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On September 29 2011 02:50 SySLeif wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 02:21 Bibdy wrote:On September 29 2011 01:53 SySLeif wrote:On September 29 2011 01:49 Deja Thoris wrote:On September 29 2011 00:07 SySLeif wrote:
I have a question for people who think this is actually significant.
How does making class warfare in our country solve anything?
This isn't about class warfare This is about doing what is right and equitable. Like someone said, this isn't being talked about for vindictive reasons. Hell, even the richest of the rich agree that their portion of the tax burden is too low (those that are honest about it) You need to get it out of your head that the rich are" being punished for their success" That simply bullshit. They are just being asked to cough up what most think is their fair share. Yes, it is actually about class warfare at this point. That's the only thing Democrats can do to win elections. "The Republicans are only for the rich!" The rich pay their fair share, and even more than their fair share most of the time. Also if you look at small business owners who's business's take in a revenue of over 250,000 a year, instead of hiring a new person or two they are forced to pay more taxes. We have some of the highest business and corporation tax rates in the west. Also they are being punished. Why should I go to college and become a doctor to make good money when I know the person who never worked hard in their life is relying on me to pay more taxes than him so that he can sit on his but and collect welfare? How is that different to now? Doctors are already doing that. You're saying that raising taxes a few percent is going to cause an avalanche of Doctors quitting their job because they don't want to help pay for people on Welfare, which, FOR THE RECORD, is not getting a huge payment increase as a result of these taxes. You're trying to make it sound like all of this extra cash is going to go straight into the hands of the poor. There's always going to be a billion good reasons to work hard, get an education and a high-paying job despite how much of that you have to pay in taxes. More money is more money. The tax system doesn't ask someone making $150,000 to pay $160,000 in taxes every year. Letting taxes go back to their 2001 levels (i.e. the Bush Tax Cuts were always meant to be temporary and eventually expire) is not punishing success. Success was given a freebie back in 2001. Technically, everyone was, but people in the top 5% got a much bigger portion of that pie. We've had our fun. The 2000s are over and there are bills to pay. Now it's time to reign it back in. I can't remember who's chart it was, but someone had a chart showing the rich tax levels and how it correlated to our success. The rates of the 40s to 80s were ridiculous. But the 90s and before the Bush tax cuts were fine. And I agree we should have never had those tax cuts, they were stupid. Although you can't blame Bush, we could afford them before the wars and that's when he put them in place. What I'm saying is America is about opportunity > equality. We start with equality but give opportunities and where you end up is your fault. If you end up rich, then you must have done something right. If you end up poor, then you did something also to deserve that. But when we have huge social programs and this new Obamacare which is an EPIC FAIL, the money is going straight to the poor. An example being, socialized healthcare in the United States and these high regulations. Two communities in the U.S. are never the same. This is not like Europe or Canada. America is a melting pot. If you have lets say East Michigan, and everyone there smokes, is fat and has bad health. And you have West Michigan, where everyone takes care of themselves.. etc. Then why should West Michigan be burdened with the East Michigan's high health care costs? It's the same as, Why should West Michigan have to pay taxes for the welfare of East Michigan, when West Michigan people decides to get college degrees and work harder to keep their economy going? (Pretty sure East Michigan has more money though because of all the CEO's of the big motor companies live there.) We should leave power for social programs to communities, if they want them. We shouldn't give more power to the federal government. This would also ensure a few elitists would have less power when controlling our federal government. Remember its the United STATES. Anyway's this is my view. Show nested quote +After their (doctors, lawyers, professionals) years of sacrifice and investment(college), what right does Obama and his liberal/progressive/socialist cabal have to demonize them for paying only 29 percent in taxes so he can buy even more votes from the 50 percent of entitlement takers/non-taxpayers who never sacrificed or invested?
