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Old 12-20-2014, 11:50 AM
 
Location: Pine Grove,AL
29,452 posts, read 16,378,207 times
Reputation: 5957

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Quote:
Originally Posted by 68551 View Post
Democrats are always voting for social programs for the poor....I would think year after year of more and more entitlements even you would be sick of footing the bill....We lived in Pa and retired to MI....When I looked at the voting preferences of both states the democratic votes were all centered in the counties around and in Pittsburg, Philia, and Detroit....and it swung the state to blue when almost all of the other counties in the state were red....Poor people tend to live in the cities, many are on welfare so of course they will vote for the candidate that will give them more perks....That is where I get that idea....Here's more fodder to get mad at me....I don't believe people on welfare should be allowed to vote!
They aren't contributing so they shouldn't have a say...They are part of the problem not part of the solution.
There are multiple flaws in your argument.

A Majority of Michigans governors in the last 60 years have been Republican, and the majority control of the legislature has been held by republicans as well, The same is true of Pennsylvania.

Again, you cant blame Democrats.

Second, All counties are not equal.

The cities have more people, and every individual person equals a vote, not blades of grass in a county.

there are 1.5 million people in Philadelphia County, there are 5,000 people in Cameron County. There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania, the bottom 35 combined do not equal the population of Philadelphia county.

There are 1.8 million people in Wayne County(Detroit), there are 2,100 people in Keweenaw County. There are 83 counties in michigan, the bottom 60 combined do not equal the population of Wayne County.


Voting is a fundamental right, Do you believe people on welfare shouldnt be able to own guns as well ?? Do you believe they should have no rights at all ?

Also, people on welfare arent the problem, we spend and waste money on things that cost far more than the poor people you are attacking.
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Old 12-20-2014, 01:38 PM
 
5,762 posts, read 11,607,537 times
Reputation: 3869
Social welfare is basically the cost we pay to maintain the appearance of a first-world nation (though there are some gaps, of course). It has more to do with macro-scale factors such as the economy's demand for human labor, which has been in gradual, fundamental decline since a lot of manufacturing processes were made more efficient or were exported since the 1960's.

We could cut off social welfare, but then the country would start to look like Brazil circa the 1990's, which is probably not what most Americans would want to see, even if they themselves were not receiving welfare services. So we pay a certain price to backstop the potential slide into that kind of impoverishment. It has more to do with keeping up appearances across the land than it does with any particular individual's specific circumstances. Individualizing the system is a tempting approach, but it tends to obscure the systemic function of these things.
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Old 12-20-2014, 01:51 PM
 
Location: Midwest
1,540 posts, read 1,119,845 times
Reputation: 2542
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsjj251 View Post
There are multiple flaws in your argument.

A Majority of Michigans governors in the last 60 years have been Republican, and the majority control of the legislature has been held by republicans as well, The same is true of Pennsylvania.

Again, you cant blame Democrats.

Second, All counties are not equal.

The cities have more people, and every individual person equals a vote, not blades of grass in a county.

there are 1.5 million people in Philadelphia County, there are 5,000 people in Cameron County. There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania, the bottom 35 combined do not equal the population of Philadelphia county.

There are 1.8 million people in Wayne County(Detroit), there are 2,100 people in Keweenaw County. There are 83 counties in michigan, the bottom 60 combined do not equal the population of Wayne County.


Voting is a fundamental right, Do you believe people on welfare shouldnt be able to own guns as well ?? Do you believe they should have no rights at all ?

Also, people on welfare arent the problem, we spend and waste money on things that cost far more than the poor people you are attacking.

I understand there are more people in the cities that in in the surrounding suburbs....My point is why would you want the people who are taking from (& not contributing to) the system having a say...Its not their money that is being spent....It is a stretch to say they shouldn't be allowed to have guns....I never said that ...My point is that the welfare people are mostly in the inner cities so of course they will vote for he politician who will provide the freebies.....The party that provides the most freebies to the poor is the Democrats....I am NOT saying no one should get welfare and to think that generation after generation of welfare families on the take is ok is just all shades of wrong in my book. I am trying to understand the reasons why liberals and Democrats think its ok when there could possibly be more people on welfare than workers to support them...Something has to give...Not to recognize that there is widespread abuse of the system is like hiding your head in the sand...
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Old 12-20-2014, 02:58 PM
 
Location: Pine Grove,AL
29,452 posts, read 16,378,207 times
Reputation: 5957
Quote:
Originally Posted by 68551 View Post
I understand there are more people in the cities that in in the surrounding suburbs....My point is why would you want the people who are taking from (& not contributing to) the system having a say...Its not their money that is being spent....It is a stretch to say they shouldn't be allowed to have guns....I never said that ...My point is that the welfare people are mostly in the inner cities so of course they will vote for he politician who will provide the freebies.....The party that provides the most freebies to the poor is the Democrats....I am NOT saying no one should get welfare and to think that generation after generation of welfare families on the take is ok is just all shades of wrong in my book. I am trying to understand the reasons why liberals and Democrats think its ok when there could possibly be more people on welfare than workers to support them...Something has to give...Not to recognize that there is widespread abuse of the system is like hiding your head in the sand...
The problem with your argument is that it is untrue on both of your key points.

