Meet Rand Paul

[MikeG22]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

I think it's all well and good that we should be concerned with the suffering in the world. And we should do something about it...after we do something about the suffering, and general safety here.

My feelings exactly. But unfortunately there will always be a need here so you will never have money to send in foreign aid.

The problem with assistance programs in the US is it seems like when you throw more funds at them they grow and are in need of more. You throw more, they grow more. Granted there is a ton of bureaucratic BS that eats up funds as well but why does that happen? Do folks on assistance just get comfy and don't change their lifestyle to get off it? Or maybe can't change their lifestyle to get off it?

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by MikeG22

My feelings exactly. But unfortunately there will always be a need here so you will never have money to send in foreign aid.

The problem with assistance programs in the US is it seems like when you throw more funds at them they grow and are in need of more. You throw more, they grow more. Granted there is a ton of bureaucratic BS that eats up funds as well but why does that happen? Do folks on assistance just get comfy and don't change their lifestyle to get off it? Or maybe can't change their lifestyle to get off it?

Despite what they would have us believe SS is fully fundeed about twenty years out. The problem is that Congress spends all that money on other things and gives SS IOUs in the form of Treasury bonds. Then the stupid Fed sets interest rates at zero so the bonds really earn very very little.

Then the economic activity that low interest rates are supposed to encourage does not take place. And of course retired folk who cannot afford to gamble at that big casino on Wall Street have their money in savings accounts that pay abouut 0.8% interest, so they can't even keep up with inflation.

Because our courts have been bought up allow companies to declare bankrruptcy and robe the funds from their defined benefit pension plans, so people who thought they were set up for retirement find themselves SOL. Then the taxpayer comes along with the pension guarantee program and gives these folks 50 cents on the dollar of what they were supposed to get. As long as this government is run by people like Donahue at the Chamberpot of Commerce then God blass the poor as they will always be with us.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by MikeG22

My feelings exactly. But unfortunately there will always be a need here so you will never have money to send in foreign aid.

The problem with assistance programs in the US is it seems like when you throw more funds at them they grow and are in need of more. You throw more, they grow more. Granted there is a ton of bureaucratic BS that eats up funds as well but why does that happen? Do folks on assistance just get comfy and don't change their lifestyle to get off it? Or maybe can't change their lifestyle to get off it?

I think there is a lot of politics driven mythology going on with this as well. I work with a lot of single mothers who at some point drew food stamps and/or welfare, usually when their kids were very young. It's not a permanent condition in every case and I'd bet there are fewer lifetime cases than the propaganda machine would have us believe. Those that exist probably do so in impoverished areas where there is little or no work or there is some other reason, physical/mental disability, drug addiction, etc..... However, people do leave the system as situations in their lives change. I saw a few examples of this when I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity.

Dave

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Entitlements are what the federal budget should be about. Health care, social security benefits, all the health and human services programs and infrastructure, highways and bridges, are where our tax dollars should be going.

I think it's all well and good that we should be concerned with the suffering in the world. And we should do something about it...after we do something about the suffering, and general safety here. Not that conservatives care much about the poor and middle class...who are paying the highest percentage of their income of any of us, and who are providing all the cannon fodder for our rich man's wars.

+1. Excellent post.

Dave

[barbara]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

I think there is a lot of politics driven mythology going on with this as well. I work with a lot of single mothers who at some point drew food stamps and/or welfare, usually when their kids were very young. It's not a permanent condition in every case and I'd bet there are fewer lifetime cases than the propaganda machine would have us believe. Those that exist probably do so in impoverished areas where there is little or no work or there is some other reason, physical/mental disability, drug addiction, etc..... However, people do leave the system as situations in their lives change. I saw a few examples of this when I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity.



Dave

Dave, it's been a few years since I've done the research, but, at any given time there are 10% to 14% of scammers in the welfare system depending on what state you are looking at. This percentage is a drastic reduction from prior to the welfare reform in 96/97. Also, welfare reform put a cap on benefits.

[donquixote99]

Social Security has always held nothing but treasury bonds. As long as there's a national debt nothing else makes sense. Why put cash in a 'savings account' when you're paying on debt at higher interest? In any case, the law has said that's what happens from day one of the program.