Jesus tapdancing Christ, how have the ideals of this country become so warped? The US is supposed to be the land of opportunity, and as time goes on, the poor are getting less and less of it. Shit man, most people in low income would LOVE to go to college, get an education and contribute more to society than flipping burgers or cleaning out trash cans, but they couldn't. They didn't have parents helping foot those bills, or they accidentally got pregnant because nobody taught them about sexual education, or through no fault of their own some economic blunder caused them to get foreclosed on, or any number of calamities that can befall someone in this country with scant few safety nets, and so they ended up having to work at the bottom, scraping and saving what they could to hope that their kids have a better life than them, who will in-turn hope their kids will have a better life than them.
If you're not one of those people sitting at the top of the economic chain, and I have reasonable suspicion you aren't, and are just another middle-class guy, like the rest of us, if you have the disposable income to enjoy a video gaming hobby and the free time to sit on this forum discussing such things, this has more than likely been the story of your ENTIRE FAMILY up to this point. Go look up your family tree and you'll probably be humbled by just how far your ancestors have brought you from their own humble beginnings. The overwhelming majority of people in the United States are descended from some immigrant who came over here with practically nothing to start a new life.
But, here you are, demonizing THEM because of a scant few people defrauding the welfare system (either because of greed, but more than likely risking jail time out of desperation) and healthy spoonful of cognitive dissonance telling you that people in the bottom rungs of society somehow deserve whatever fate befalls them.
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On September 29 2011 00:40 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 00:31 Pillage wrote:On September 29 2011 00:12 Bandino wrote:On September 28 2011 10:32 Pillage wrote:Remember this is in the context of raising taxes for the top earners in the country to help close the budget defect which the alternative esp proposed by republicans is to cut spending often in aid to the poor. When they throw out such crap like only half the people pay federal income tax, which is only true because they count people who are unemployed, retired or make such shitty pay like 20k a year that there would be little point to tax it as it would only further hurt your quality of life which in turn they would take from programs to help lift them out of that. Even if you double the federal income tax collected every year, we'd still be in the red on an annual basis. Like it or not the the majority of the problem rests with government spending + wasteful practices, and that needs to be fixed before taxes even consider being raised, otherwise we'll just be wasting even more money. Why do we need to cut aid to the poor before we raise taxes for the rich? I really don't get this line of thinking. You want the people already suffering to suffer MORE before you tax the ones who are living a very luxurious lifestyle. Do you really think everyone on welfare is suffering? Come on now. Our welfare system routinely overpays many of its recipients, many of whom are unqualified for the aid they receive. That's what is wasteful about the current system. Fix that first, and you can stretch every dollar you tax much, much further. It's not making people suffer it's common sense. Do you really think a small handful of welfare fraud cases should condemn the rest? Should the actions of Bernie Madoff reflect on everyone making over $250,000 a year?
I wasn't advocating eliminating all welfare jesus, I just want the leaky system fixed so that any more money put in doesn't end up going to the wrong destination. Way to absolutely fail at reading in between the lines.
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On September 29 2011 03:06 Pillage wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 00:40 Bibdy wrote:On September 29 2011 00:31 Pillage wrote:On September 29 2011 00:12 Bandino wrote:On September 28 2011 10:32 Pillage wrote:Remember this is in the context of raising taxes for the top earners in the country to help close the budget defect which the alternative esp proposed by republicans is to cut spending often in aid to the poor. When they throw out such crap like only half the people pay federal income tax, which is only true because they count people who are unemployed, retired or make such shitty pay like 20k a year that there would be little point to tax it as it would only further hurt your quality of life which in turn they would take from programs to help lift them out of that. Even if you double the federal income tax collected every year, we'd still be in the red on an annual basis. Like it or not the the majority of the problem rests with government spending + wasteful practices, and that needs to be fixed before taxes even consider being raised, otherwise we'll just be wasting even more money. Why do we need to cut aid to the poor before we raise taxes for the rich? I really don't get this line of thinking. You want the people already suffering to suffer MORE before you tax the ones who are living a very luxurious lifestyle. Do you really think everyone on welfare is suffering? Come on now. Our welfare system routinely overpays many of its recipients, many of whom are unqualified for the aid they receive. That's what is wasteful about the current system. Fix that first, and you can stretch every dollar you tax much, much further. It's not making people suffer it's common sense. Do you really think a small handful of welfare fraud cases should condemn the rest? Should the actions of Bernie Madoff reflect on everyone making over $250,000 a year? I wasn't advocating eliminating all welfare jesus, I just want the leaky system fixed so that any more money put in doesn't end up going to the wrong source. Way to absolutely fail at reading in between the lines.
