size and scope of government, create new agencies with new hands out to collect the new money flowing from that hated “1 %” and you have a self-fulfilling prophecy.
All you have to do then is set it up so the receivers can vote in more who will hand out more to more and more of them, and it is a nearly perfect closed system. The only ones on the outside are the ones paying for it.
I suggest that those who truly are “…living in squalor and are truly miserable..” and who truly do need help receive it from state and local authorities, who are in a much better position to evaluate the conditions and circumstances and address them appropriately.
This would, or should, involve a return to institutionalizing those who clearly cannot take care of themselves. Many of those who truly suffer are also mentally ill and incapable of taking care of themselves. The warm fuzzy feelings some got when they “freed” institutionalized people ignored the fact that these people were then thrown out on the street, where they had to find lodging, usually in decrepit old hotels and converted houses, where they became prey for the opportunistic, where they had to make their own decisions about how to eat and care for themselves, where they too often ended up sleeping on the streets.
Poverty is a natural by product of a dumbed down, dependent populace, something of which liberalism depends on. You can’t continue to expand entitlements, and lower scholastic expectations and at the same time decry poverty – one feeds the other.
Cluster, let me see if I understand your comment.
Are you saying that we fail to educate our young so they not only understand the successes and failures of various economic systems and theories but so they do not acquire job skills, then tell them they are skilled but it is the fault of others that they do not have jobs, and then pay them to be unproductive, thereby creating statistical poverty in spite of so many of “the poor” having material goods and even luxuries?
Because that’s the way I see it.
Amazona, I think you and Cluster have nailed it. Isn’t it interesting that our resident Lefties rarely join in discussions like this one? I guess this topic is somewhat difficult to demagogue.
Amazona,
Not only do we fail to educate our children on economic systems, and practical job skills, but we really fail in teaching them how to manage money, how to manage their time, and the importance of good decision making and self reliance. These lessons need to start early, which is why Newt was spot on when he spoke of having elementary children help clean around the school.
When you grow up in a situation where no adult gets up in the morning to go to work, where you never experience getting a paycheck, where you never have to save up money you have earned to buy what you want, you simply don’t understand the system that most of us live in.
If what you have is handed to you, with no requirement for earning it, with no accountability, then when you don’t have what someone else has earned you don’t see it as your failure to earn something like it, you see it as a failure of society to give it to you.
There is a huge gaping void in the body of knowledge necessary to function in a normal society. Children who grow up in working families have a whole different vocabulary, not just of words but of meaning and experience, that allows them to move upward in the world. Children who grow up without it lack the very foundation of understanding of the system, so when they don’t ‘get’ what they think they should, because they see others with what they want, the fact that they could earn what they want instead of just ‘getting’ it is so alien, so baffling, so outside their realm of reality, that it might as well not exist at all. So they feel victimized, they feel anger, they feel resentment, and they are easy prey for political predators who are quite willing to sacrifice future generations as well to this toxic level of ignorance in their own pursuit of power.
I remember an interview with a young black woman who was the third or fourth generation in her family to be on welfare, who had two or three children, and who had never worked. She talked about her panic when she learned she would only have two years to get job skills because then her income from welfare would end. She talked about her anger, her resentment, her fear.
And then she talked about gaining, for the first time in her life, a sense of personal dignity. She talked about the uplifting experience of having valued job skills, and of earning money for the first time in her life and how that changed her in every way. She talked about sitting down with her children and going through her paycheck and her bills, explaining to them where the money came from, and how hard she had worked to earn it, and how it had to be allotted to cover expenses. She was determined that none of her children would ever become dependent, as she had been, would never feel the isolation and lack of personal dignity that are part and parcel of not being a participating and contributing member of society.
When people feel that handing out money to people who do not earn it is somehow ‘helping’ them, they never take into consideration the fact that they are isolating them from a productive society, in every way, and demeaning their human spirit.
The measurement of “poverty” is also a constantly moving target. When the “poor” typically have motor vehicles, cable TV, and a supposed “obesity” problems, we are having a different discussion. Big Gub’ment proponents need a client base and will provide it with official gub’ment measurements every time.
The ones that have somewhat puzzled me but I think I have it figured out are the limousine liberals of Hollyweird. I do not envy the money that they make (more power to them) but was rather was confused about how they still espouse the far, far left beliefs and try to shout down hardworking American’s beliefs.Them and their uneducated kids (who get everything handed to them) constantly display poor behavior choices and quite often speak as what could be called solid Communist supporters.
My best “educated” guess is they have no real idea of what happens to the “useful idiots” once the takeover is complete and/or (like many of the flapping monkeys here) they believe that they will be part of the ruling elite as their egos think that life could not possibly continue without their particular wisdom.
