Entitlement America

[Curt James]

^ Thanks for the comments. There is a graph, but IM doesn't allow that the image on here.

If this data is flawed, I'll delete this thread.

But it caught my attention because "George4Title" first noted this.

I actually do not believe some of the stats, because they are not fixed, and may/may not apply in some cases.

But is this....exaggerrated or incorrect? Is this possible, in certain circumstances?

Voilà!

Perhaps they're not called Section 8 Rent Subsidies, but there must be some kind of rent assistance in PA. There are people living in the projects in much larger apartments than mine and reportedly paying only between $15 and $50 per month for their rent.

 

[GearsMcGilf]

There are a few things you can't really put a price on that make the more stressful job well worth it, such as not raising your family in the projects, your kids not going to school with everyone else knowing their on the free lunch program, and not having to look at your self in the mirror everyday with the shame of living on govt subsidies.

 

[LAM]

There are a few things you can't really put a price on that make the more stressful job well worth it, such as not raising your family in the projects, your kids not going to school with everyone else knowing their on the free lunch program, and not having to look at your self in the mirror everyday with the shame of living on govt subsidies.

like I stated before you obviously haven't done any research on the sociological problems in the US, the decline of the family and the source of why we even need such programs. god forbid if you actually learned another way of thinking other than the one you grew up with.

 

[Doublebase]

There are a few things you can't really put a price on that make the more stressful job well worth it, such as not raising your family in the projects, your kids not going to school with everyone else knowing their on the free lunch program, and not having to look at your self in the mirror everyday with the shame of living on govt subsidies.

I agree with this. I do not want to be on any free programs if I do not need to be. I am young, smart and healthy. I can go work and provide for my family. I understand some people cannot work. I agree that we need to help them. I also understand that a lot of people, who are just like me, but are lazy and would rather collect unemployment then work. Then they bitch and moan about not having money and say there aren't any jobs out there. Well when you sit home for a year then decide to go out job hunting, yeah, it's gonna be tough. You pretty much made yourself unemployable.

 

[GearsMcGilf]

like I stated before you obviously haven't done any research on the sociological problems in the US, the decline of the family and the source of why we even need such programs. god forbid if you actually learned another way of thinking other than the one you grew up with.

Wrong again. I believe there are a lot of sociological problems that cause more people to end up on the govt payroll. These problems have gotten much worse over the last 40 years. 70% of all black kids are born to single moms. We have a welfare system that actually encourages having more kids thru financial incentives. We have a 51% divorce rate overall. We have metal detectors in schools now. There are a lot of sociological problems that have led to the overall social decay of our society.

I don't think lack of entitlements is one of the causal factors. In fact, I think the expansion of it is not the only one, but one of many factors that have led to it. Single motherhood has been glorified since the feminist movement, where as the stay-home mom has been ridiculed as inferior and obsolete. In some cases, in black communities, there are 2-3 generations of families that haven't worked and lived off assistance. Uttering the word "god" in a public school or reciting the pledge is somehow taboo. Yet, passing out condoms like candy to jr. high students is something positive. There are almost too many factors to count. We keeps wondering why we're faced with all these social problems, yet keep on reinforcing the same behaviours.

 

[KelJu]

I agree with this. I do not want to be on any free programs if I do not need to be. I am young, smart and healthy. I can go work and provide for my family. I understand some people cannot work. I agree that we need to help them. I also understand that a lot of people, who are just like me, but are lazy and would rather collect unemployment then work. Then they bitch and moan about not having money and say there aren't any jobs out there. Well when you sit home for a year then decide to go out job hunting, yeah, it's gonna be tough. You pretty much made yourself unemployable.

I have always had a lot of pride over my accomplishments and the fact that I have done everything in my adult life without the financial assistance of my parents or the government. Unless you consider student loans assistance.

However, I also have a lot of pride for being smart enough to stop playing a game once I figure out that it is rigged. It very well may be the source of, or at least the catalyst for, my bitter hatred in the last few years that I have known that I have been getting fucked in the ass for quite some time and haven't really done anything about it. By the time the rich, the poor, and the government get their piece out of me, there is not much left over for me. Or at least that is how I feel.

 

[GearsMcGilf]

By the rich getting a piece of you are you referring to your tax $ going to bail out the big banks and other corps, those deemed "too big to fail"?

 

[KelJu]

By the rich getting a piece of you are you referring to your tax $ going to bail out the big banks and other corps, those deemed "too big to fail"?

No, the wealthy get my life mostly in terms of my production and time. Being a middle class skilled worker makes me and most of IM members the engine of our economy. We do our 40 and 50 hours a week, and there should be more payoff and incentive to keep the hamster wheel rolling.

I will give the wealthiest people the majority of my life in terms of production. The upper class will give very little back to me in this exchange. They will give it to the government instead. The government will take anywhere from %30-%40 of my money made from my production and give it to the wealthiest and the poorest. The poorest will take everything they can from the upper and middle class and give nothing back to anyone whether it is their intention or not.

You notice that the group that gives to everybody also receives very little or nothing from everybody else.

 

[Dale Mabry]

By the rich getting a piece of you are you referring to your tax $ going to bail out the big banks and other corps, those deemed "too big to fail"?