I never said that myself, so good job on your part. You were the one who used the words 'routinely' and 'many', implying that it's a rampant problem, to try and justify cutting aid (I never said elimination) to EVERYONE ELSE, who doesn't deserve it.
Shit, when it comes to criminal activity, it costs us MORE money to ramp up security to find and prosecute it, than it does to just let it keep happening. Just look at the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan. I sure don't feel Hundreds of Billions, if not Trillions of dollars safer. Do you?
The only reason we do it is for the human cost. Well, I don't see a lot of humans getting killed over welfare fraud.
And before you fly off the handle again, I'm not saying we should stop all attempts at prosecuting them, but that there's little point in trying to ramp up security of those funds, because it'll just end up costing us more money to do so. The more we try to control everything, the more it costs us. Sometimes you've just got to let a few get away with it (and it's only a matter of time before they get caught, anyway) to keep costs reasonable.
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Sanya12364 Posts
Ahhh, the typical pattern of debate. So much tunnel vision.
User was warned for this post
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On September 29 2011 02:50 SySLeif wrote:
What I'm saying is America is about opportunity > equality. We start with equality but give opportunities and where you end up is your fault. If you end up rich, then you must have done something right. If you end up poor, then you did something also to deserve that.
But when we have huge social programs and this new Obamacare which is an EPIC FAIL, the money is going straight to the poor.
America is probably the most 'unequal' country in the world, and it's not because of the opportunity difference. A big majority of the poor / rich are born into it, the amount of people that actually start poor and become rich is staggeringly low.
Your point would be alright if everyone had the same level of education (and health insurance! so that 1 freak accident doesnt cripple them). As long as people can't go to college because they can't afford it, your argument doesn't hold any water.
In the Netherlands, almost all education is (partially) government run and regulated, and I agree that social welfare here should be low (enough to make sure people don't become homeless/starve, but not more).
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I love how some people think that people are poor because they failed at life lol. I was born Rich and my kids will be even richer without doing shit. You are not equal, you are not unique, you are only a figure on some technocrat's book. What reaaaally pisses me off, is the brainwashed hardworking people lead to believe that they are defending their own, when they are only defending people like me, who have more that we will ever need.
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You were the one who used the words 'routinely' and 'many', implying that it's a rampant problem, to try and justify cutting aid (I never said elimination) to EVERYONE ELSE, who doesn't deserve it.
Your tone implied what I stated earlier... Don't play these games with me, It's pretty obvious to anyone neutral what you were insinuating.
I'd happen to consider 20+ billion dollars overpaid in medicare to be a pretty big problem. And the list goes on from there, as that's only one government program (albeit a big one).
Shit, when it comes to criminal activity, it costs us MORE money to ramp up security to find and prosecute it, than it does to just let it keep happening. Just look at the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan. I sure don't feel Hundreds of Billions, if not Trillions of dollars safer. Do you?
You have to keep a lid on the Criminal/Terrorist activity at the very least, otherwise it gets out of control wayy too fast, and that results in society being pretty pissed. Yes it costs money but there needs to be some semblance of order even in crime-ridden areas.
I don't understand why you think Iraq + Afghanistan applies to this, we went to Afghanistan to hunt down the barbarians who were responsible for 9-11 and Iraq was pretty much the biggest intelligence mistake the world has ever seen. Besides, I do feel safer, when you're at your enemies front door, they aren't going to be dedicating as many of their resources to killing you at home. Shit this is even true in starcraft. Huhhhh.
I don't understand why you think you can compare Public Program waste vs. Overseas military spending. The human cost is a skewed way of looking at it, in the sense that Islamic extremists want us dead, and we don't want our own people dead. One one hand you have a system set up to save the lives of people (welfare) with people working toward streamlining + optimizing it to make sure only those who truly need food stamps, etc are getting it. On the other hand you have a system that is set up to combat people who want us dead, and these people actively fight against said system as well as us in the hopes that we suffer and die. That's where the difference lies, you're trying to compare apples to oranges.
