Agreed, and I wish there was a simple solution that could be put into practice easily. 
I brush and floss every day. I still got a cavity, and since I wasn’t able to get it taken care of right away, it became abcessed. It could be due to the fact that I’ve been taking carbamazepine for 16 years though. (It’s for both my seizure disorder and my bi-polar.) I was a bit chagrined when the doctor told me that bit. I’ve dealt with a dry mouth for years. (Yes, I drink lots of water.) Thanks for the subtle dig at my hygiene, it sure bolsters my self esteem. Jerk! :rolleyes:
Huh? Watchu talkin’ 'bout, Willis?
OK, color me confused. You want to restrict choice, not because it will help those at the bottom. And not because it will help you (as has been shown). You want to do it… Why, again?
[QUOTE=Binarydrone]
If I (as a somewhat Liberal type) were to offer some real world solutions, I guess that I would suggest the following.
[list]
[li]Adjust the official poverty line income statistic to something that reflects a realistic income level at which a family can subsist.[/li][/quote]
[hijack]
Apropros of nothing, did anyone notice that a couple of years ago the big, bad, evil, mean Bush Administration raised the poverty line quite a bit, just over 2k for a family of 4, thus including more people? The coralary is even funnier, if not exactly a surprise, when a bunch of Democrats started screaming that there had been a huge jump in the number of people below the poverty live VS when Clinton was President without pointing out that what counts as poverty had been changed. It amused the hell out of me.
[/hijack]
I don’t think anyone is entitled to every LUXURY when they’re on the dole. However, people should at least be allowed their dignity and not have everyone and his grandfather nitpick everything they do, going over their lives and their purchases with a microscope!
One thing that I think needs to be changed is the fact that some people have a choice of: working a job that doesn’t pay nearly enough to get by; or not work and get government assistance and at least be able to live. Because once they get a job, they don’t get any assistance.
There should be some halfway measure-graduated amounts, aid to help those who work and STILL can’t get by. (I see in some places there are, but not always).
Can we at least agree that those who are poor shouldn’t have to suffer needlessly, that they should not have to feel dirty, stupid, ashamed, and have their dignity assaulted? That people shouldn’t have to grovel on their knees in sackcloth and ashes, and constantly appologize for their existance?
And they should be allowed at least SOME measure of entertainment. Jesus, Zabali said their one big entertainment splurge is Everquest, at 35 bucks every three months. That’s what, $140 bucks a year. Yes, she could forgo that and spend the $140 bucks on food, but that’s per YEAR, and it’s not going to stretch that much.
Or treating oneself at least once in a while? For example, buying a new suit that isn’t threadbare, that will last? Or new toy for the kids? Just every once in a while?
If one is expected to live in a house, but have no books, tv, no ANYTHING, you’d go insane. And not everyone has easy access to a library.
Yes, people should WANT to get off the dole completely and make their own ways-but they shouldn’t have to endure endless taunts at how grateful they should be, or that they should feel guilty for trying to make their lives even the least bit pleasant. Dammit, there are much more important things to worry about!
Exactly, and your comments about the choice between going to work, or staying on government assistance were spot on too. I wish there was a solution for this problem, that would be easy to do, and that people would be willing to implement. Unfortunately, part of the problem is out of the “common person’s” hands, in that jobs are going overseas.
Hehehe. This thread is hilarious.
My in-laws get food stamps. They routinely buy multiple items as close to a penny as possible so they can “break” the food stamp into change that they can use to buy the magazines, movies, etc. that they want. They then throw away the junk items they purchased (the items are literally purchased because of the amount of change they will produce from the foodstamp, and they do not care what the actual item is).
Make all of the justifications you want; I believe that people have freedom of choice when they are paying for that choice with their own earned money. Personally I don’t give a shit if the poor have to live off of rice and beans; I’d like there to be some incentive to get a job and not be poor. And the most healthy/inexpensive meals do not consist of Tropicana brand orange juice, Doritos, and Twinkies. The attempt to defend poor buying choices to all extremes just to avoid admitting that some poor people should work harder to get their shit together is ridiculous.
Of course I believe that welfare benefits should actually increase as people earn money (e.g. I would prefer to give $10,000 per year in subsidies to someone holding down a $10,000 per year job, and only bare food and shelter minimums for someone not holding down any job), but the idea of rewarding people more for holding a job rather than not holding one seems to be a strange concept to many people.
Does anyone remember when he had this very same conversation about a year and a half ago? I explained that I once spent $10 to dry clean my suit for an interview. Some dopey Doper reamed me for that, saying I should have saved his tax dollars and handwashed my suit in my sink. Talk about batshit insane.
It’s basic economics. If you supply a product at below market price (free dog food), the demand for that product will skyrocket(puppies!).
I guess you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this one. If I was on the dole, my pride would drive me crazy until I got off of it. It would keep me from buying luxury items too. I see people all the time who don’t particularly care that they are on the dole, and don’t particularly care if they get off it either. They have no pride to drive them off welfare, and no shame to do so either. You will never ever ever build pride in a person by giving them money.
They take away whatever you were getting, as soon as you go into Kanwork? If it is below minimum wage, how the hell are you supposed to eat? It sounds like they are punishing people for trying to work, doesn’t it? It sounds like someone is being taken advantage of, doesn’t it?
Sounds good to me.
