Good grief.
Telling people what foods they can or can't buy - which is where this conversation started - is not about spending money so much, either, as about proper nutrition.
Charles Koch: This is the one issue where Bernie Sanders is right
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Telling people what foods they can or can't buy - which is where this conversation started - is not about spending money so much, either, as about proper nutrition.
So WWJD, why do you think the federal government is the best to deliver these sorts of things?
One thing I have learned from 16 years on the front lines more or less is that there are people who hardly know up from down. I mean literally. They don't live in a way you and I understand. They eat something from a can and throw the can on the floor. They can't be employed. What do you do with people like that?
One thing I have learned from 16 years on the front lines more or less is that there are people who hardly know up from down. I mean literally. They don't live in a way you and I understand. They eat something from a can and throw the can on the floor. They can't be employed. What do you do with people like that?
Well it is about one other major concern. Its also about punishing those on the dole. We might grudgingly agree we have a duty to keep them alive. But we want them eating gruel and not having any fun.
No one I know wants to pay taxes, not even I. However, to have the America we have today and to keep this America, "we the people" do have to pay taxes. We have corporations who make huge sums of money for their stockholders and management that pay NO taxes. We have billionaires who pay taxes at rates less than their secretaries and hired help pay. We had a tax code back in the days of Clinton's administration that dealt with balanced budgets. My tax rate then is basically the same as it is now...however the nation's debt has skyrocketed. I know what % I pay Uncle Sam...it has been the same percent the past 20+ years...I pay about 11-12% of my income to the Feds. I pay another 3-5% to the state. I will bet you a dollar to a donut, many who make more than I (and much more than I) pay a lower percentage of their income to taxes.
I find out tomorrow what I owe my Uncle's (Sam and Terry)...wish me luck.
Deregulation...old, I wish I could trust others not to cheat. However, I understand how some human beings act. And sadly, I (nor you) can trust them. All too often, too many folks will take a short-cut in order to gain an advantage.
It's not about what foods they can or can't buy, but more about how they are spending the governments money. It has nothing to do with nutrition.
Buying a Mountain Dew and Doritos with food stamps is the same as someone using federal rental assistance to live in a fancy apartment. It's not necessary. I work with a program that oversees public housing in which low income individuals can get help paying their rent. In order to get this assistance there are regulations in place that they need to live in approved housing and need to prove they need it. Once they decide to make more money or move to unapproved housing they lose the assistance. They can do the same thing with welfare. You should prove you need it and only be able to use it on approved things.
Tell that to the corporations that make Mountain Dew and Doritos!
I'm in favor of the government using its resources wisely. Not all government is bad.
His position in this thread has been more defensible. He is saying the programs should be redesigned to encourage only emergency or short term use. And doing that simply by providing only essentials. He isn't saying they should be eliminated.
If you think the reason for these programs is to fill a duty to the poor, I think his position makes sense. If you simply want to spend less or think there is a duty to help motivate the poor, his idea makes sense. If you think like I do that these programs are mainly to bribe the poor to self-warehouse and leave us alone, his plan might work less well.
Something is going to have to happen. However, we have a Congress that will not allow anything to happen unless it is "my way." I have maintained for the past 8 years that the problem with government today is NOT the Executive, it lies in the Legislative branch. Congress is pissed off about "executive orders"......they are why Obama has signed them. Their reluctance to negotiate and their refusal to legislate anything except along party lines is the reason this country is pissed off. There are so many examples, I wouldn't know where to begin. But certainly the Senate's stand on a SC nominee would be on the list.
We agree about congress being dysfunctional. I disagree that poverty assistance is a problem screaming out for a solution. If the safety net stayed exactly the same I don't think that's really so terrible. Food stamp particulars are way down on my priority list and if the program was more invisible I bet we would hardly ever talk about it.
I think you are reading more into my comments than I intend to say. I have not said anything about not paying any taxes, etc. Actually, I don't believe I have really shared anything substantial, at least in this thread, related to my thoughts about deregulation. But I will say this...even with regulations, cheaters are going to cheat.
I am not anti-regulation...BUT I am really against senseless regulations AND those that really aren't enforced, either at all, or enforced unevenly and/or poorly. I don't have time now to go into great detail, but in my line of work I run into this quite often. As a responsible business owner, I follow the regulations...but I know other competitors don't always do so and their costs are lower than mine oftentimes as a result.
If there is going to be regulation, then there needs to be even, predictable enforcement or oftentimes there are unintended consequences that are negative to the ones that are actually behaving responsibly.
So we have a $19T national debt, helped at least in part by greatly increased welfare spending, and you are good with morphing food stamps into a straight up transfer payment as long as you don't have to wait in line behind them at the grocery store?
I can't see where anything could go wrong there...(insert sarcasm icon.)
Sure, welfare is a bargain. Anything that keeps the mob off the streets is money well spent. Especially so when all that money we give them flows right back into their local economies. Welfare is a huge win win building the economy and reducing crime.
No....welfare is not a big part of that. The debt was mainly caused by Medicare/Medicaid and the Defense Budget.
Notice that you inserted the words "big part" in your reply, while I used the phrase, "at least in part" in what I wrote originally. Those are different connotations...but I suspect you knew that. Little shifts like that when libs respond in snark are common here on HROT I have noticed. The problem is, they are often not on point, like you are not here.
Beyond that, "income security" programs account for somewhere between 15% and 20% of the federal budget and have grown at a high rate in the past several years. So they are, as I said, a part of the ever growing federal debt.
You must be including SS to get to that number which makes your own reply guilty of just what you accuse JR of doing. We are talking in this thread about food stamps. That program costs about $75 billion. There may be reasons to be critical of the program, but its contribution to our national debt is not one of them. For every dollar we pump into food stamps, we generate about $1.80 in economic activity. It really is a win both in placating the poor and in generating more growth.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-economic-case-for-food-stamps/260015/
The fact is that they are small in comparison to defense and Medicare/Medicaid. That part includes federal retirement programs as well. Unemployment and Food Stamps....are a very small part of the budget. The cons on here love to pick on those programs, but don't touch the bloated defense budget that is loaded with pork more than any other part of the budget.
I knew you meant "lobby." But "logo" prompted the thought.
I think I ought to have the naming rights to the strip of road my house is on. I'd put up a big sign. How about
YOU ARE DRIVING ON
WWJD'S HIGHWAY
TO LIBERAL HEAVEN
ENJOY YOUR VISIT
I'm even more concerned with the amount of tax dollars that go to support organizations like Cato and the Federalist Society and all those other right wing think tanks and thinly disguised lobbying organizations that are undermining our democracy, our education system, and our environment.
Why the F do we have to subsidized the programs that are ruining our nation?
The Koch bros and other oligarchs are laughing all the way to the bank as they use our money to buy our politicians to pass the laws that our money paid ALEC to write, and so on. We subsidize the takeover of the laws schools and economics departments of Ivy League schools that provide our Supreme Court justices and fill our Cabinet posts - even while we are told these schools are part of the liberal establishment. We subsidize climate change denial. And the list goes on.
And if you think Hillary or any of the GOP candidates will even try to change that, I have a deed to the planet Mars I can let you have cheap. Honest.