And before you fly off the handle again
Don't try and take the moral highground when you implicitly accused me of wanting welfare gone and subsequently bashed me for pointing out that the system routinely makes costly mistakes.
I'm not saying we should stop all attempts at prosecuting them, but that there's little point in trying to ramp up security of those funds, because it'll just end up costing us more money to do so. The more we try to control everything, the more it costs us. Sometimes you've just got to let a few get away with it (and it's only a matter of time before they get caught, anyway) to keep costs reasonable.
I'm aware there's a happy medium for this. However if you look at some of the data on government waste (you can do this on your own), you can't help but wonder if a small percentage of that overpaid waste could go toward significantly minimizing it.
Edit: Reworded a few things.
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On September 29 2011 04:37 Pillage wrote:Show nested quote +You were the one who used the words 'routinely' and 'many', implying that it's a rampant problem, to try and justify cutting aid (I never said elimination) to EVERYONE ELSE, who doesn't deserve it. Your tone implied what I stated earlier... Don't play these games with me, It's pretty obvious to anyone neutral what you were insinuating. I'd happen to consider 20+ billion dollars overpaid in medicare to be a pretty big problem. And the list goes on from there, as that's only one government program (albeit a big one). Show nested quote +Shit, when it comes to criminal activity, it costs us MORE money to ramp up security to find and prosecute it, than it does to just let it keep happening. Just look at the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan. I sure don't feel Hundreds of Billions, if not Trillions of dollars safer. Do you? You have to keep a lid on the Criminal/Terrorist activity at the very least, otherwise it gets out of control wayy too fast, and that results in society being pretty pissed. Yes it costs money but there needs to be some semblance of order even in crime-ridden areas. I don't understand why you think Iraq + Afghanistan applies to this, we went to Afghanistan to hunt down the barbarians who were responsible for 9-11 and Iraq was pretty much the biggest intelligence mistake the world has ever seen. Besides, I do feel safer, when you're at your enemies front door, they aren't going to be dedicating as many of their resources to killing you at home. Shit this is even true in starcraft. Huhhhh. I don't understand why you think you can compare Public Program waste vs. Overseas military spending. The human cost is a skewed way of looking at it, in the sense that Islamic extremists want us dead, and we don't want our own people dead. One one hand you have a system set up to save the lives of people (welfare) with people working toward streamlining + optimizing it to make sure only those who truly need food stamps, etc are getting it. On the other hand you have a system that is set up to combat people who want us dead, and these people actively fight against said system as well as us in the hopes that we suffer and die. That's where the difference lies, you're trying to compare apples to oranges. Don't try and take the moral highground when you implicitly accused me of wanting welfare gone and subsequently bashed me for pointing out that the system routinely makes costly mistakes. Show nested quote + I'm not saying we should stop all attempts at prosecuting them, but that there's little point in trying to ramp up security of those funds, because it'll just end up costing us more money to do so. The more we try to control everything, the more it costs us. Sometimes you've just got to let a few get away with it (and it's only a matter of time before they get caught, anyway) to keep costs reasonable. I'm aware there's a happy medium for this. However if you look at some of the data on government waste (you can do this on your own), you can't help but wonder if a small percentage of that overpaid waste could go toward significantly minimizing it. Edit: Reworded a few things.
I merely pointed out a moral problem with your argument whereby, your claim leads to the majority being punished for the actions of a few. Since I didn't explicitly state it, nor even implied it, whatever the level of said punishment was completely up to your own interpretation. If that's still not enough to appease you, then I apologize.
My point was to bring up that it's only worth spending a metric fuckton of money on security when there's human lives at risk. You couldn't generate support for that kind of change any other way. If it turns out that giving out $100B in welfare costs us another $100B for 100% assurance of welfare security, but giving out $100B in welfare only costs us $15B for only 99.5% welfare security, you're going to have a tough time convincing people that's worth the cost, because it's easy to convince people that what you're doing is overkill, and fiscally irresponsible. Or even worse in my eye, you maintain the same overall costs by taking a ton of money away from all of the legitimate beneficiaries in order to fund that added security. Hurray, made sure that everyone on welfare is on it legitimately. But now the ones left on the system can't even pay a quarter of their rent while they look for work.