For a very basic statement regarding this issue, I invite anyone to read this statement on “Economic Security”: Economic Security
We try to avoid censorship and believe in free speech but ask you to remember that this is a political blog and not the proper venue for proselytizing. With respect for your role as a minister and religious blogger we still ask that you not attempt to use this blog merely to advance your religious views. //Moderator
Moderator, OK. I’ve been reading and participating in this blog for a long time now, and I think that I recognize its “political” focus. I don’t feel that my comments are “proselytizing”, but I do think that some “religious views” can have practical political and economic effects on our society and how we live together in this country. I only add my statements in an effort to add such practical components to the discussions. I’m sure that you feel that “atheistic” views are not more valuable than “religious” views in such public discussions. And I don’t think that I ever try to push my point of view onto anyone else. I consider myself to be somewhat of a pragmatist, so I’m greatly interested in what works and the practical consequences of various strategies, particularly “political” ones that tend to get imposed on everyone regardless of their personal religion or lack thereof. I respect your instructions.
Here’s a little gem for y’all:
“Banks are larger than ever. Don’t try to control them. Nationalize them.” – Gar Alperovitz
To most liberals, including Obama, this effort is all about creating an “equitable economy”! Yet we are not suppose to call them socialists!
What a joke these people are.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/opinion/banks-that-are-too-big-to-regulate-should-be-nationalized.html?_r=3&smid=fb-share
Gar Alperovitz (born May 5, 1936) is Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, College Park Department of Government and Politics. He is a former Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge; a founding Fellow of Harvard’s Institute of Politics; a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies; and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution. Alperovitz also served as a Legislative Director in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and as a Special Assistant in the Department of State. Alperovitz is a founding principal of The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland, and a member of the board of directors for the New Economics Institute
Yeah, what a joke.
But why are you lumping Obama into it, when Gar says Obama wants to break up the monopolies and re-institute lots of smaller capitalists, not “nationalize” them? Are you intentionally conflating two positions into one lie?
I’m curious as what the conservatives on this blog think we should be doing for those in poverty. Most of the current aid goes into Medicaid and SNAP. Would you discontinue both programs? You can find how the rest is spent here:
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/88767476
What would you keep and what you you get rid of? What would you do instead?
Casper,
I would begin by pushing all welfare programs down to the state level, and encourage them to push that even further down to the county level, along with the corresponding tax revenues. This will do two things -eliminate a lot of the waste and fraud, and truly reach those that need it. I would then reinstitute what Obama just obliterated, and that is tie welfare qualification to requirements of seeking practical employment.
I would then begin to down size government, break the strangle hold public unions have on our cities and states, and create an atmosphere of tax and regulatory certainty for private business’s so that they can expand and employ with confidence. Then the poor may realize that they can take care of themselves a hell of a lot better than any government ever could.
Cluster,
Thanks for answering. How would you move the corresponding tax revenues to the state and county level? Would you get rid of Medicaid and Snap or push them to the local level?
Confusing how pushing welfare to the county level would get help to those who truly need it, since the poorest counties would be least able to help the poorest. Seems to me like a formula for ghetto Balkanization.
Block grant the funds to the states, let them distribute as they see fit. Obviously the poor counties would receive the bulk of the funds, but more importantly, the benefits could be better targeted and at a government level that will maximize efficiencies and effectiveness.
Ah, let counties decide how to spend federal money, not make them self-funding. Ok. No problem with that. But how is that different that the current system? I kinda thought they were running the local level already.
AKA http://www.calfresh.ca.gov/PG839.htm
I see Bozo still believes that the government has it’s Obama stash with comments like “Ah, let counties decide how to spend federal money, not make them self-funding.”
Shocked, I say ~ shocked. First thing Bozo needs to learn is government (local, State, and Federal) have no money–they take it from the private sector via taxes, fees and other regulatory methods. Number two is that this country was designed to be a collection of strong States with limited Federal government until “The New Deal”, “The Great Society”, among others was shoved down our collective throats just like ObamaCare.
Time to go back home in the basement and sit in the corner.
Casper,
Well, since “other programs” don’t, apparently, provide food, housing or medical care to the poor, that would be the most logical place to start. Say a 50% reduction in “other programs” and you’ve got about $74 billion in annual savings, right there. For SSI, most of the benefits which are provided under it to immigrants (legal or otherwise) should be terminated, or at least sun-setted (ie, no one who comes in after Day X can get it) – we shouldn’t be importing people in such a condition, anyways. There’s no breakdown on how much of SSI goes to immigrants, but lets call it 10% – $5 billion more. EITC has to go, $49 billion. Pell Grants except for those studying medicine, engineering or other hard sciences – at least $30 billion of that program. That works out to $158 billion – and we haven’t even begun to reform the manner in which aid is delivered nor combed through it to kick off those who really shouldn’t be on it (I’m pretty sure that at least half of those on SS disability should be kicked off it). But lets say we can save a mere 10% of all that is left – call it another $45 billion for a total annual cut of $203 billion without cutting the benefits of anyone who actually needs it. That is approximately 10% of the annual deficit.