1. People who are on welfare usually have a job or have had one at some point. I have never met someone on welfare who didnt fit into that category unless they were under 18.

2. The majority of people who live on those programs do live near cities, but that is because of population, not because of them being in the cities themselves. I live in a town of 8,000 and there are people on welfare here. Its not a city or Democratic thing. Its a people thing.

Also, you keep restating the lie that its democrats doing this, but history shows its republicans who control the states you used as examples. If it was really the Democrats who were so bad, then Republicans would have cleaned all this up seeing as they had Legislative majorities in the same years they had the Governorships.

You also chose to argue that a fundamental right of voting should be taken away, then how can you say taking away their guns is a stretch ??????

Last but not least, you said you hate generalizations and yet the last 3 sentences of your rant is just that. And all of it is untrue.

There are not more people on welfare than there are working, and Democrats and liberals would not be OK with it if it was.

And fraud being in the system is not debatable, there is fraud, I have seen no one dispute that which is again why it looks like you are trolling and why it looks like you are a hypocrite (generalizing).
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Old 12-20-2014, 03:06 PM
 
Location: Iowa, USA
6,542 posts, read 4,075,753 times
Reputation: 3805
Quote:
Originally Posted by 68551 View Post
To me it is fundamental.....Welfare as we know it should not exist.....Not for decades upon decades...Not generation to generation...
I am really trying to understand your side since I don't see any logical reasoning for it...
Should people get help when they genuinely need it...Of course!!!

1) Should people be able to abuse the system because of their bad upbringing as an excuse???
2) Should welfare recipients be able to sell food stamps?
3) Should they be able to buy anything they want with it?
4) Should they not be expected to earn their keep by doing some kind of work or service for the community?
5) Should welfare recipients be able to bring child after child into this world without any means to support them & without a mom and dad?
6) Why don't you care if they learn and speak English?

I am sincerely wondering how welfare entitlements grew to epidemic proportions....without any stop gaps enacted.
Welfare should not exist. Not because it creates dependency or promotes laziness, but because ideally we wouldn't have enough people living in enough poverty to have a need for a welfare program.

I numbered your questions for the sake of organization:
1) No. The system is being abused and has flaws in it to make it so much easier to do so. However, both sides are being unhelpful. The liberals want to keep it as is in hopes that welfare will start working once conservatives back down (in other words, it will fix itself); but the conservatives want to remove the system entirely without offering an alternative solution, besides relying on the free market, which will not work.

2) I don't really care if they sell food stamps. It's on them if that gets them into trouble.

3) They should be buy anything they need with welfare. Rather or not they should be able to buy whatever is irrelevant.

4) If they had a job, they wouldn't need welfare. Ideally, welfare would work like a contract. You get it for a while with the assumption that it gives you sufficient access and time to other job opportunities. Once you run out of time, you're out of time (obviously, some conditions would apply here). In short, yes, but if at any point their unemployed, they deserve some leeway.

5) This is a separate issue entirely. The answer is no, they shouldn't, but we have a societal issue regarding sex. We somehow manage to be both very liberal and conservative in our views of sex. It's fine if its on TV or advertising, but if it's with real people, you never speak of it. Not to mention how poor American sex education truly is. I can't speak for everywhere, but I was taught abstinence in 8th grade (only grade in which I had any kind of sex education course) which is not even actual sex education. So this is a bigger issue that just welfare.

6) It's trivial. Since their surrounded by English, they'll likely end up picking it up eventually anyway. If they need the welfare, what language they speak seems like a pretty unnecessary detail.


The welfare system needs to be improved, not removed. Neither the Democrats or Republicans have proven to be helpful in this regard (or anything; seriously, why do we keep voting for them?).
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Old 12-20-2014, 03:17 PM
 
9,470 posts, read 6,945,580 times
Reputation: 2177
Quote:
Originally Posted by tablemtn View Post
Social welfare is basically the cost we pay to maintain the appearance of a first-world nation (though there are some gaps, of course).
You are entirely incorrect.

It is the price we pay to maintain a permanent, insular, corrupt political class in power.
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Old 12-20-2014, 03:20 PM
 
5,762 posts, read 11,607,537 times
Reputation: 3869
Political classes are plenty corrupt in nations without much social welfare. I would not, for example, cite Guatemala's political class as anything but "permanent, insular, and corrupt," and yet, they don't spend much at all on any sort of social welfare. It's a "pay to play" system down there.
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Old 12-20-2014, 03:27 PM
 
2,777 posts, read 1,773,996 times
Reputation: 2418
What I don't understand is how people think you can just cut off people's welfare and there won't be massive riots, a huge spike in the crime rate, widespread public unrest, etc. I mean, you can't just stop doing something because you don't think it's fair or you don't like people who try to cheat the system... you need to look at the implications of getting rid of it.

