See, drpepper? What did I say on the last page? They think it’s their own fault that people are poor.
Yeah, because you know poverty is a 21st century phenomona, a direct result of the free lunch program and foodstamps. Everyone knows that old ways are always progressive.
:rolleyes:
A wise man once said a hungry mob is an angry mob. When society doesn’t care about its citizens, expect the citizens to not care about society. How did the Black Panthers win the hearts and minds of poor blacks in California? They fed them.
If the government doesn’t step up to the plate, someone else will. And that “someone else” won’t always be the Friendship Baptist Church.
A. Who is “they”?
B. I,m not sure fault can be blamed, but, if you do, whose fault is it?
So you want to punish these kids for what their parents do?
Cold.
If you look at my earlier post, it is clear I was referring to people who justify these sort of policies.
Of course, there are all kinds of different circumstances that lead to poverty. Probably the number one way people become poor adults is by being born as poor children. You know, kids who don’t get enough to eat, don’t get adequate health care, and get a crappy education. The kind of person who is capable of crawling out of that situation is very rare.
If you look at my earlier post, it is clear I was referring to people who justify these sort of policies.
Of course, there are all kinds of different circumstances that lead to poverty. Probably the number one way people become poor adults is by being born as poor children. You know, kids who don’t get enough to eat, don’t get adequate health care, and get a crappy education. The kind of person who is capable of crawling out of that situation is very rare.
Conscience[: I tried to be good and stay out of it, I really did…
Monstro: 4. Moral justification comes from the fact that the money that is needed for these programs is taken, under the threat of force, from one set of people and given to another. If I did that I would be jailed. It is no better for the government to do so, as the government (under our constitution) has no authority to implement a school lunch program.
Chula: I read the NY Times every day mon-fri and can honestly say that yes, the opinions page of the Times is considerably left-of-center. Their news coverage is fairly accurate, but it too has some leftward slant. All in all, it’s a fairly good paper, but denying that it has a bias is rather fallacious.
Lissa: There are Republican apologists out there who have no problems with the actions that you listed (corporate welfare, airline bailouts), but the vast majority of conservatives and libertarians are equally against these antics as they are individual welfare programs and the social programs of the government. Defense spending is a different matter though, as it is one of the areas that Congress is specifically authorized to raise taxes for. Of course, we don’t always spend that money in the wisest manner, and the government has much to answer for in that regard.
Reeder: It’s good to see someone quote the Constitution in a debate over the role of government in America, but the preamble (which you quoted) confers no authority to any branch of government.
I never noticed that they only published the columns of the ultra-conservatives on the weekends. :rolleyes: Or are you so far right that you consider the aforementioned columnists to be liberal?
I mised your naming of those two. Don’t know the first, and don’t recall reading anything of Mr. Safire’s lately. I was merely speaking from my own experience reading the times.
And I suppose that if one insists on using the left/right paradigm then yes, I am rather far to the right, or is it left? I’m in that fringe where each side would try to claim I’m on the extremity of the other sides position. Let’s say I’m far to the up - up with people, down with government.
monstro my post was just to point out that it wasn’t stealing from the children as they didn’t have the thing to begin with. No where did I say that I want people to starve or that I wouldn’t give my money willing to some program that fed people.
I’m not comfortable with manditory donations by way of the government. A large reason, and one that I’m sure even people who generally don’t mind government programs are concerned by, is efficiency. Private charity organizations are more efficient on average. I think that if the government got out of doing charity these private organizations would be able to cover it all, especially if taxes are lowered as then people will have more money to donate to charity.
Also you need to calm down. I understand that you think the government is being imprudent with the funds entrusted to it. Flipping out and ranting about it is a fine response. Snapping at everybody not parroting your opinion isn’t.
Before anyone decides to respond with the “This is the Pit, people flip out like rabid monkeys all the time.” bit don’t bother. I understand that posting in the Pit is an invitation to receiving a slew of insults. Granted that I don’t care what anyone says to me in the Pit and know a lot of it comes from their rant space being violated. Still avoiding premeptive flip outs on people attempting to actually interact with you is a good thing.
Also what is the source of the “When I fed the poor they called me a saint, when I asked why they were hungry I was called a communist.” quote? I’ve seen it pop up quite a few times recently but never with attribuition.
Link: http://www.cbpp.org/
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities advertises itself as
The Google description consists of:
Mugging the Needy the title of the linked piece in the op is a bit of hyperbole.
:rolleyes:
In the end, these tax cuts may well cost the US taxpayer a whole lot more than they bargained for.
As an example, in the UK our right of centre party (the Conservatives) cut taxes across the board, but especially for those on the highest rates, at the same time they cut spending by local authorities.
It’s true enough to say that our higher rate taxpayers were over taxed. but the dramatic reduction from around 60% to 40% in one go resulted in a massive influx of foreign manufactured goods.
This went down really well on our budget deficit, it also helped push up the price of real estate dramatically, and the level of borrowing went up hugely.
Borrowing and importation deficits lead to inflation, which in turn led to much higher interest rates.