Going further and taking a look a the total budget – a 10% reduction in military spending saves us about $67 billion. Eliminate the Department of Education – $52 billion (some in all eliminated departments I have left some of the spending on the theory that some of what they do might actually be useful). Eliminate Department of Housing and Urban Development – $30 billion. Eliminate Department of Energy – $25 billion. Eliminate Department of Transportation – $50 billion. Eliminate Department of Labor – $60 billion. Eliminate the Department of Commerce – $8 billion. A 10% reduction in all other Departments based upon the obvious – there is clearly a lot of waste and over-manning going on – $237 billion. Total reductions: $529 billion. Add to the above and you’ve got $732 billion in savings – about 73% of the deficit.
With a rational economic policy we start to get growth to where it needs to be (about 3.2% per year) and with these cuts and that growth, we can probably balance the budget in 5-7 years. The fact that we made such massive cuts will induce global confidence in our ability to get our fiscal house in order and that will keep US bond interest low as well as make the United States the haven of choice for everyone who wants to hide their money from the coming crashes in China and Europe. Once we get our budget to balanced, we then keep it balance for 10 years (at least) and that will tackle most of our national debt as over the past few years, with interest rates so low, a large portion of our debt has become shorter term (1 year, 5 year and 10 year notes). By 2029 we could be mostly out of debt, vastly richer than we are now, and once again top of the world.
blowzo
Seems to me like a formula for ghetto Balkanization.
we ALREADY have that next?
You can find the numbers of those in poverty over time here:
Spook: “I guess this topic is somewhat difficult to demagogue.”
No, it’s very easy and you’re proving it. Case in point: “I think the problem of poverty in America lies largely with the fact that an awful lot of people have learned how to live a relatively good life being poor, and without working, or without working very hard.”
Or take Ama (somebody please): “When you grow up in a situation where no adult gets up in the morning to go to work, where you never experience getting a paycheck, where you never have to save up money you have earned to buy what you want, you simply don’t understand the system that most of us live in.”
Surely you jest. You don’t know many working poor, do either of you? Because if you did, you could never make such statements. From your lofty positions it may appear to your myopic vision that the poor are just leeches, sucking from the government teat. But you don’t see all the minimum wage workers who put in 50, 60 hours a week, can barely make their rent and utilities and can’t even think about going to the doctor or dentist. I know some rich people (not ultra rich, but with assets of a maybe few million) but I know a lot more working poor people. There are increasingly more of them in my circle; I believe they’re multiplying faster than any other class in America (I can’t cite stats for that, but it’s my anecdotal observation).
You may hold up the entrepreneur, the self-made man or woman, as the great American hero, but where would the entrepreneur be, how would our economic system operate, without hourly workers to provide the basic labor that keeps the whole system functioning? Those people are critical to keeping the wheels turning, and they’re getting crapped on.
Henry Ford wanted his automobile to revolutionize the world, but he knew for that to happen, people would have to be able to afford to buy cars. So he paid his workers a wage that would enable them all to own cars. That kind of mentality has been long gone from corporate America. Executive compensation keeps going up, but workers’ pay keeps going down. If it can be done cheaper in Bangalore or Chengdu, say buh-bye to your job.
I know many conservatives abhor even the concept of a minimum wage, but have you ever done the arithmetic on living on the minimum wage? How the cost of housing, transportation, food and clothing all manage to derive from a typical hourly wage is quite a problem. Our GNP continues to grow, corporations are doing better than ever – but we’re headed toward a dysfunctional economy, where fewer people can afford to buy anything at all. This indicates that ultimately even the rich will be living off their accumulated wealth, which will at some point cease to accumulate. It’s like a body with blood pooling around the organs, but not circulating to the extremities.
How long do you think that will be sustainable? A generation? I think not. Such a body will die. You’re framing the issue in a delusional way – a way that allows you to feel self-righteous and complacent. It isn’t the lazy welfare moochers that are the future problem for America – it’s the hardworking poor who aren’t making it, who finally will decide they’ve been ripped off long enough.
Dennis,
I made a good wage when I worked for Cisco Systems. The same can be said for any number of employers here in the Triangle. There were weeks I did not pay myself or had to borrow against my house in order to make payroll when I was starting up my companies working 70-80 hours a week.
Then you try the old and tired “minimum wage” which is an entry level wage for the teenagers who are entering the workforce to learn about business. If you are still making “minimum wage” after a year or two–it might be you and not the business. Business is not there to provide jobs but to make money.
Okay, what is a “living wage?” Depends on ones idea of living standards but lets go with $15 – $20 per hour, throw in health care and there will be fewer “minimum / living wage” jobs because each minimum / living wage employee would have to bring in $70 ~ $100 K in revenue to justify their position.
Even with the reasonably good salaries I have made in the past–there are plenty of people I have to hire on occasion like plumbers, electricians that I have to save up in order to hire. That is why in addition to IT I also keep my welding skills up-to-date. One sector slows–I can always work in another. These tech schools are relatively cheap and can be free for those with no skills and/or income.
Once again–If you are still making “minimum wage” after a year or two–it might be you
Sorry, Dennis; when I said the issue was difficult to demagogue, I forgot about you. You da Demagoguer-in-Chief.
