She’s on disability, not social security/retirement, OK? This is NOT her retirement money we’re talking about, because she didn’t work until retirement age.
Her being unable to work due to a disability is no more (and no less) her fault than someone accepting government money because their house burned down or was washed away in Katrina or a wildfire got out of control or corporate America decided to shed millions of jobs at once, unemploying millions of people who did nothing wrong. Yet she looks down on everyone else who takes government money for any reason, basically accusing them of being welfare queens and “on the dole for life” when, in fact, it is SHE who now has a indefinite allowance going forward, instead of being cut off after five years (TANF) or 18 months (SNAP) or 6 months (unemployment, without extensions, 99 weeks maximum extension) or whatever the defined limit of various programs happens to be. If it’s OK for her to take money from the government then it should be OK for those others qualifying for assistance to take money.
Now is NOT the time for blame, now is the time to act. The guilty party, whoever they may be, will be discovered and held accountable. Though in my opinion, if you want to see who’s guilty, go look in a mirror. I’m not picking on you specifically, I even know that I’m somewhat to blame for this, in some small way. We all are. but those who have caused the most trouble, the instigators will stand for their crimes in the end.
I believe the technical term is bullshitting. Here’s a chart comparing policy changes of 2 Presidencies, GWBush (2002-2009) and Obama (2009-2017), with some spending plans going forward. You have to read it carefully, since Obama will probably propose new spending over the upcoming years. Still, there’s no way you can look at that and say that Republicans care about the deficit: they just a) use it as a tool to bash the Dems with it and b) use it to paper over proposed cuts to the safety net.
That said though… look at the sort of plans that they’ve rejected. Reid recently proposed a plan with 100% spending cuts that they don’t like. Here’s the link again: what Republicans say they want differs from their actual agenda. Forget about their words: track their behavior.
Er, what? They want to keep their jobs and capture the Presidency.
Well, this economy is fixable, given sufficient stimulus. The Repubs would presumably pass huge tax cuts if they got into office.
With all due respect, your posts lack a certain level of substance to them. Again, federal spending declined as a share of GDP during the Clinton era, and he achieved budget surpluses. To the extent that he doesn’t get credit for that, it’s a problem, right? Right?
In my experience many conservatives who are not on disability are highly suspicious of disability. They conceive of it as welfare. Social security is thought of differently.
To me, all of this is safety net stuff. That said, the Federal Government is basically a large pension plan that happens to have an army. Slashing welfare for the non-elderly won’t get you very far: I wouldn’t call the sums trivial, but they really aren’t a big part of the budget, though they get a lot of play by the less than wholly informed.
If the House Republicans were serious about acting, they would be negotiating a bipartisan agreement with the Senate. Instead they’re basically busy trying to evade blame. The media will let them, because otherwise they will be accused of bias by whiners.
Wishful thinking.
No, you look in the mirror. The first step is to understand the world as it is, not how project it to be.
Backing up some, non-parliamentary systems depend upon bipartisanship. The Republicans aren’t interested in this: Mitch McConnell is pretty explicit about that. He has a strategy of obstructionism. Thus the system breaks down. There’s a reason that Presidential democratic systems survive for shorter periods of time than parliamentary ones.
If that’s so, then I want to change my reply to Ravenman’s analogy by reversing it: it’s not that she wants back the money she paid an insurance company because nothing bad befell her; it’s that she was forced to buy an insurance policy and now collects on the payout. I’m still not seeing a problem on her side; it’s like someone swiping money out of my wallet to buy lottery tickets and then presenting me with the winnings.
Right - and people who are on unemployment paid into that (or their employers did) as a form of insurance, yet I see people (not necessarily in this thread - yet - but otherwise) criticizing those who accept unemployment. I worked 25 years before being laid off and paid my taxes and likewise see things like foodstamps as a form of safety net/insurance, paid for by my taxes to be there if I ever needed them. You do NOT just walk into a public aid off and say “gimme money” - my application for aid ran to 30 pages and was a cross between doing my taxes and taking a test. Nor is the aid indefinite in length - ALL of these programs have sharp cut-offs. NO ONE is ever on aid for life anymore, unless they’re on some sort of disability like curlcoat - which is appropriate because if someone can not work then they shouldn’t be left to starve.
