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This is all very nicely written and has lots of feel good in it, but I don't see any numbers or facts or anything like that to back it up. I have seen real hard numbers before on how much the bottom quintile contributes in taxes to the funding of the government, and how much the top quintile contributes to the funding of the government, and the hard numbers seem to say the opposite of what you're saying.
Would you care to find some hard numbers to back up your statements?
Numbers have a special appeal to those want to argue something they consider to be an open and shut case. Your numbers for example only reflect "earned income", as in the working class, high, or low. "Earned income" is only a very small slice of the wealth picture and the truly wealthy are not included in your stats. Anyway, here's some numbers you may want to consider:
Yes, that's what I'm asking you to define. So that I can show you how I get the numbers. I have to go through all of the programs and categorize them and add them up in order to show you how I get the number, and in order to categorize them correctly, I need you to define the categories. Because every time I define the categories, you tell me I'm wrong. So you define them, and I'll do the math.
So from the above, it looks like you want a category called "regular old poor people welfare" that includes all entitlement spending that is only based on means testing (how poor you are). And your other category is called, what, "not-regular welfare" that includes entitlement spending that is based on being old, disabled, injured, or unemployed.
Is that correct? That's pretty much exactly what I described in my last post, just stated in your words instead of mine.
For some reason I sometimes go for several days without getting updates on these threads. I'm talking about means tested programs, I've made it clear several times now. I'm not going to keep parsing words, you know what I'm talking about- I've already explained it & it is around 10-11% spending, not 37%. If you need further explanation, see jertheber's link from post # 281
Yes, but also remember that if you take the guy (or gal) doing a million dollars worth of work and only give him 100,000, he is going to stop doing a million dollars worth of work. And if you multiply that effect out through the entire middle and upper classes, it has a negative effect on GDP, progress, and the amount of taxes you can collect to redistribute in the first place.
It's a balancing act. Take enough from the rich to help the poor, elderly and disabled, but don't take too much or the you won't have anyone to take from anymore. And it's pretty obvious that a 90% tax is way past that line.
But the reverse side is that the rich who think they are taxed far too much and evade (Leonna Helmsley for example) or push for flat if not consumption based taxation (which again can cause a negative effect on GDP.) I would happen to disagree with you about the work ethic. I bring up the pre Kennedy tax code which saw MANY MORE marginal tax rates including a 90% marginal rate. People were still CEOs, CFOs, COOs, Presidents, Vice-President and other officers as well as business owners and board members back then. Then again, you didn't have high executive pay or golden parachutes or coffins like you do today (partly in place due to the rash of hostile takeovers by the T. Boone Pickens, Ivan Boeskys and Carl Is hand of the world.)
The problem with all this is the mothers have multiple children to get access to all these benefits and free money without doing anything else in life.
I'll give you an example: My brother had a 3/3 townhouse for rent in Homestead (south of Miami). You wouldn't believe the women that came to see it!! I'm talking women with 7-10 kids who could barely put a sentence together!!!! All telling my brother "don't worry, we have section 8 and welfare". My brother denied every one of them as #1 the HOA wouldn't allow it and #2 there was no way he was going to allow 8-11 people live in his house.
You people do not understand the amount of money women get per kid on welfare and section 8. It's beyond crazy. I've even thought of popping a couple out just for those reasons...
If you subsidize a behavior you get more of it. To our culture and societies detriment we encourage the shiftless, lazy, intellectually inferior, lawless, genetically damaged, and retarded to breed by providing accommodations for them.
It would make sense to sterilize both sexes as a condition of accepting public aid.
You'd be the first person to scream: Give 'em all they want! if one of these lazy, intellectually inferior, genetically damaged individuals, having their safety net taken away from them, threw a Molotov cocktail through your living room window, or sliced all 4 of your car tires some night!
Ending welfare is great recipe for a demagogue to come to power!
Numbers have a special appeal to those want to argue something they consider to be an open and shut case. Your numbers for example only reflect "earned income", as in the working class, high, or low. "Earned income" is only a very small slice of the wealth picture and the truly wealthy are not included in your stats. Anyway, here's some numbers you may want to consider:
1) The truly wealthy ARE included in the stats, because the stats were all inclusive of all US citizens. They may not have been labeled in the appropriate column according to your liking, but they were still there.
2) Numbers have a special appeal to those who like to see factual data without spin.
3) The article you posted was an opinion piece written by a liberal with a liberal bias on a website called "soapbox". Those types of article are 100% spin. In other words, you are being brainwashed to believe whatever the one side of the political spectrum is trying to make you believe. Good luck with that, I don't like being brainwashed thank you. I'll stick to my numbers.
I would like to kids who need a summer lunch actually have a voucher or something similar in hand, so people who aren't supposed to use it don't get the chance.
I remember an English show called Panorama that did a segment on America's poor. At one Las Vegas school, teachers started putting together lunches and meals for kids to take home when they found the kids were stealing ketchup packets so they could have tomato soup when they were at home. I guess if you're going to send food home with the kids, the least you could do would be to ask them if they ate it. It seemed to be a pretty successful program, though.
Thats kid of the food stamp program. Those who need assistance for food get a card. The summer program gives food to regardless of need because it is not about feeding hungry children.
I watched the segment and I'm pretty skeptical. Of all the segments on Americas hungry children I've yet to actually see hungry children. I see interviews with kids and families (none of whom look as though they are missing meals) and food kitchen workers but never actually seeing homes without food or explanations as to why the food stamp program is not providing enough. And why, if children are resorting to stealing catsup to make soup is this not reported to Child Services. There was a story where a family was reported because there kid said brownie which was construed as a racist remark yet actual hunger and neglect is not. If kids are actually hungry something is wrong in the home, parents are just neglectful or selling their food stamps instead of feeding their kids.
That's all well and good but it doesn't always happen that way. You plan to just let the kids not eat because their parents are in a bad way? Even if the parents are irresponsible - is starving their kids going to help anything?
In a bad way? A parent spanking a kid is considered abuse but starving them is not? Starving the child is merely "irresponsible".
Parents who are poor qualify for food stamps and many programs for their children. If they are not giving their kids food from their food stamp allowance they are guilty of severe child abuse/neglect. If the school feeds the kid, the parents should lose their food stamps until they decide to use that money for their kids, after being charged with child abuse. What if parents neglect child in other ways? Do they go to doctor, dentist, etc. They surely need to be investigated if they STARVE their own kid.
Schools could provide food in the meantime until the issue is sorted out. NOT as a full time ongoing program for whoever wants it. That is institutionalizing parenting on a large scale and it is wrong.
3) The article you posted was an opinion piece written by a liberal with a liberal bias on a website called "soapbox". Those types of article are 100% spin. In other words, you are being brainwashed to believe whatever the one side of the political spectrum is trying to make you believe. Good luck with that, I don't like being brainwashed thank you. I'll stick to my numbers.
How about this, prove the data on that website is wrong.
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