But you don’t see all the minimum wage workers who put in 50, 60 hours a week, can barely make their rent and utilities and can’t even think about going to the doctor or dentist.
That’s because there just aren’t that many of them. And the vast majority of workers earning minimum wage are not working 50-60 hours a week, nor are they supporting a family.
You’re right, spook, most can’t work those kind of hours any more. And many of their jobs have been taken away, outsourced to places with cheap labor and few environmental, safety or human rights standards. Some people work two jobs or moonlight at home. I have family members in Indiana now (your state, I believe) who are eking by like this. People who are professionals are working far below their skill level at hourly jobs that as db pointed out, really would be more appropriate for a high school or college student. But you take what’s available, so you have people with master’s degrees or decades of professional experience working as a barista at Starbucks or folding towels at a day spa (jobs two people I know have right now).
Db and cluster think it’s a simple matter to set your sights higher, but it’s not in many places – especially if you’re older than 50. Not every part of the country is equal in terms of the job market. People have structural limitations – you can’t pull up stakes and move to a new place if you have a mortgage, dwindling savings and shaky credit due to being laid off. Many people have to take whatever job they can get, and often being treated like crap is part of the deal. Employers know this, and some of them exploit the vulnerabilities of their employees to an unconscionable degree. This is not my problem, but it has been the experience of several people close to me and I’ve heard the depressing details.
Thanks for your vote, but I couldn’t begin to compete with Amazona for demagogue in chief. You do realize, of course, that a demagogue is someone who makes arguments appealing to the prejudice and ignorance of others – that’s generally what I’m flying in the face of here.
Dennis,
You really have a comical outlook on life. Do you really think that government can make life “fair” for everyone? Do you honestly think that we should craft policies to accommodate a small minority of the population?
Life is not fair, never will be, and no one ever promised that it would be. If we lead people to believe that someone else is at fault for the problems in their life, than we make the problem bigger. If we also decentralize government to the state and county levels, and bolster donations to charities, you’d be amazed how many people we could really help.
A large central federal government is inefficient, ineffective and not the answer to the problem.
dennis can define demagogue but not see it in the mirror.
Sorry, denny, but I post with fact and reality, and you are the one bleating on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about your emotion-based determination to make everyone follow what you say are the commands of Scripture, and your emotion-based resentment of the productive, and your overall emoting about this and that and the other.
Yes, I do make fun of people like you, sometimes, but that is not demagoguery, that is just giving in to the obvious. I do not use emotion or emotion-based arguments to try to sway people on issues of politics or economics.
On the contrary, I do whatever I can to cancel out the hysteria of people like you.
Dennis, & Casper,
That is why I also have a backup plan because the IT industry is flooded here. That is a reason why I decided to spend the money (some borrowed) to get an additional Masters in a hard science field but also updated my skills in welding.
At 51, with two current hip replacement surgeries I can no longer climb the rigging like I could at 20; nevertheless, I can supplement my income while searching for a position in IT with both my welding (avg. $80/hr. but brutal work, or woodworking (hobby)) while I still pursue my current job which is finding a job. Went against opening a new business at this time.
The courses are available and quite often the State will pick up the tab as “retraining” in this environment. I constantly have a backup plan for these wonderful times we are going through.
You do realize, of course, that a demagogue is someone who makes arguments appealing to the prejudice and ignorance of others – that’s generally what I’m flying in the face of here.
Sorry, Dennis — if that doesn’t describe your tactics, I don’t know what does.
only dennis could take the comment ““When you grow up in a situation where no adult gets up in the morning to go to work, where you never experience getting a paycheck, where you never have to save up money you have earned to buy what you want, you simply don’t understand the system that most of us live in.” and then bleat about how it is really about people who DO get up in the morning to go to work, experience getting a paycheck, or have to save up money they have earned to buy what they want.
Interesting to see that you no longer even try to pretend you are making sense, denny.
And the rest of your rant is based on your idiotic take on what I said.
BTW, just like with the federal budget, it is not what comes in that is the problem but what goes out. And the impact of bad decisions.
I have good friends who live in Ohio. He is an electrician, she stays at home with six children. Yes, he makes more than minimum wage, but he sure doesn’t make a lot of money. They scrimp and save, but what is wrong with that? They don’t go out to eat, they don’t drive a new car, they are very careful with their money, and they live very well.
Of course, they also made good decisions. He got a trade before he got married. They got engaged and then did not get married till they had paid off a building lot. When they got married, they did not start their family till they could afford to pay cash for a nice two-story modular home to put on that lot. They worked hard to finish the upstairs and basement of the house. She cooks all their meals. They have a computer, DSL, cable TV–they are hardly suffering. They tithe to their church and they put money in savings every month.
I am on the road a lot, so I get stuck eating road food way too often. I know it is expensive. If I were to eat in fast food places three times a day, just a single meal each time and not two or three of the sandwiches, as I so often see people ordering, it would still cost me about $650 a month. That is for one person. Extrapolate that to a family of four. Yet the biggest market for fast food is “the poor”.
You make some claims.
“Those people are critical to keeping the wheels turning, and they’re getting crapped on.”