Funding from the trust fund is therefore an illusion. Always has been. Social Security will, however, always be fully funded as long as the US government can tax and borrow, and Congress chooses to fund it....

What burns my butt is all the politicians of both parties who accuse the other of 'raiding' social security. The raiding has always been 100% and always automatic. And what really burns my butt is the increases in FICA tax that are justified as insuring the 'future solvency' of the program. The money has always been spent immediately, some for current SS benefits, and the rest to help finance the current deficit. The surplus FICA money was never anything but a disguised income tax, and a very regressive one. It never did a damned thing for future benefits.

Politicians sure do lie a lot.

[4-2-7]

Originally Posted by MikeG22

My feelings exactly. But unfortunately there will always be a need here so you will never have money to send in foreign aid.

The problem with assistance programs in the US is it seems like when you throw more funds at them they grow and are in need of more. You throw more, they grow more. Granted there is a ton of bureaucratic BS that eats up funds as well but why does that happen? Do folks on assistance just get comfy and don't change their lifestyle to get off it? Or maybe can't change their lifestyle to get off it?

It's call government dependency and is the reason they do it. Governments want a dependent society to hold or gain power. They buy your votes with other peoples money until it runs out. We are getting to that point now and is why we have pushed the tax base out of this country ie: corporations. Now the dependents want to blame the corporations with the prodding of the government.

It's a cause and effect syndrome. The end result governments run out of money and the dependents end up rioting. Then they find out that they need to depend on themselves for there own destiny.

[MikeG22]

Originally Posted by 4-2-7

It's call government dependency and is the reason they do it. Governments want a dependent society to hold or gain power. They buy your votes with other peoples money until it runs out. We are getting to that point now and is why we have pushed the tax base out of this country ie: corporations. Now the dependents want to blame the corporations with the prodding of the government.

It's a cause and effect syndrome. The end result governments run out of money and the dependents end up rioting. Then they find out that they need to depend on themselves for there own destiny.

Right the government pushed the good honest happy tax paying corporations out. They didn't outsource jobs in an effort to become even more rich and profitable by taking advantage of dirt cheap labor. We should all be more grateful for the actions of these America loving corporations.

Ugh I can't even say it satirically without being sick to my stomach.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

I think there is a lot of politics driven mythology going on with this as well. I work with a lot of single mothers who at some point drew food stamps and/or welfare, usually when their kids were very young. It's not a permanent condition in every case and I'd bet there are fewer lifetime cases than the propaganda machine would have us believe. Those that exist probably do so in impoverished areas where there is little or no work or there is some other reason, physical/mental disability, drug addiction, etc..... However, people do leave the system as situations in their lives change. I saw a few examples of this when I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity.

Dave

Interesting, Dave. I actually spent the first 6 years of my social work career counseling mostly single mothers in a welfare to work program. This was back in the Clinton years when the new TANF programs were being rolled out. In my experience it was always tough getting a mother to go pick up an entry level job that would be giving her 75 bucks a month less in income than she had on the public aid, that she couldn't afford to lose. But we worked hard on helping her buy in to the possibility of having more income down the road than she would ever have on the TANF.

The other thing we found in our research was that the "hard core/long term" public aid recipients were often legitimately disabled and should never have been on welfare in the first place. Over 25% of the women in our program who had been on public aid for more than three years ended up being identified through the SS disability determination process as having deficits (intellectual, mental health, physical or some combination of these) significant enough to qualify them for SSD if they had enough quarters of work history, or SSI if they did not.

My work has taken me away from this population for probably a decade now, but I don't suspect that this has changed much. The government isn't interested much in helping identify disabilities, and if you've ever walked a client through the disability determination process you know that the government has gone out of it's way to make the process as difficult as possible for those who need it most. Particularly the people who have a combination of intellectual impairments and mental health problems...and for whom it's impossible to get through the disability determination process without some professional help.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by 4-2-7

It's call government dependency and is the reason they do it. Governments want a dependent society to hold or gain power...

Straight from the lips of Rush Limbaugh. FWIW, everybody who gets a steady check/benefits from the government ultimately depends on it to some degree, from farmers to oil companies to the military/industrial complex to homeowners with their mortgage deductions.