And I'm downright positive the costs could go that extreme. If a lot of history of excessive spending in the name of tightened security isn't enough, at the very least the natural law of opportunity costs tells you so.
Even if I was to show you, with evidence, that only 1-2% of all welfare cases are fraudulent (pretty sure that's a rough estimate), it's still left completely up to you whether to believe it or not. You could just as easily accept the figure as claim that there's a LOT more fraud out there going uncaught. Would you let paranoia make the government throw more money at the situation to hire even MORE fraud investigators to spend more money on security, or take it on faith that the current crew of investigators are doing their job perfectly fine and that it's less costly to just keep the system as it is?
I can't understand the thought process behind accusing people out of work of laziness. I just can't. The feeling of being unemployed in this country is absolutely fucking terrifying. When I was laid off in 2008 I've never felt so angry and terrified in my entire life. It's a miserable feeling having to be reminded every week by your welfare check that you, quite frankly, suck.
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On September 29 2011 03:00 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 02:50 SySLeif wrote:On September 29 2011 02:21 Bibdy wrote:On September 29 2011 01:53 SySLeif wrote:On September 29 2011 01:49 Deja Thoris wrote:On September 29 2011 00:07 SySLeif wrote:
I have a question for people who think this is actually significant.
How does making class warfare in our country solve anything?
This isn't about class warfare This is about doing what is right and equitable. Like someone said, this isn't being talked about for vindictive reasons. Hell, even the richest of the rich agree that their portion of the tax burden is too low (those that are honest about it) You need to get it out of your head that the rich are" being punished for their success" That simply bullshit. They are just being asked to cough up what most think is their fair share. Yes, it is actually about class warfare at this point. That's the only thing Democrats can do to win elections. "The Republicans are only for the rich!" The rich pay their fair share, and even more than their fair share most of the time. Also if you look at small business owners who's business's take in a revenue of over 250,000 a year, instead of hiring a new person or two they are forced to pay more taxes. We have some of the highest business and corporation tax rates in the west. Also they are being punished. Why should I go to college and become a doctor to make good money when I know the person who never worked hard in their life is relying on me to pay more taxes than him so that he can sit on his but and collect welfare? How is that different to now? Doctors are already doing that. You're saying that raising taxes a few percent is going to cause an avalanche of Doctors quitting their job because they don't want to help pay for people on Welfare, which, FOR THE RECORD, is not getting a huge payment increase as a result of these taxes. You're trying to make it sound like all of this extra cash is going to go straight into the hands of the poor. There's always going to be a billion good reasons to work hard, get an education and a high-paying job despite how much of that you have to pay in taxes. More money is more money. The tax system doesn't ask someone making $150,000 to pay $160,000 in taxes every year. Letting taxes go back to their 2001 levels (i.e. the Bush Tax Cuts were always meant to be temporary and eventually expire) is not punishing success. Success was given a freebie back in 2001. Technically, everyone was, but people in the top 5% got a much bigger portion of that pie. We've had our fun. The 2000s are over and there are bills to pay. Now it's time to reign it back in. I can't remember who's chart it was, but someone had a chart showing the rich tax levels and how it correlated to our success. The rates of the 40s to 80s were ridiculous. But the 90s and before the Bush tax cuts were fine. And I agree we should have never had those tax cuts, they were stupid. Although you can't blame Bush, we could afford them before the wars and that's when he put them in place. What I'm saying is America is about opportunity > equality. We start with equality but give opportunities and where you end up is your fault. If you end up rich, then you must have done something right. If you end up poor, then you did something also to deserve that. But when we have huge social programs and this new Obamacare which is an EPIC FAIL, the money is going straight to the poor. An example being, socialized healthcare in the United States and these high regulations. Two communities in the U.S. are never the same. This is not like Europe or Canada. America is a melting pot. If you have lets say East Michigan, and everyone there smokes, is fat and has bad health. And you have West Michigan, where everyone takes care of themselves.. etc. Then why should West Michigan be burdened with the East Michigan's high health care costs? It's the same as, Why should West Michigan have to pay taxes for the welfare of East Michigan, when West