” Executive compensation keeps going up, but workers’ pay keeps going down.”
Really? What “workers’ pay KEEPS GOING DOWN”?
Buying power keeps going down, but that is a function of bloated and irresponsible government and economic policies. That is, of decreased value of money due to printing of more money to cover irresponsible debt accumulation in the pursuit of goals you seem to find acceptable.
dennis, you are just a hater of “the rich”. Whenever I see you going on about capitalists and corporations and “the rich” and so on, you are such a stereotype of the 30’s radical squealing about the “running dogs of the capitalist system” and the moronic Occupy whiners, you identify yourself every time you start in on your Leftist whines.
“But you take what’s available, so you have people with master’s degrees or decades of professional experience working as a barista at Starbucks or folding towels at a day spa (jobs two people I know have right now).”
Naturally, the first question is “Master’s degree in WHAT?” The fact is, many of today’s master’s degrees only qualify the person to ask “Do you want fries with that?”
But what so clearly flies over your head is the fact that the problem is not with “the rich” or corporations or capitalism or whatever else you are blaming it on. Have you considered any of the possible reasons for these things you find so significant? Here are 2.
1 Education that does not prepare people for occupation in the real world.
2 Shrinking economy/fewer jobs available
Capitalists like to make money. They do not prefer to sit back and watch their investments sit idle, or dwindle. They do not have smaller work forces because they want to. Given a choice, they would be expanding their work force, expanding their markets, expanding their revenues, expanding their profits. How goofy to blame them for circumstances which go against their inclinations and desires.
Take a hypothetical company, one started by a man with a vision and the courage to try to put it into action, one that got traction only after a lot of hard word and energy and risk, one that has employed people and supported families and contributed handsomely into tax revenues of all types—corporate, personal income, payroll, employee income, sales.
Now, because of an overall economic downturn that is in no way the fault of this company, the market for its products is severely diminished. Perhaps the owner has been able to keep the company afloat and most of the employees on by outsourcing some of the work to foreign countries, but at least the company is intact and not all of the workers have had to be let go—it was this or shut down and fire all of them. (This is what is known as “failure” on the Left.)
The owner sees a new market developing but can’t borrow money to move over into that market because of the new and ever-expanding regulations—demanded by the Left—-on banking and small business loans. He would be willing to risk what he has been able to put aside for family savings, just as he risked everything to start the company in the first place, but he sees rising taxes on the horizon, and knows that this will be the death knell for his company, so he just sits tight to see which way the economic pendulum will swing.
His suppliers are all doing the same thing.
His transportation companies are all doing the same thing.
The little businesses near his place are hurting, cutting back, closing—the diner, the drycleaners, the pet shop.
he number of jobs of all kinds is shrinking, and the number of people desperate for them is growing.
This one company, that might have had 300 employees at its height, is now limping along with 175, crippled by regulations and high taxes, penned in by the specter of future actions which will also damage the company, and it is the center of an ever-widening circle of economic distress, like the rings of a stone thrown into the water.
And the dennises blame the companies.
Do they blame the bad decisions made by the people they insisted be put in charge, decisions ostensibly made in the interest of “helping” people, in pursuit of social engineering experiments, to fund extravagant efforts to “fix” all the ills of mankind with OPM?
No, of course not.
It is the fault of “the rich”, of the “1%” , of the corporations and the capitalists.
You’re framing the issue in a delusional way – Dennis
And so are you Dennis. The vast majority of corporate jobs are well paying jobs. Intel is a large corporation located near me and they provide thousands of great paying jobs, all the way down to the janitors. Harrah’s is another large operation near me and their cocktail waitress’s make upwards of $50,000/yr, one of whom lives near me. As a business owner, I love to pay people a strong wage provided they prove themselves to be a asset to the company. I don’t pay people who just choose to show up. You’re also neglecting the fact that there are a lot of “free riders” (a term liberals are familiar with re: health care), case in point is a daughter of a friend of ours. She is an able bodied woman with four kids from two different fathers, no job and collects every form of welfare on the planet – very easily I might add because of misguided people like you.
Bozo,
Federal money originates at the county level. Do you understand that? It’s the counties money in the first place that the Feds took. Let’s just leave it at the county level, how about that?
“The vast majority of corporate jobs are well paying jobs.”
Yes there are a lot of high paying corporate jobs, but I doubt it’s a vast majority. Workers in retail or food services aren’t making near that much money. Your waitress friend makes twice what the assistant manager at our local Olive Garden does.
Then tell that asst manager to aspire to a higher position. As dbschmidt said, it’s not the business, it’s the person. Everyone in this country has upward mobility and it is incumbent upon them to improve their skills and earn the wage they want. Retail and food services for the most part are lower paying positions, and designed for young workers, or part time workers. If someone is in one of those industries and expecting a high wage, then it is them that is at fault, not the industry.
Hey Dennis, here is something for you to consider:
(CNSNews.com) – The number of workers taking federal disability insurance payments hit yet another record in July, increasing to 8,753,935
Explain this to me from a liberal perspective – are all of these people just hard working Americans who were involved in some unfortunate accident?