Maybe if it was possible to just go into the countryside and do your own thing this would be okay, but everything is owned and it costs money just to exist. You can't go anywhere without trespassing or being subject to removal by the police. We're literally on the verge of having to pay corporations just to breathe their air or drink their water (the latter is already happening in other countries) or be charged with theft.

Ideally, you would give people jobs in exchange for a decent lifestyle, but capitalism is about supply and demand, not helping people because it's the right thing to do. If the jobs aren't there, corporations aren't going to hire people just to help them out. This is a big part of why capitalism is going to collapse-- it can't expand without people who are able to buy things, but at the same time the people at the top aren't willing to give people enough money to buy things.

The right-wing solution is just to pay more cops and build more prisons, but prisons do a lot more to create and organize criminals than to actually fight crime, and the kind of micro- police state you see in the ghettos and black neighborhoods comes with tensions of its own.

The only real alternative to welfare is to set up a military dictatorship and simply kill anyone who can't find work, which judging by a lot of the comments I've seen here, I'm sure a lot of people on this board would fully support.

Or, I suppose you could simply arrest people for not having jobs, and if the prisons were nice enough and had good drugs, quality entertainment, sex, and decent food, they wouldn't complain so much.

Last edited by Spatula City; 12-20-2014 at 03:35 PM..
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Old 12-20-2014, 04:29 PM
 
Location: Midwest
1,540 posts, read 1,119,845 times
Reputation: 2542
No one is talking about discontinuing welfare entirely...We are paying a lot of money (not the majority of the budget as some have suggested) but wasted money is still wasted and paying generation after generation of the same families welfare is ridiculous...My dad owned his own HVAC company....Every fall he had to go to the section 8 housing to replace copper pipe that had been removed by the residents for money from the scrap metal. My parents had rental units and instead of the government paying the landlord they gave the money to the tenants who spent it and never paid the rent....Yes, my parents eventually kicked them out but it took over 6 months of going through the necessary government channels and they never got that money back...One service call my dad went on was for a wonderful black lady who went to work every day....She endured sarcasm from her next door neighbor every time she was in her yard and the neighbor saw her. The neighbor would taunt her and say "You are stupid for going to work every day, all I have to do is go to my mailbox and get my check!!" The welfare mom was making more money than the working mom....
We saw a 60 minutes show about 2 different single moms, one on welfare and one that worked...After paying transportation, child care and working a 50 hour week the working mom had less money than the welfare mom...
Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions....Downs Syndrome people, mentally challenged and those physically unable to work need a safety net...But this is a very small percentage of the people on welfare...I did not say that there were more people on welfare than are working....I said if it continues on the road we are traveling there will be a time that will happen....There won't be anyone to pay the bills. Liberals are called bleeding hearts for a reason, they genuinely feel bad for other peoples bad luck and want to help them but when people stay stuck and always want a handout it is time to stop the money machine...Get tough and make people accountable.
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Old 12-20-2014, 04:45 PM
 
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
10,471 posts, read 15,795,891 times
Reputation: 6435
Quote:
Originally Posted by 68551 View Post
No one is talking about discontinuing welfare entirely...We are paying a lot of money (not the majority of the budget as some have suggested) but wasted money is still wasted and paying generation after generation of the same families welfare is ridiculous...My dad owned his own HVAC company....Every fall he had to go to the section 8 housing to replace copper pipe that had been removed by the residents for money from the scrap metal. My parents had rental units and instead of the government paying the landlord they gave the money to the tenants who spent it and never paid the rent....Yes, my parents eventually kicked them out but it took over 6 months of going through the necessary government channels and they never got that money back...One service call my dad went on was for a wonderful black lady who went to work every day....She endured sarcasm from her next door neighbor every time she was in her yard and the neighbor saw her. The neighbor would taunt her and say "You are stupid for going to work every day, all I have to do is go to my mailbox and get my check!!" The welfare mom was making more money than the working mom....
We saw a 60 minutes show about 2 different single moms, one on welfare and one that worked...After paying transportation, child care and working a 50 hour week the working mom had less money than the welfare mom...
Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions....Downs Syndrome people, mentally challenged and those physically unable to work need a safety net...But this is a very small percentage of the people on welfare...I did not say that there were more people on welfare than are working....I said if it continues on the road we are traveling there will be a time that will happen....There won't be anyone to pay the bills. Liberals are called bleeding hearts for a reason, they genuinely feel bad for other peoples bad luck and want to help them but when people stay stuck and always want a handout it is time to stop the money machine...Get tough and make people accountable.

31 million children low‐cost or free lunches each school day
55.7 million people on Social Security.
65 million people on Medicaid April,2014.

Yeah. Lots more welfare people out there.

Gee, what if all those people had to get money from someone besides Uncle Sam. Woo. I bet that would leave a mark in the ol' budget.
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