You see, pride is largley what drives me in my position on this. Losing a job is terribly dehumanizing, and asking for public handouts is even worse. When I was out of work, indulging in the occasional lobster or expensive toy was a way of asserting myself in the world. It reminded me that when the world pushed me around I was capable of pushing right back. It kept me sane.
Since when are food stamps a “reward?”
Jesus Christ. It’s not about rewarding anyone, it’s about making sure that people-especially CHILDREN are not going hungry. Some people cannot hold down a job-disabilities, mental illness. Some people are temporarily unemployed-are you going to snatch away their benefits, then?
I wasn’t taking a dig at your hygiene, I was taking a dig at the notion that any advice to a poor person on how to allocate resources was an assault on their liberty. And that schools are responsible for everything that parents used to be responsible for. Sorry if I offended - I was not taking a shot at you.
Which goes directly to the question posed in the OP - what is reasonable to expect people to do when they are on welfare?
Many on the board react with horror to any suggestion that poor people have any obligation at all to live at any level besides middle-class.
Medicaid is for poor, Medicare is for old. Your plan would increase demand for health care, thus putting upward pressure on costs.
I don’t see how it would be horrifying to limit access to lobster and junk food, but let limits on the Great Goddess Reproductive Freedom pass unchallenged.
You nasty, woman-hating, Neaderthal, anti-choice, etc., etc. - please fill in the invective for yourself.
And, as always, most of your problems are going to come from those who didn’t pay much attention in school. As they tend to do now.
I am not saying it wouldn’t work - just that - well, put it this way.
Emphasis on education - check.
Emphasis on personal accountability - check.
Welfare reform - check.
You are coming dangerously close to what might be called - dare I speak the phrase - “compassionate conservativism”.
Horrors.
Regards,
Shodan
SteveG1 KanWork was/is the work training program connected with the Kansas Welfare system. You have to fill out a certain number of job applications (without going to the same place twice) per week, which they do check, and if you are offered a job, even it it’s below minimum wage, you HAVE to take it, or face losing your benefits. It doesn’t matter if you live in a small town/don’t have a car, you have to fill out those applications. This I know firsthand because we (first husband and I) had to be on welfare (because he was in a car wreck, and lost his job) back when Clinton was in his first term. AFAIK, the “KanWork” program has been cut, or stopped, I’m not sure which though.
This actually touches on what I am referring to concerning political will. The fact that both sides are willing to distort facts to stay in power and make the other side look bad, rather than being the public servants that they are supposed to be. A lot of our problems could be solved if we could find a sane way to overhaul the Legislative branch.
Oooh you evil bastard! You spent my ten dollars to clean a suit, for a job interview? How dare you. That was my money. Don’t you get it? The far right wing ultra conservatives don’t want you doing that. You are the lower caste and spending our money to try and get ahead is well, just uppity. I wonder how many of these “social Darwinists” really ever had to break their ass to get where they are. I wonder how many fell into a nice job either through dumb luck, help from daddy (contacts, paying for education etc), or any other source that has nothing to do with their innate ability or hard effort? I also wonder if they would sing the same tune if their personal applecart was to suddenly turn over. It’s easy to talk the talk, if you’ve never had to walk the walk.
(huge massive gigantic eye roll).
I don’t see how it would be horrifying to limit access to lobster and junk food, but let limits on the Great Goddess Reproductive Freedom pass unchallenged.
So, Shodan, then you’re saying we should subsidize birth control?
Since I posited that they should be. They are not now, I suggested how I would prefer the system to exist. We should reward people for effort; we should not financially punish them for earning more money (to a point - I do not advocate giving government subsidies to people making $100k annually, for example).
It may not be for you. I tend to believe that many people are rational, and that if they get paid more for doing nothing than for doing something, they will choose to do nothing. And this discussion has nothing to do with children going hungry; were that the case, we could simply dispense with all hand outs that approximate cash and simply give large bags of rice and beans to families.
The first sentence contains exceptions to the rule. For the second sentence, I want to give them every incentive to be only temporarily unemployed.
That may be the case. To be honest, I really am not what you could call a straightforward Liberal. I don’t know that there really is any school of thought that has yet emerged that can describe my politics. I do know that on the Conservative and Libertarian side of things, I see far too much willingness to give Big Business a pass, yet demand absolute personal responsibility from the “little people”. They also (in my perception) seem to be far to willing to break a lot of eggs to make an omelet that I am pretty sure will not be all that tasty.
On the other hand, the Liberals seem to be far to willing to let the State act as some surrogate parent. They also seem to think more with their hearts than with their brains (as a group) and to have this smug superior attitude that I find unproductive and annoying.
I guess that I wish that there were some true center or synthesis between the two, where emphasis was put on personal responsibility (both on the individual and corporate levels), yet there existed a real and viable safety net that would help fold that have fallen on hard times in a real and productive way, and that would care for those who will never be able to care for themselves in a dignified way. Finally, I guess that I would like to see the State act more as a referee on behalf of the people and to make sure that everyone plays fair.
Drawing a correlation between poverty and stupidity typically has less to do with any realistic assessment of why some people are poor than it does with giving the person drawing the correlation a warm fuzzy about himself.
Those people are poor.
I am not.
Therefore, I am not only richer, but also smarter, than they are.
IOW, it’s just one more bit of wanking over how much better you are than “those people.”