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/8753935-workers-disability-set-another-record-july-exceed-population-39-states
Cluster, 8.7 million sounds like a big number until you realize the population is over 312 million, then you see it’s less than three percent of the population. I don’t know all the reasons for that number, but there’s no doubt what a big part of it is:
And like it or not, it’s well known that red states have a vastly bigger (fatter, if you will) problem with obesity than blue states. See http://thecentristword.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/united-states-of-gop-obesity/
We know without any doubt that obesity is costing not only lives but billions of dollars, much of it of public money that you deeply resent. Yet many on the right deeply resent Michelle Obama’s efforts to help promote good health habits among school kids. I can’t remember anyone similarly criticizing Laura Bush for her reading initiative, and it wasn’t nearly so directly related to saving both lives and taxpayer money.
Why do you always deflect the issue? Obesity? Red state vs blue state? Michelle Obama? Why not just address the meat of the issue?
The fact is disability claims are at record levels, period. And I can almost guarantee you that approx. 20% of those claims are fraudulent, whether that is in a blue state or red state, I don’t care. Expanding on that – 1 in 7 people now receive food stamps, and 49% of all American households receive some form of government assistance. But instead of using common sense, you prefer to deflect to the obesity problem – what law do you want to make to address that? I am surprised you didn’t find some Biblical passage to cite – it’s people like you who are the problem Dennis. Always deflecting the issue or making excuses for more big brother government, and never wanting to hold people accountable – well except for evil conservatives.
“it’s people like you who are the problem Dennis.”
Really? People like me?
I’ve been self employed for over 20 years and have never taken a dime of government money in my life. No Medicaid, no college loan, no food stamps, no government assistance of any kind. No tax refunds in excess of what I made due to fancy accounting. No doubt I will use Medicaid at some point, but up until now I’ve never asked the government for anything. Oops – I’m taking courses at the community college and my tuition is free because I’m over 60. That’s the extent of the government dole for me. I live simply and waste little, and you call me the problem?
You asked me: “Explain this to me from a liberal perspective – are all of these people just hard working Americans who were involved in some unfortunate accident?”
From a common sense perspective I pointed out a well-known health crisis that no doubt accounts for a significant number of the disability claims you cited. Probably a greater percentage than the fraudulent claims that trouble you so much.
I’m solidly on record here against legislating personal morality – what kind of logic makes you think I would pass laws to regulate people’s health habits? What I’m for is good education and people who lead by both precept and example. In this context I believe Michelle Obama and Partnership for a Healthier America do a service to the nation that will pay economic and health dividends in the long term.
And since this whole discussion – a critique of the liberal concept of welfare for the poor – is really an economic one, it’s hardly irrelevant to note that Republican states eat up more in federal benefits for every dollar paid in federal taxes than Democratic states do.
So who really is your biggest problem? I don’t have an easy answer for that, but I’m pretty sure it’s not me.
It’s your mindset which is the problem Dennis. Misguided compassion on the part of bleeding heart liberals have cost this country a fortune, and has served to kill the initiative of those who get caught in the “safety nets” of government. It’s amazing what individuals can achieve when they are encouraged to do so, rather than having someone like you make excuses for them, and use that excuse to expand government. Liberals harm the poor much more than they help them.
Cluster, what a interesting take on “bleeding heart liberals” and those who just sit around and take from the government and do nothing to earn their keep. When Dennis points out that the majority of welfare and government handouts go to the red, conservative states, you seem to have a problem with the truth. It is so interesting that the majority of southern red states vote Republican, even those on food stamps and welfare, and despise Democrats, but do not seem to understand they are criticizing others for exactly what they are doing – expecting the government to step in and provide assistance where they cannot afford to take care of themselves. For housing, medical care, food – but do not see that they are a part of the problem.
I have a dear friend who is a staunch Republican and send me emails all the time about how awful those liberal Democrats are and who on earth in their right mind would vote for them. She has had serious medical problems for about the last 8-10 years and no medical insurance since she cannot work. She has gone to the state to get assistance in providing her medical treatments and now is on social security disability. Her 35 year old daughter that has had a serious drug problem for years just spent about a week (her second hospital stay) in intensive care due to a staff infection that almost took her life – again no insurance. So you know who is going to get to pay for her hospital stays??? We are. But my friend hates “Obamacare” and doesn’t understand how anyone could ever vote for him and wants this program dismantled. Can you or anyone explain to me how a person who has counted on the State and Federal governments for years for medical care doesn’t get it – that they are one of those that they seem to resent for being so dependent on the government? That is a typical Red State conservative from my observation.