Unfortunately, with discussions of not sending out money for things like social security, disability, food stamps, etc. then that is exactly what will happen - the poorest and least able to fend for themselves will be left to starve, lose their housing, and so forth.
But, as you say, you’re not seeing that in this thread. You’re seeing, as far as I can tell, someone being called a hypocrite for getting a return on an investment she paid into – sure as you “worked 25 years before being laid off and paid my taxes and likewise see things like foodstamps as a form of safety net/insurance, paid for by my taxes to be there if I ever needed them.” I don’t see that anyone who sticks up for that must – to be consistent – endorse all government payouts, up to and including those made to folks who never purchased insurance to begin with.
The key component is that there is a subset of conservatives who can’t possibly imagine that there can be a tremendous benefit to various things that the government does that may not benefit every single person in the country.
Social Security is not optional because it spreads risk around every working person in the country and returns the benefit of not having to deal with poor and indigent old or disabled people. As George Will once said, Social Security is the most fantastically successful government program in history. I’m not accusing that other poster of being a hypocrite, I’m accusing the other poster of being stupid, short-sighted and greedy.
Same thing with public education. It is a huge benefit to the country. Just like Social Security, everyone contributes to it, relatively few benefit directly, but everyone benefits indirectly, and substantially. Anyone who complains about public education (not the other poster we were talking about, but there have been such people on this board) is stupid, shortsighted, and greedy.
Right now, most people receiving government benefits are like me - people who paid into the system.
The “welfare queen”, “on the dole for life” people all got cut off no later than 2001. They’re gone. OK, there are a very few coming as young adults but they are required to either look for work or get educated as a condition of receiving aid. And by “looking for work” that means documenting who you applied to, who you talked to, where an interview took place, how long the interview was, who interviewed you… And the aid workers do call the prospective employer to confirm the details. It’s much more intensive than what’s required to receive unemployment insurance payments. Those in school are required to maintain a certain minimal grade average. If those conditions are not met aid is discontinued and, in most cases, they must wait at least six months to reapply.
For those like myself, who are employed but very low income, we must detail every aspect of our incomes and submit it on a regular basis. Really, it IS comparable to doing my taxes all over again every three months, it’s that much paperwork. Of course, part of the reason is because, since I couldn’t get anyone to hire me (yes, I did the document-the-work-search thing for awhile, that’s why I know about it) I started a small business. Of course, since my assets were down to around $1,000 at that point and no one would lend me money it’s woefully undercapitalized and growing extremely slowly. Alright, it’s not growing at all, just barely holding even, but I am working, just not as much as anyone would like, and having to submit detailed reports on every aspect of the business, my home expenses, etc. When my Dad fronted me the money to travel to Buffalo to see the family I almost lost all that because it put me ten dollars over the income limit that month, and I had to get signed affidavits from not only Dad but every adult in the house I visited swearing up and down I was a blood relative and they weren’t supporting me in any way, I wasn’t living there, etc. for a one week visit. This notion that you can simply collect and collect and collect with no one watching you is wrong - aside from fraud, of course.
(Of course, some folks later told me the mistake was Dad sending me a check which went through my bank account. Public aid does require I give them access to my bank record as a condition of aid. Silly, former middle class me is just used to dealing with checks. Apparently, most of the savvy recipients either use Western Union or send cash through the mail… which, of course, is a reason people do that, despite it being a bad idea, because it’s fucking stupid that someone being given $80 for gas and food for 1,000 mile round trip to visit relatives might lose their needed aid over it)
Oh, and I’ve been audited twice in the past three years - once while on unemployment, once while receiving food stamps. It sucked, although I was able to supply the needed information fairly quickly.
All too many people assume “welfare” is the same it was in, say, the 1970’s. It’s not. It hasn’t been for 15 years. It is MUCH more limited, controlled, and policed. The notion that most of the people using the social safety net never paid into the system is woefully outdated. Most of them have. Most of them will again, once they’re back on their feet, but right now instead of taking six months to find a job it’s taking some people years to do so.
And yet, people still do it. This was just the first (non-UK) link I hit on a Google search - note, I have no idea if the site is biased or not. Plus, all you have to do to stay on just WIC in California is have a baby every five years or so, and even that is fuzzy. I can’t even find a limit on how long one can stay on food stamps or MediCal/DentiCal - apparently as long as you have children, you can get benefits. Add that to the cites I provided in an earlier thread about the two and three generations of welfare families in (I think it was) the Atlanta area.
