DISQUS

Anonymous · 5 months ago

If you examine social programs closely you'd know that they provide so little that no one with a sense of pride and work ethic would be on them for one DAY longer than necessary.

"And when that happens, and it will, nobody will be left to make the milk."
Go ahead Happy, I challenge you. If this is inevitably where our country is headed, and if those people on welfare have such a SWEET deal, go ahead and join them. You first, and then fill in the remaining working world on your experience and how wonderful it is....

Yeah right. It's a laughable notion.

midwest woman · 5 months ago

Yes ALL poor people are living off the backs of rich people. ALL poor people are just lazy users and abusers. ALL rich people have worked hard to get their share. ALL rich people deserve everything because well they're rich.
Rich people have NEVER gotten rich off the backs of poor people. NEVER. NO rich person is rich because Daddy was rich.
Happy I get the gist of your argument but the fundamental concept of the advantaged helping the disadavantaged isn't a bad one. It says something about your soul and your character.
No the present system isn't working...just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Fend for yourself · 5 months ago

MWW: The fundamental concept of the advantaged helping the disadvantaged is one that should work itself out in private charities, not by legislating your morality through the tax code whilst simultaneously eroding the tax deduction people get for donating to charity. When this stuff happens, the message that the administration is sending is that the government should be the biggest charity, and that they don't like competition from private charities. Dependent voters are dependable voters, and how are you supposed to get re-elected when the voters no longer need you.

I am getting so sick of hearing this class warfare BS. It doesn't matter how people get rich. The bottom line is that life isn't fair. As the government and voters persist in trying to make life fair, we'll continually sacrifice our freedom. The dependency agenda of this administration is going to wreck this country, as Happy points out. While I'm sorry to use you as an example Midwest Woman, its exactly your kind of rhetoric that encourages class warfare and teaches our children that success, luck, and good decisions are penalized in our country.

Nobody disagrees that on some level, the wealthy are responsible for the poor. However, in the same way that right wing social conservatives try to legislate their morality, liberals are now legislating theirs. We need to stop using the government as a tool to pick the winners and losers in society.

Anonymous · 5 months ago

That's so true...Now that I have to pay maybe a few more thousand a year in taxes I'm just going to quit working, quit donating to charity, and be forced to move into a mobile home and live off of food stamps.

midwest woman · 5 months ago

Mobile homes and food stamps...nice stereotyping there.
If life isn't fair why all the grumbling about your tax dollar going to a supposed bum?
Rich=hard work and poor=lazy..now there's some rhetoric and class warfare.
Don't care about how people get rich? My 401k does and so do those Bernie Madoff victims.
The tricky part of success, luck and good decisions is the luck part.
Dependent voteres are dependable voters? More like the richer the lobbyists the more you'll get your agenda passed.
Retool it, tweak it.. just stop sterotyping everybody that uses it as pigs at a trough.

Anonymous · 5 months ago

midwest woman, I think you missed my sarcasm there. I agree with everything you've said.

The Happy Hospitalist · 5 months ago

"I get the gist of your argument but the fundamental concept of the advantaged helping the disadavantaged isn't a bad one. It says something about your soul and your character."

How I spend my money says a lot about my soul and character. How the government spends my money says nothing about me. The government spends money based on politics. I would never want my soul and character connected to the government. They spend money on water boarding. And if you believe how the government spends your tax dollars says anything about your soul and character, I would have to conclude that you, midwest woman, are a terrorist as well.

Should I stop donating money to church and charity on my own free will and instead write a check to the US government for the extra? You may believe your government can distribute money to those in need better than your church can? I don't.

Midwest Woman · 5 months ago

Your opinion on what the government spends its money on is what says something about you. You don't like these programs because you believe that it will always lead to fraud, abuse and waste. It seems from your posts that not only FREE=MORE but that POOR=YOUR FAULT.
As for the snarky terrorist comment, I guess I'm not the one getting the something nice today.

Liz · 5 months ago

Gee, Happy. So right (today) and yet so wrong (other days).

Welfare begets a culture all it's own. Children raised in this culture often (but not always) end up subscribing to it themselves whether out of hoplessness, ignorance, whatever. I agree that charity should be left to individual communities and religious organizations. Much easier to spot the scammers when it's all local.

I am amazed at how many folks are defending the status quo. It's just a truth/fact that many (but not all) people given a handout never learn how to provide for themselves. They also will forever be denied the satisfaction and confidence that comes from having worked hard and achieved something on their own.

In the government system, people fall through the cracks. Those who believe in this system just want to throw money to fill up the cracks. People need to help each other face to face, not through a giant government bureaucracy.

True caring can only be accomplished when we actually engage with each other.

Fend for yourself · 5 months ago

Point better summarized:

"Democracy can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing."

Keith · 5 months ago

Happy,

How about let them eat cake!

It all depends on your outlook I guess. Some tend to look at the poor as lazy scumbags who deserve their comeuppance for their behavior. Other tend to look at those less fortunate as victims of unfortunate disease or circumstance. The reality is undoubtedly somewhere in between. I rue the day that one super brilliant person evolves that is so superior in intellect to the rest of us that he will consume all the resources of the world and hoard them to himself, using them only to enslave those of us that remain in this world working at his/her behest for survival wages. Then we will understand the true power of the capitillist model and its ability to create great riches (at least for a few).

If you keep acting so bitter about the idea of having to support anyone less fortunate than you, you will die a grumpy old man.

Anonymous · 5 months ago

Is it just me or are all the single payer moonbats out and on the prowl for anyone who is against what the Ra-Obama promised them. FREE HEALTHCARE FOR US OR YOU ARE A FASCIST EVIL MAN. Geez, even Kevin MD got his ass chewed out over a simple comparison. Us non-psychos need to band together before it's too late. My biggest fear is that it already is.

Fend for yourself · 5 months ago

http://www.usdebtclock.org/<br />
I actually had a PNHP mind-job tell me that the inability for the US to repay its debt was reason enough to just keep spending.