That’s a big assumption. But even presuming that every single recipient of AFDC benefits or Section 8 or food stamps is a multi-generational benefits user, it doesn’t change the fact that taking money away from people doesn’t help them. And in the question of children, when you keep talking about deterrence, you seem to forget that children cannot work, cannot buy their own food, nor take themselves to doctors. They have no choices. If you kick a bunch of families off of benefits, it’s children, who have no options, who suffer the most, physically, mentally and educationally. In what way is that acceptable?
Making it more difficult for current, existing, living people to have a safe place to live, nutritious food to eat, adequate and safe childcare and access to medical care doesn’t change the fact that there are families that cannot lift themselves from poverty. It punishes them for not being able to lift themselves out of poverty. I promise you that no one who is dependent entirely on government aid for the basics of living is living all that comfortably. Making it worse to prove a point, or for some political posturing is cruelty.
I see you assuming that women have babies they cannot afford because they know that there are programs that will aid them. I do not see how refusing that help, therefore penalizing the children fixes that problem. I don’t see how refusing that help addresses the needs of families that had means and lost them through job loss, illness and other uncontrollable circumstances. I don’t see how refusing that help addresses the needs of children whose parents walk away and refuse to pay support. (At any given moment, custodial parents are owed more than $70 billion in child support arrearages.)
You want to try to effect social change at the cost of people’s wellbeing, innocent people’s wellbeing. You want to test out your unproven assertion that a removal of aid will force self-reliance, and apparently, whatever happens in the interval between when the need arises and the ability to meet those needs is acquired (if it ever is) just doesn’t really matter.
I said "So, in other words, you see nothing wrong with continuing to spend piles of money on something that isn’t working? Yet you have a problem with me pointing out that it isn’t working?
Fine with me! Just, you pay for it OK?"
Where do you get “starving out single moms” from that? Why is it that those who want to keep throwing good money after bad have to exaggerate so much. I didn’t say “single” moms, I didn’t say “starving” - I didn’t even mention any particular plan or idea at all! Yet, you all must continually jump to these exaggerated conclusions of horror, simply because I don’t agree with you that escalating the support for all of these bad habits is the answer to elevate poor people.
Paid for by people who cannot afford more taxes, for what will most likely end up being lesser care. Have you had a look at how “well” the NHS is working in the UK these days? They want to cut benefits to save costs, but they will still pay for three rounds of IVF. The US middle class cannot afford the foot the bill for this, and I cannot see how anyone would think it would be a good idea, except those “working poor”. If you must make us provide them with health care, just extend Medicaid, don’t overthrow the whole health industry in this country.
At this point, far too many of them grow up to be parasites on society. And your idea to give these young, stupid, single moms even more entitlements while punishing the rest of us for daring to be responsible - this will cause how many of these young, stupid single girls to decide to not have a child? A child(ren) they are not prepared to raise to become contributing members of society. How is it a good idea to keep up with the status quo on all these young, stupid, single girls having babies that are born into a hole they will probably never dig themselves out of?
It always comes back to the kids, as if the adults are completely without value. How about we worry about the adults that are already here, who are working or could be working, instead of continuing to support their stupid, self-destructive habits? As for these kids being able to visit a doctor so they won’t be automatically ruined from the start, I really cannot see how being able to see a doctor is going to negate a lack of education, living with crime, most likely not being properly fed, lack of decent parenting and everything else.
It is easy to describe, in one phrase - generations of people living on some form of welfare. I already put this, with a cite, in a response to Tao.
I am not looking to win anything. I don’t know how else to describe a long post that seems to say - urm - nothing at all. Maybe it made more sense to the people you aimed it all at except for my part? OTOH, you saying that I am suggesting we starve out single moms isn’t exactly good debating either… :dubious:
It’s not a big assumption - did you see the cite in my response to Tao? Especially since I didn’t assume that every single recipient is multi-generational - I’d be willing to believe that the majority aren’t (tho I don’t know). However, there are a large number who are, who cost the taxpayer way too much already. Handing them even more certainly doesn’t seem like a way to encourage them to be responsible for themselves.
As for the children who suffer the most, believe it if you wish but I am simply not going to respond to the use of attempted emotional blackmail in a debate forum. You have no way of knowing that the children “suffer the most”, particularly since even if we withdrew every single benefit available to children, there are many charities that can pick up the slack. Particularly if they quit shipping their funds to children overseas.
Nobody said they are living comfortably, what has been said is that there are people out there who choose that lifestyle. The longer we treat them like, well, children by giving them housing, food, childcare and medical care without them having to do anything at all to earn it, the longer they are going to just sit by and complain because it isn’t enough. And if you want them to live someplace safe and actually eat nutritious food, you are going to have to spend even more money on that than we already are! Those section 8 housing developments that are being torn down are unsafe places to live, no matter what city they are in.