From the various comments that I’ve seen on this blog regarding this issue, I’m not sure that there are very many people in our country who really understand that no one has a right to a job or health care or a place to live or food or clothing or anything that provides one with comfort no matter where they are, and that no level of government (federal, state, county, or local) can freely provide these resources for anyone. These discussions go round and round with various options being cited and debated with little attention being given to the fact that every child who is born into this world comes from two adults, a man and woman, as a totally dependent creature who will probably be totally dependent for quite a few years while our politicians try to figure out the “best” and fairest way to meet the needs of these children and their “adult” producers without infringing on anyone’s “rights” by waging “wars” on any specific economic problem. These discussions and strategies are not addressing the basic problem, which is the lack of personal responsibility for one’s self and one’s dependents in our society.
If I made excuses for the indolent I wouldn’t have two children now in their 30s who’ve supported themselves ever since graduating from high school. They have the strongest work ethic of anyone I know. That doesn’t come from growing up clueless or lazy.
You and others here show zero concern for representing your opponents’ plain statements, much less their ideas, with any honesty. Far easier to stereotype, put words in people’s mouths and make straw arguments against things they never said. You get to have a slam dunk every time. It’s amateur hour all day long at the sandbox. Have fun, I’m back to the real world.
Well again iris, you are another misguided liberal. I previously said that I don’t care if they are red or blue states, if they genuinely don’t need assistance, kick them off. In re: to your friends medical issues, those situations can easily be handled at the state level with high risk pools funded by local taxes, or taxes on existing premiums. Those situations are the anomaly and not the norm, so it’s real easy to take care of without impacting every single person in this country.
There are much better ways to take care of those in need, without deferring to an inexperienced bureaucrat in Washington DC, and it would be much less costly too. If you can just quiet the liberal noise in your head and quit thinking of conservatives as evil, we might get somewhere.
When Dennis points out that the majority of welfare and government handouts go to the red, conservative states, you seem to have a problem with the truth. It is so interesting that the majority of southern red states vote Republican, even those on food stamps and welfare, and despise Democrats, but do not seem to understand they are criticizing others for exactly what they are doing – expecting the government to step in and provide assistance where they cannot afford to take care of themselves. For housing, medical care, food – but do not see that they are a part of the problem.
Sorry, Velma, that old saw is really wearing thin.
No matter how hard Velma tries to sound sane and reasonable, her vicious and ignorant bigotry always shine through.
“That is a typical Red State conservative from my observation.”
We will never be able to correct the people who are now dependent, at least not those who are older and can’t make changes in time to become independent.
But we can try to eliminate the bird feeder aspect of our government, which says “Look at all the cool stuff you can get if you just fall into this or that victim category”.
As for the Velmas, they will always be with us, too. Sour, resentful, going to church to pray and then coming home to spew hate on the computer, impervious to reason, too addicted to the fantasy that by demanding that OPM be widely distributed they are somehow proving compassion and morality even though their actions support a political philosophy that, when fully implemented, is brutal and oppressive and responsible for the murder of tens of millions.
It might be, as you whine, “… amateur hour all day long at the sandbox….” but it will be a much nicer sandbox once you quit using it as a litterbox.
Great link, Spook. But I would add, to the salad mentioned, the ubiquitous Lefty watermelon.
Velma, does your friend send you things about how “awful” DEMOCRATS are, personally, or about the Dem policies she finds objectionable?
Interesting that whatever “staff” you are talking about has an infection so common to the staff that it is actually called a “staff infection”. You’d think that someone on that staff would have taken care of it by now, and that people would avoid this staff till it is cleared up.
Please quit projecting your own hatred onto others. It is sad, and silly,and quite transparent. Of course you have to see everything through your own twisted view of the world, view that is dominated by your sour hatred of others and your utter ignorance of actual politics, so it is no surprise that you can’t conceive of any opposition to Leftist policies that could possibly be based on anything but the same thing you base YOUR “political” view on—-hatred.
No, silly silly Velma, most Republicans understand and disagree with the fatal flaws of the Leftist, collectivist, redistributionist, political system, and certainly closed-minded attack lemmings like you do stir some negative feelings, but those feelings are more resentment at being personally attacked for political views, and irritation at the determined ignorance of those who attack a system they don’t understand in support of another system they don’t understand.
You have been posting your toxic mental sludge here for quite some time now, yet you have never given an objective analysis of why you believe a collectivist redistributionist political system is a better way to govern our nation than our Constitutional system.
All we ever get from you is hyper-emotional squealing about how awful “conservatives” are and how wonderful Obama is and how mean the Right is, blah blah blah blah blah. Not a single word about how to best govern the nation, not a peep about whether or not you think we should be governed according to our own Constitution, not a hint of consideration about the outcome of sliding toward the Left.
It’s all emotion all the time, and it’s all ugly.
“All we ever get from you is hyper-emotional squealing about how awful “conservatives” are and how wonderful Obama is and how mean the Right is, blah blah blah blah blah. Not a single word about how to best govern the nation, not a peep about whether or not you think we should be governed according to our own Constitution, not a hint of consideration about the outcome of sliding toward the Left.
It’s all emotion all the time, and it’s all ugly.”
Spot on AMA! Velma ignores challenges from us on a regular basis. The only time she does respond is not to answer it, but to regurgitate more dumbed down talking points or more of the same that you so accurately described above! I had several challenges in the thread on the shooting, but predictably, she has not answered them. As usual, after being trounced in the debate she runs off. It’s not hard, only common sense is used against her hyper-emotional tantrums.