The resulting economic slowdown, the negative equity on over-extended real estate borrowers and the increase in unemployment (along with the reduced taxation revenues that uneployment brings) meant that taxes on gas and electricity were brought in, and together these all contributed very significantly to the destruction of the ruling party as a viably electable force.
Those folk with the tax cuts are going to spend it, and the hope is that this will stimulate the US economy, this in turn will provide more work and help the poor help themselves, this is the theory, and the very same one used by our Conservative party.
It does not work, the rich will either import more, or they will simply pile it up in their bank accounts even higher, interest rates will rise in the next five years, the US will end up running a larger deficit and will have to cut back further to bring finances into line, put up trade barriers or raise taxes.
Enough of ‘trickle down’ economics, the rich don’t get that way by trickling down their wealth, they get richer by hanging on to it.
Howyadoin,
Don’t the numbers showing funding increases (and proposed funding increases for 2004) tell the story without all this fucking rancor? A question was asked as to whether these charges could be disputed. Was the question answered?
By the way, it’s true that Republicans have the brains of little children… in jars of formalin on their mantles. :rolleyes:
-Rav
Why do you assume it’s the parents’ behavior that got them into it? How about the behavior of companies who lay people of by the hundreds or thousands so they can increase the value of their stock by a couple of dollars? How about that fucking behavior. How about an elitist administration, led by a man who was born rich and has never worked a day or earned a dollar in his life. that irresponsibally squanders the the first budget surplus in years on a massive handout to the richest one percent of the country? How about that fucking behavior?
Why is it that Mister fucking Christian Shrub Bush, a guy who claimed that Jesus Christ was his greatest political influence, turns into a complete sociopath when it comes to actually following the teachings of Christ?
Or are you so left that you cannot recognize that the aforementioned columnists are liberal?
I don’t know, I’m asking. I don’t read the NY Times generally. But just because you don’t think the NY Times has a slant towards the left doesn’t mean that it isn’t slanted. Many people think that FoxNews isn’t slanted towards the right. I’ve heard people on this board muse that perhaps this is because the people themselves are right-leaning, so they don’t recognize any existing bias in FoxNews. So why should it be any different for you, or anyone else with a left-leaning news source?
As far as calling reducing free meals to kids as “stealing”, I have to agree with Bricker, it’s not stealing. When you give someone something for free, and then give them a little less of it, you’re not stealing from them.
However, I think that giving free lunches to kids is very important. I certainly want some of my tax dollars going for such a worthy thing. And I’ll kick up a fuss if I feel that the free meals are cut back too much. But the thing is, how much of a cut is “too” much, and how much is the government obliged to give out for the free meals? We all can’t get the exact amount of funding that we want for every government program or project. Something’s got to give. I’m sure there are a jillion government projects and programs that have had cutbacks, and I don’t think it’s “stealing” when these cutbacks occur. It may be a shitty thing, but not necessarily “stealing”.
Cite?
That’s sounds unrealistically optimistic. I haven’t noticed that rich people necessarily tend to donate more to charity the richer they get.
No one in their right mind would consider those people liberals. It’s pretty clear that anyone who believes that all NY Times columnists are liberals does not read the NY Times.
I thought that the “liberal media” myth had finally been debunked. A subject for another thread.
I don’t read the NY Times. I am neither convinced nor unconvinced that the NY Times is biased. Your simple statement that the NY Times is unbiased means nothing to me, either way.
Could you point out some cites where it has been debunked? I missed that. (Not being facetous—I really missed it!) As for myself, I notice a bias in FoxNews (I watch it a lot) and I’ve noticed a bias in CNN and so forth. In other words, I see a bias on both sides of the political spectrum. Maybe I just caught someone or something on an off-day, but it seems to me that many media sources have a bias (at least some of the time) in some direction. Doesn’t mean that they are useless as news sources, though.
Two people made the assertion that all NYT columnists are leftist, which is ridiculous. William Safire is a well-known conservative. I just looked up some information on Thomas Friedman, and it appears that some people have classified him as a liberal, but he’s also widely embraced by conservatives. I guess I stopped reading him years ago, because I was so outraged by his attacks on anyone who dare question the direction of corporate-controlled globalization. I’m wondering if there are any leftist who don’t hate him.
There have been some threads on it in the past, though I admit I didn’t really participate in them. There was recently a book published that seemed to be regarded as very well researched, called something like “The Myth of the Liberal Media.” We could play a little game and go through the NYT and try to find examples of bias. The main thing to look for in their case is the choice of topics covered - their right-wing bias is better disguised because they have relatively high journalistic standards. Like I said, that’s a topic for another thread.
You know, I love conservatives. They talk all this shit, and then every so often they come up with something really golden.
Like, that line, “Go find a new country if you hate America so much.”
I think I’ll use that here.
Bricker et al: You hate the government “stealing your money”? Well, you live in a society and that society has decided that it has a responsibility to help the less fortunate. And it has decided to use your money to help the less fortunate. Don’t like it? Fuck off somewhere else then. Go find a country that doesn’t make you pay taxes.
I bet there are a lot of people who would love to earn enough to have to pay the amount of taxes you do.