I don’t have any problem with there being a safety net for those who fell on hard times despite being responsible. My comments, for the last how many weeks?, have always been aimed at those who cannot be bothered to even try to be responsible. Such as your average teenage mother - how much of that child support lack is due to babies sired by 16 year old boys? Is this any way for responsible people to start their lives? Or, how much of the lack of child support payments is due to baby daddy marrying someone else and blowing a ton of debt on his second family? You can’t get blood from an irresponsible stone.
No. I said - “Do you not see any connection between making life easier for a woman simply because she has a baby, and her decision to have one she cannot otherwise afford?” Note the word “easier” in there. Such as providing cheap healthcare to the “working poor”, so they wouldn’t have to pay for the expense of having a baby themselves. We already have all the women who have and are raising children on Medicaid - you want the next step up the poor folks scale to be encouraged to have children they cannot afford to raise decently? Perhaps you haven’t seen all the articles where folks are suprised at how much it costs to raise just one kid these days? Don’t we have enough people who blither into parenthood without a clue or a plan as it is?
I’ve been busy so I’ve only just been able to get to the 2 new pages of angry rants by the Friends of the Working Poor and Downtrodden.
In their mind, the overriding factor in who should get what is “need”. Working mothers, starving children, whoever. Regardless of what choices they made or circumstances led them to their current plight, they are in need therefore someone should take care of them, regardless of the cost. Because it’s just money, right?
And what gets me is that these people have their hand out screaming “take care of me” (or at least advocation that position) and yet they have the gall to criticize those people are going to be strapped with the financial burden. When you use words like “ambition”, “education”, “investment” or “entrepreneurship” to describe the virtues of people who have achieved financial success, they twist them around and try to portray them as vices instead. In their world, only crooks and corupt politicians are ambitious. Education is only for the overprivilieged children of the upper classes. Investments are just tools for the rich to rob the poor.
For the same reason that their opponents prefer to exaggerate and present the world in overly simplistic terms.
I notice that both sides tend to engage in all sorts of absolutist declarations and attempts to portray what the other side “really” thinks.
It would be nice to see a discussion where that sort of polemic was omitted, but I certainly do not see that happening here, any time soon.
It is fine that various posters like to ask “why?”, but I would be more impressed if those asking “Why?”, (and those providing their boilerplate, partisan responses), would actually attempt to address the issues in an even-handed manner without the polemic.
Hmmm, let me begin here. It is an example of how I think you are polarizing the issue. Who says the rich are going to be forced to give ‘all their money’? The kind of tax changes I hear being proposed amount to undoing some of the favors Bush handed the rich. And savings from making things like Medicaid less of a cash cow.
I agree with you Curlcoat. It would take a lot of gall to take ‘all their money’ from the rich. It’d take a socialist maniac to boot. But this isn’t what is being proposed.
I hope I don’t sound overly semantic, but do you really think the plan is to ‘give all their money to someone else until they are no longer rich’? Or did you get carried away a little?
I don’t know that anyone has. However, what I said was “Which doesn’t even touch the gall of saying that simply because someone is rich, they should be forced to give all their money to someone else(s) until they are not longer rich…”. Which has been said by folks in here. There is a big difference between pointing out gall in a post, and saying that I believe that some politician somewhere is going to tax hell out of the rich, until they too are poor.
What is currently being proposed, and appears to be going down in defeat, is to tax only those who make over X ($300,000? I can’t remember). I have no idea how they propose to actually levy the tax, but history has shown that the rich are able to sidestep taxes to a greater or lesser degree, and that the middle class ends up footing the bill. I don’t think the middle class can take another significant tax. I’m also not sure that we even have enough rich people who can pay enough tax to cover what it would cost to set up and administer a UHC in this country. So, we tax the middle class or we just add it to the deficit, all to force the responsible to take even more care of the irresponsible.
It is comments like this that gave me the impression that you wanted to ‘starve out’ stupid, single moms. Sorry if I was putting words in your mouth, I hate it when people do that to me too. No irony intended.
When I think about families living on the public dole for generations, I think of the Kennedys or the Bushs. I know, they had good jobs, I know. I think the notion of the working poor living generation after generation on unearned handouts is a myth. It is something that would make people angry, sure, but I really don’t think its what UHC is all about. Can you cite some facts that would lead me to believe a majority of the working poor fit your characterization? And don’t you realize large numbers of low-paid workers is a big part of what makes it possible for others to get rich? The poor aren’t so unworthy.