Or by starting wars that fund military contractors that game the system, not regulating wall street allowing those assholes to bundle up securities they knew were bad to sell to pension funds and 401k's, allowing banks to charge % on loaned money they don't even possess, by allowing Goldman Sachs to borrow at 0% and then lend that same money back to the government a few weeks later at a 3% hike, by selling treasury bonds then purchasing them at an inflated price from Goldman Sachs instead of the treasury at no cost, I could go on.

What I find absolutely humorous about anyone in the middle class that is Republican is that they are so worried about the poor catching up to them that they don't see the rich blatantly ripping them off. They are worried about the 10s of millions being paid out to the hundreds of thousands of people beneath them, but the 100s of billions that go to the few thousand people above them is no biggie. I mean it really doesn't surprise me, most if not all people are ignorant in general, and will react more strongly to a few soundbites than the data that actually shows them to be wrong.

 

[Dale Mabry]

I would like to point out that I do believe people should work for the money they get, especially at the bottom. Strap some orange suits on to those assholes and make them pick up trash on the side of the highway. However, this is a tiny drop in the bucket of where our tax dollars go. It would be like saying the nickel you dropped on the ground made you go bankrupt, not the $40000 you just spent on a Mercedes you can't afford..

 

[GearsMcGilf]

Well, everyone will never completely be equal in terms of smarts, motivation, wants/needs, work ethic, etc. Not everyone wants to be equal. No one's afraid of the poor catching up with them. I just don't think that redistributing 50% of everyone's wealth to the poor is going to bring them up unless there are some strings attached. The more that being dirt poor is made bearable by the govt, the less incentive people will have to work hard to pull themselves up.

As far as us middle class working for the rich and getting very little in return, that's just one of life's realities. I've never been offered a job by a poor person. If I only want to put in my 40-50 hrs per week and go home without taking the job home with me, then I can't expect to make a ton of $ from it. If I want more, I'm free to go out, risk everything I have and try to start my own company. It's just a normal trade off.

 

[Dale Mabry]

Well, everyone will never completely be equal in terms of smarts, motivation, wants/needs, work ethic, etc. Not everyone wants to be equal. No one's afraid of the poor catching up with them. I just don't think that redistributing 50% of everyone's wealth to the poor is going to bring them up unless there are some strings attached. The more that being dirt poor is made bearable by the govt, the less incentive people will have to work hard to pull themselves up.

As far as us middle class working for the rich and getting very little in return, that's just one of life's realities. I've never been offered a job by a poor person. If I only want to put in my 40-50 hrs per week and go home without taking the job home with me, then I can't expect to make a ton of $ from it. If I want more, I'm free to go out, risk everything I have and try to start my own company. It's just a normal trade off.

I would agree with pretty much everything here. My point is that about $.02 out of every dollar of that 50% you pay in taxes supports those poor folk, do you really think you are going to put a dent in $13,000,000,000,000 by cutting that? My point is that taking in an additional $600,000,000,000 in tax revenue will allow us to make a significant dent in the debt and we wouldn't have to risk public health in doing so, we would just have to take $.03 out of every dollar from people making $500k or more. If you raise them steeper on people making $10 million+ that could be paid off in no time, and I don;t think that would discourage people making that much from working. That is one of the most absurd things I have ever heard, raising taxes on those people would discourage them from working, the top tax rate was like 70% under Reagan.

 

[GearsMcGilf]

The 64,000,000,000,000 question here is, will the govt use that extra $ to reduce the national debt, or will they simply find other ways to spend it?

 

[Dale Mabry]

The 64,000,000,000,000 question here is, will the govt use that extra $ to reduce the national debt, or will they simply find other ways to spend it?

That's not a question, we both know they will spend it, I would rather they spend it here on the poor than overseas nation building in a sandpit.

 

[Dark Geared God]

I'm still waiting for that free cheese obama promised me

 

[GearsMcGilf]

I'm still waiting for that free cheese obama promised me

Well, sorry to burst ur bubble. But, it you're working for a living, there ain't gonna be any Obama cheese, or any other free cheese for that matter.

 

[Dark Geared God]

Well, sorry to burst ur bubble. But, it you're working for a living, there ain't gonna be any Obama cheese, or any other free cheese for that matter.

 

[LAM]

the federal budget deficit is a long term problem, still no end to the trade deficit until we come up with something new that the rest of the world wants and needs. sure there's lots of ways to trim the fat, radical solutions aren't even an option with a US economy based on ? and billions of US dollars owned to our fiends overseas.

US has been running a budget deficit since WWII, none of this solves the problem with stagnant wages and the middle class unable to continue current trends of SPENDING and paying bills and saving, one of the 3 has to decrease. current use economy is based on middle class consumption it accounts for 60%. deficit talk is nothing but a distraction from the main issue. extending tax cuts for the rich didn't boost R&D, increase jobs or have any real positive effect on the GDP the last time.

 

[Glycomann]

the "system" you are talking about was started way back in the colonies during the 1800's and was called the British Poor Laws.

if we really want to get technical about making budget cuts then we should do away with the EITC and all "entitlements" or tax credits for families. after all people should only have enough children that they can afford based on their income right? persons with no children should also have to pay less property taxes, etc. after all why should "they" be paying extra taxes to fund the public education for someone elses children?

I'm wondering exactly what type of darwinistic society many of you desire to have here in the US..

Maybe Debtors Prison would meet with their approval. That way once the financial system has raped everyone of every nickel through usury they can put us all in prison and take any land and properties that's left. That would be much more fair than the system we have today.