And, of course, I am not talking about those folks, and, of course, you continue to choose to pretend otherwise.
Well, if the government decides to continue to pay them…
As I said, you would not have a problem with this if my views on welfare agreed with yours. Therefore, I’m not too concerned with what you think about my disability payments.
“Her” money, and I know this. However, this does not negate the fact that the feds took this money from me for 35+ years and said I could have it back when (not if) I qualified for it. State Farm has never said that to you.
Exactly. I don’t know why folks other than Broomstick (who is negatively biased) have so much trouble with this - perhaps they are just much younger than I am and didn’t grow up and begin their working lives with the “iron clad promise” that was Social Security back then.
Will you please quit lying about what I have said? I have told you, specifically, that is not true, yet you trot it out at every opportunity. If the only way you can win a point is by lying, I suggest you revisit your motives.
So, in a nutshell, you are saying that the Republicans plan to do as much as they can to block any revival of the economy until the next presidential election, in hopes of getting one of their own in office?
I wouldn’t doubt that - I quit paying close attention to this around the Nixon years and any attention when Bush Sr was in office. OTOH, I am not sure that who the President is makes that much difference in the long run - one of the reasons that I gave up paying attention is that who the POTUS is makes zero impact on me, and it never has. Since I cannot control what he is doing, nor what Congress is doing, and since it isn’t affecting me, it just seems like there is no reason to spend the time, effort and brain cells on it.
Wouldn’t there be a bigger benefit as you go up in income, due to the fact that there was more income to tax to begin with? That’s probably not clear- what I am trying to say is looking at raw numbers might be misleading since someone making $1 million is paying more tax to begin with than someone making $20,000. It also doesn’t say anything about whether all else was equal - was the $20,000 writing off four kids vs whatever people who make $1 million write off.
I don’t think so, if you are looking at it beyond the last couple of decades. It may be true that our current crop of Republican leaders in DC are a pack of hyenas, but to paint the whole party with that same brush? And try to pretend that the opposite party is all sweetness and light? Seems extremely illogical if nothing else.
What these people are up to is an effort to take a one-off election victory, and use it to permanently alter the government of the USA, and alter it in such a way as to make it effectively impossible to turn back. They are trying to destroy the “majority rules” premise of our government, much like they did when they make 60 votes in the Senate the effective limit by screaming “filibuster!” every ten minutes.
Its no longer about persuading a majority of the people to agree with you, its about denying and destroying the capacity of a majority to govern. They see themselves as losing the game, and so they want to change the rules. And they are desperate enough to take any chance, risk any disaster, to have their way.
Then please name a STATE dole you can stay on for life. Or a county or any other level of “dole”.
It contains gross inaccuracies.
It says welfare needs to be temporary - it IS! Since 1996 no one get lifetime benefits anymore (unless it’s disability, like curlcoat)
It says those on welfare need to document a job search - this is already the case. You must either be looking for a job, in school, or employed (because yes, you can be employed but so low income you qualify for some type of assistance, which will be scaled according to your income.
My public aid office is plastered with signs about workshops on basic decorum, interviewing skills, etc. They don’t insist on “office decorum” because not everyone works in an office but they certainly offer them.
Tutoring programs for children on welfare? Lets begin with Head Start, which has been around since 1965 and go from there. There ARE such programs for children on welfare, there have been for decades, and the biggest problem is lack of funding.
So… you grabbed the first thing you found on Google and it’s full of misinformation. Good job. :rolleyes:
Right, because it’s for pregnant and breastfeeding women and their infants. There are huge societal savings to making sure pregnant women get adequate nutrition Or would you rather foot the lifetime bill of someone with, say severe spina bifida that could have been prevented with a better diet for his or her mom? Because, you know, hydrocephalus, paralysis, and wheelchairs are so damn cheap, right? It kicks in every time a woman gets pregnant, and contrary to what you believe, not every woman on welfare is a baby machine.
No more than three months out of every 36 UNLESS you are either working or in a “work program” - meaning training, program to get you employed, or school. If you can’t be arsed to do one of those three you’re cut off after three months. If you are doing one of them then you can continue to receive benefits.
This shouldn’t be hard for you to discover.