It does seem like providing no benefits, like welfare or UHC, is in your view a kind of cure for poverty. But we’re talking about the working poor here. They are a big part of We The People. They and a lot of other people want their government to provide this service. Obviously you are strongly opposed, but I think you are distorting the issue into some kind of worst-case scenario.
Then he challenged me to come up with examples from the thread to support my point of view. I did this, and instead of hearing back from him I’m in a new conversation with you. But you’ve done it again:
Your position is founded on the notion that there are two separate groups of people: the responsible and the irresponsible. Or the ambitious and the no-ambition whiners and Rand puts it. You’re demonizing the poor and using the condemnatory judgment as an excuse to attempt to invalidate their participation in the democratic process. I think I have explained why the poor are not a crowd of mental and moral inferiors, and so your argument doesn’t work. I know, there are examples of losers who are poor, but there are losers in every demographic. Focusing on losers who are poor at the expense of the big picture is a distortion.
If you really think America can’t afford it, show me some real numbers. I think the nation as a whole would perform better if people could rely on basic care. I’m not disagreeing with you because I’m here to pick on you you know. I just think you are mischaracterizing the working poor.
What??? No. Not at ALL. Just donate SOME money to help folks on welfare. You know, you pay more in taxes for CORPARATE welfare then you do for HUMAN welfare!!!
Yes there are some people who are on welfare for multile generations…but most folks on welfare are on it for a little bit, to help them get through a rough spot.
Explain to me why in your mind it is better to give money to people for doing nothing all day than it is to give money to support the companies that would employ them?
Although I don’t think the government should be in the business of deciding which companies or industries should survive and fail.
What you fail to grasp is that you shouldn’t have the right to take ANY money because it does not belong to you.
Where did he suggest he had a right to your money? He doesn’t, but the government does. If you disagree with the Sixteenth Amendment, that is a personal opinion, but the fact is, the government does have a constitutional right to your money.
That’s fair. Depending on whose ox is being gored, opinions will vary widely. I think conservatives are concerned that the majority might not support their position.
How does what someone’s parents did or failed to do affect their need for housing, food and medical care? Should I deny you your SSDI because your parents were poor and didn’t contribute much to the SS system? If you did have a kid and in 25 years that kid lost their job and was holding onto their house by their fingernails, should we deny them foodstamps because you were on SSDI and therefore stopped contributing to the system and your family had cost the taxpayers too much already?
Children suffer the most because they are not in charge of their own destinies and they have no self-agency. A starving adult can cadge jobs or even commit crimes to feed themselves. A child cannot. Babies cannot tell their mothers not to water down their formula to make it last longer because without enough fat and calories they will grow up without proper brain development. And the charity canard is a just that, a canard. Why don’t you call up your local food pantries and food banks and ask them how things are right now? The demand for their services is growing – amongst families that get benefits as well as those who don’t – while their supply and their donations have stagnated. Charities cannot do all the work. People are slipping through the cracks already.
So people choose to be poor, then complain about it. And complaining is a reason to end programs, then? Is that what you’re arguing?
Here you go again, talking about things you know nothing about. Section 8 has nothing to do with housing developments. Section 8 is a housing subsidy program that allows lower income people to rent houses from private landlords in regular communities, by providing the landlords the difference between what the families can pay and the market rate rent. Four of the houses on my block have residents who are on the Section 8 program. Good neighbors. One takes care of our dog for us when we go out of town.
And how do you suggest we differentiate between the two and only allow the ones you consider “worthy” to take advantage of the safety net? And if the safety net doesn’t catch everyone who’s falling, aren’t we just creating hierarchies of the poor, and a caste system which says that the chronically poor or multigenerationally poor or the ones who need the most guidance are untouchables we don’t care about and aren’t going to help? Who is served by that?
What does that have to do with anything? If a 16 year old boy fathers a child, a court is not going to order him to pay significant child support. Child support is based upon a formula taking into consideration the non-custodial parent’s income. So no, the vast arrearage of unpaid support is not down to 16 year olds.
Well, by biology, history and law teenagers aren’t responsible people. That’s why we protect teenagers and assist them until they develop more intellectual power than hormonal and emotional power. Even when they do dumb things like following normal biological urges and have sex, which will from time to time (less frequently now than ever in history, as it turns out) lead to pregnancy.
Does it matter why someone isn’t paying court ordered child support? The fact is that many parents are not, to the tune of $70 billion in back support being owed at any given time, and in the meantime, those children need help which very frequently comes via the same benefits programs you say need to be defunded because they promote irresponsibility.
I noted the word easier. The fact is, you make the life of the woman easier so that her child, who has no choices in the matter, has the necessities of life. If you don’t “make life easier” for the mother, it doesn’t change how many babies are born, it changes the circumstances in which those babies live, and does so for the worse, and that has ramifications which ripple out into the entirety of our society. If you want to argue that more people are having kids because there’s a safety net, you’ll have to work out how that corresponds to our ever-dropping birth rate. You’re contending that Medicaid and food stamps are what’s keeping the rate from dropping even further?