Spook, great link there. Right on the money. Barky won only three of Illinois’s counties last time and it gave him all twenty electoral votes. I believe Mitt is going to pick up at least one of them this time around, maybe two. I believe Illinois is in play big time.
The love for barky is just not there anymore.
Here’s someone who gets it:
“The government is not your salvation. The government is not your road to prosperity,” she said. “Hard work, education will take you far beyond what any government program can ever promise.”
Ladies and Gentleman, meet Mia Love
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/03/151952884/in-utah-gop-house-candidate-out-to-make-history
“Republican states eat up more in federal benefits for every dollar paid in federal taxes than Democratic states do.”
And
“ the majority of welfare and government handouts go to the red, conservative states,”
The first statement is qualified “for every dollar sent in” and is still inaccurate and the second is a lie we’ve addressed many times before. The largest recipients of Welfare money in order are: #1 California, Maine, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Vermont, DC, New York, Minnesota, Washington, Indiana, New México, Rhode Island, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Oregon. Looks like a big bunch o’ Blue there. And btw, California soaks up as much Welfare as the bottom 20 states combined.
Really did not want to go here in response to another nutcase going off the handle; however, there was another news story tonight about the Colorado shooting. How a couple at the film involved in the shooting (in their 20’s) are sharing separate floors in the same hospital as she is prepared to have their first child and he was hit several times. Both without insurance.
Yes, insurance is expensive mostly thanks to government intervention but even in my 20’s I carried insurance and I was one of the very few being “invincible” and all. I wish them both my best and would have no issue with absorbing to some degree the estimated $2M in expected costs but this is also no endorsement for ObamaCare or any other such Federal takeover of medical care.
This is just a case of another young person who feels invincible due to youth that finds no need to cover himself in case of catastrophic accident but does not explain why his wife was not properly covered. Government dole is government dole no matter how you end up there.
I wish them both my best and would have no issue with absorbing to some degree the estimated $2M in expected costs…..
There is no reason why their care should even come close to $2 million dollars. No reason whatsoever, but it likely could, and that is also another health care problem. The pure costs of their hospital rooms, the operating room, the equipment used, doctors and nurses salaries, etc in my estimation shouldnt exceed $70,000, maybe up to $100,000, and why don’t we know what the costs are? As consumers, we should know how much a night stay in the hospital costs. How much is costs to fix a broken leg, how much it costs for an appendectomy, etc, etc. there should literally be a menu on how much some of the basic care costs. We need to treat health care just like any other service, and allow pure competition for that business to help bring costs down.
Liberal Democrats will continue to push for welfare assistance to the “poor” in an attempt to take the place of God
I Higher Power made us free men and women…a Higher Power gave us the right and duty to protect and provide for our families…the government is NOT that higher power.
Thank you Phyllis Schlafly. Do you honestly have a thought in your head that was not put there by a priest or a conservative pundit?
moredumbo painintheazz
thank you bwany fwank. Do you honestly have a thought in your head that was not put there by a pervert or a commie pundit?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/charlie-daniels/2012/07/20/charlie-daniels-column-mr-president-when-it-comes-business-you-have#ixzz21Q0tWEsN
OT
“If you don’t like folks talking about you, you probably shouldn’t run for president”
So says the thinnest skinned person ever to @Occupy the Oval Office.
I’ll be back later, Got to talk to Mitt about a major sham wow purchase.
Mitt 340+ 😛
Democrats’ War on Poverty Has Failed
Today the Federal Government has 59 major welfare programs and spends more than $100 billion a year on them. What has all this money done? Well, too often it has only made poverty harder to escape. Federal welfare programs have created a massive social problem. With the best of intentions, government created a poverty trap that wreaks havoc on the very support system the poor need most to lift themselves out of poverty: the family. Dependency has become the one enduring heirloom, passed from one generation to the next, of too many fragmented families.
http://www.humanevents.com/2006/09/06/democrats-war-on-poverty-has-failed/
a good article
James L. Payne
Why the War on Poverty Failed
Handouts Provide the Wrong Incentives
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/why-the-war-on-poverty-failed/
New Video Shows the War on Poverty Is a Failure
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/new-video-shows-the-war-on-poverty-is-a-failure/
neo, you linked to a great article, http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/why-the-war-on-poverty-failed/
This is part of the excellent analysis: (emphasis mine)
“The simple economic theory of poverty led to a single underlying principle for welfare programs. Since the needy just lacked goods and services to become productive members of the community, it followed that all you had to do was give them these things. You didn’t have to see that they stopped engaging in the behavior that plunged them into neediness.
. You didn’t have to ask them to apply themselves, or to work, or to save, or to stop using drugs, or to stop having babies they couldn’t support, or to make any other kind of effort to improve themselves. In other words, the welfare programs the war-on-poverty activists designed embodied something-for-nothing giving, or what we usually call “handouts.”