Hey, those are *your *state programs, why would I know anything about them?
No. There is a five years out of a lifetime limit on “welfare” benefits, now known as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families or TANF. Let’s take a hypothetical “welfare family” - mom and first kid go on TANF. After five years, their benefits are exhausted for the rest of their lives. Oh! But mom has a new baby! Well, OK, she gets WIC for that pregnancy… but mom and the first kid can never get TANF again. She gets it for the second kid, for five years… and is now supporting three people on an allotment sized for just one. Has another kid? She’s supporting four people on the allotment for one.
And, of course, since mom burned through the kid’s lifetime amount of benefits when they were infants/toddlers these kids can NEVER get that assistance again - if they have a baby at 18 they can NOT get TANF for themselves. Ever. They’ll get an allotment for the kid, but not for them, so they’ll be supporting two on the allotment of one.
And it only applies to people with children. I can NEVER get TANF because I never had children.
By the way - the 60 month limit is the maximum. States are free to set shorter time limits. If your state doesn’t and you think that’s a good idea, well, call you’re state reps and give them an earful. Oh, and a child’s paternity must be declared for TANF to be received, as when that happens, the state goes after daddy for child support, at least in my state. If paternity is not declared then nothing.
Since 1996 it has been impossible for a person to be on “welfare” for life. Impossible. I don’t doubt there is persistent poverty, but then, when you cut off benefits after five years whether the family’s lot in life has improved or not why are you surprised they never climb out of the hole?
Given the gross inaccuracies in your other “research” I question the validity of these so-called multigenerational welfare families you claim exist.
I dislike you because you’re a raging hypocrite. You look down on people who receive any sort of government assistance yet receive money monthly from the government. You are hateful, disdainful, and assume anyone who is poor is filthy human trash. Yes, I despise you.
No, the money you’re taking now you had to qualify for. When you’re 65, THEN you get the money you were promised if you lived long enough.
When Republicans establish their credentials with long-dead statesmen like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, or even Reagan or Goldwater, you know they’re desperate.
We don’t assign blame to present-day Germans for what the Nazis did. For the same reason it makes no sense whatsoever to assign credit to the “Republicans” of today for GOP behavior when it was a legitimate Party not operated, as today, by lunatics and hypocrites for the benefit of an evil elite.
I snipped a bunch of stuff from this post because Broomstick is apparently using the laws in her state re: welfare to tell me what my state is doing.
The question was, “how does one stay on welfare for life”, not “is any given program a good idea”.
<more snippage for the same reason>
Since you were trying to do so for other programs, why stop now?
Even Wiki doesn’t agree with you on this one. “In enforcing the 60-month time limit, some states place limits on the adult portion of the assistance only, while still aiding the otherwise eligible children in the household”
Which, of course, I have pointed out numerous times.
When did this become about you? Oh, that’s right - you have an issue with me having a better standard of living than you, or that you think I deserve, or whatever it is.
<more snippage of stuff that has nothing to do with the subject>
Except, they don’t cut them off here. Perhaps in your state, but not here.
HA! You despise me for things you have made up out of whole cloth! What a twit.
Uh, the difference between qualifying due to disability and qualifying due to age at retirement is…?
I am not a Republican, I am not trying to establish anyone’s credentials and I am not talking about anything as far back as Roosevelt or Lincoln. Broomstick has already made an idiot of herself (again) for jumping to conclusions, I don’t think we really need two.
In an article from Reuters we learn that the debt deadline is just more bullshit from the libtards:
I think we should start calling it ObamaScare, rhyming with ObamaCare, to help people remember this man’s cynical methods.
I still believe the debt ceiling should not be raised by a single penny until a Constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment is passed, but righteous thinkers need to wait until August 14 to start that process, to ensure there is real pressure on the Democratic Socialists. Those who say one day is not enough time to pass a Constitutional Amendment are just too used to the glacial pace of government workers when Democrats are in charge.
Also at Reuters we learn this:
A lousy $100 billion and the libtards are getting all into a tizzy about it. They didn’t think that was a lot of money when they wanted to steal it from the rich or give it all to welfare bums. They pretend it’s not a lot of money when they waste it on the space program, nanny government programs like Head Start or propaganda like NPR. But now they’re boo-hooing about it as if they were the ones who really love America.