Why in the world would you think that? I say people have been living badly on the government’s dime for generations, and you think I’m advocating starving people?
What welfare payments did they take?
Apparently, you have never met any - I used to live among them. I still know a few.
Which characterization? I have to ask because it appears that you are doing what many others do - jumping to negative conclusions simply because I don’t think it’s a great idea to create another taxpayer funded hand out. So I’d like to know exactly what you think my characterization of the working poor is.
I have never said that they are unworthy. Simply because I don’t think we should be handing people more free or way reduced fee stuff doesn’t mean I think they are “unworthy” of anything.
It all depends on what your interpretation is of my posts, and what you consider to be a worst case scenario. I have provided cites that show that we have generations of people living on welfare, and that those babies born to teenaged mothers do not have a good start in life, generally end up on aid, and are far more likely to end up teenaged parents themselves. This despite all of the things the government already provides.
Obviously, anyone who can benefit from a taxpayer supported UHC is going to want it, at least a majority of them, and the others who want it are the same people that have forced thru all of the other taxpayer paid programs we already have for both the “real” poor and the “working poor”. I have yet to see a reason why this is a good idea, both for those of us forced to pay for it and for a large number of those who get the aid.
We already do, and it’s a hell of a lot more than SOME. Particularly in California.
That isn’t the subject here, and I know zero about that.
That’s the point - you all want to focus on the people who only take a little bit and ignore all of the abusers. It is entirely possible that by handing people freebies for so long, you have created the “working poor” class by making them dependent on the government and/or given them a feeling of entitlement.
Are you at all able to discuss this subject without getting emotional and going off on tangents? I’m talking about welfare reform, not your need to make sure that babies have housing, food and medical care. What does how much my parents paid into SS have to do with anything? And why would you assume that any kid of mine would end up needing food stamps?
Back to the subject. What parents do, or fail to do, affects their children, probably for life. If children grow up in the projects watching their parents recieve a bunch of freebies from the government, surrounded by crime, having not been taught anything about delayed gratification or the value of earning what they recieve, seeing that teenage pregnancy is considered the norm and baby daddies don’t have to stick around - what sort of adult do you think they are going to become? Historically, they end up being the same sort of people their parents were for the most part. So, it doesn’t appear to be a good idea to keep treating these people as if Big Brother has to support them, does it?
I had to snip your next paragraph as I am sick and tired of reading all this glurg about the helpless and innocent babies as a reason to keep throwing all this good money after bad. As I said, I am simply not going to respond to the use of attempted emotional blackmail in a debate forum. You ignore that these helpless and innocent babies are already living extremely poor lives despite what the government gives their mothers, and seem to think that giving them free health care is the answer to everything. And you continue to ignore all of the adults out there who do not have any children to draw aid to them - they are living far worse lives.
I am pointing out the attitude that too many welfare abusers have. They take and take and then complain because what they are getting for free isn’t good enough. Doesn’t tend to create a desire to be responsible for themselves.
Go back and read your own cite. Some of the bigger cities built Section 8 housing (apartments) developments, where "A voucher may be either “project-based” (where its use is limited to a specific apartment complex; public housing agencies (PHAs) may reserve up to 20% of its vouchers as such.[7]) " If you had read my cite you would see it is an article about tearing down such a development in Atlanta.
Everyone. If the chronically poor don’t have some reason why they cannot work, then why aren’t they working? If they are chronically working poor, why are they not moving up? Instead of handing them food, housing and medical care, why do we address the reasons they are chronically poor instead of treating them like morons who cannot run their own lives?
You know that? You know that most unpaid support is not being paid by fathers that are perfectly capable of paying, they just don’t feel like it?
Check your facts - teen pregnancy is on the way back up again. Interesting that it happens when we have movies and TV shows based around how wonderful/easy/funny/anything but awful it is when a teen gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby. Where is that protection you speak of when that happens? Why are so many teen mothers even given the choice to keep their babies? In one of the third generation welfare families I know, it is because it is essentially normal for their girls to have their first baby at 15 or so and it is expected they will keep it. So, we have children raising babies, in poverty. Why can’t the government get the church out of the state and allow reproduction AND it’s long term results taught in schools?
So, you would rather ignore all these baby daddies that are not supporting the children they sire, and instead force the rest of us to pay child support? You have no interest in why that $70 billion you speak of isn’t being paid by the men who are supposed to be responsible?
You don’t know that, because it has never been even considered.
Oh good lord - that is the birth rate for everyone! You know, the responsible folks as well as the irresponsible?