Michigan people decides to get college degrees and work harder to keep their economy going? (Pretty sure East Michigan has more money though because of all the CEO's of the big motor companies live there.) We should leave power for social programs to communities, if they want them. We shouldn't give more power to the federal government. This would also ensure a few elitists would have less power when controlling our federal government. Remember its the United STATES. Anyway's this is my view. After their (doctors, lawyers, professionals) years of sacrifice and investment(college), what right does Obama and his liberal/progressive/socialist cabal have to demonize them for paying only 29 percent in taxes so he can buy even more votes from the 50 percent of entitlement takers/non-taxpayers who never sacrificed or invested? Jesus tapdancing Christ, how have the ideals of this country become so warped? The US is supposed to be the land of opportunity, and as time goes on, the poor are getting less and less of it. Shit man, most people in low income would LOVE to go to college, get an education and contribute more to society than flipping burgers or cleaning out trash cans, but they couldn't. They didn't have parents helping foot those bills, or they accidentally got pregnant because nobody taught them about sexual education, or through no fault of their own some economic blunder caused them to get foreclosed on, or any number of calamities that can befall someone in this country with scant few safety nets, and so they ended up having to work at the bottom, scraping and saving what they could to hope that their kids have a better life than them, who will in-turn hope their kids will have a better life than them. If you're not one of those people sitting at the top of the economic chain, and I have reasonable suspicion you aren't, and are just another middle-class guy, like the rest of us, if you have the disposable income to enjoy a video gaming hobby and the free time to sit on this forum discussing such things, this has more than likely been the story of your ENTIRE FAMILY up to this point. Go look up your family tree and you'll probably be humbled by just how far your ancestors have brought you from their own humble beginnings. The overwhelming majority of people in the United States are descended from some immigrant who came over here with practically nothing to start a new life. But, here you are, demonizing THEM because of a scant few people defrauding the welfare system (either because of greed, but more than likely risking jail time out of desperation) and healthy spoonful of cognitive dissonance telling you that people in the bottom rungs of society somehow deserve whatever fate befalls them.
READ BEFORE POSTING.
I said it should be up to the communities for welfare, not the rest of the United States and this plays a big part into not every community has the same beliefs etc. I also said this because then a few elitists can not run the country because the power is distributed throughout the country more and in the hands of the people more. If one community says "we want socialized healthcare here", then they can have it. But their law shouldn't be imposed onto another community who doesn't. As in communities it could be states, counties, cities... etc.
Oh and to be heard I come from a long line of Dutch farmers and business owners and I'm proud of it.
My grief
+ Show Spoiler +Also there's a thing called school that everyone must go to. If you earn good grades and work hard.. guess what! You get something called a scholarship to keep enhancing your learning opportunities. And you know what else, schools teach sex ed!
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That has nothing to do with welfare...unless you think it does...?
Each State deals with their own welfare cases and funding. I was under the impression you were going off on some rant about Obamacare, which is wholly detached from the reality of how welfare works, so I completely ignored it.
And if you can pinpoint me to a State that would quite obviously be the 'moocher' state for Obamacare, I'd love to see evidence of it.
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On September 29 2011 03:50 Serelitz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 02:50 SySLeif wrote:
What I'm saying is America is about opportunity > equality. We start with equality but give opportunities and where you end up is your fault. If you end up rich, then you must have done something right. If you end up poor, then you did something also to deserve that.
But when we have huge social programs and this new Obamacare which is an EPIC FAIL, the money is going straight to the poor. America is probably the most 'unequal' country in the world, and it's not because of the opportunity difference. A big majority of the poor / rich are born into it, the amount of people that actually start poor and become rich is staggeringly low. Your point would be alright if everyone had the same level of education (and health insurance! so that 1 freak accident doesnt cripple them). As long as people can't go to college because they can't afford it, your argument doesn't hold any water. In the Netherlands, almost all education is (partially) government run and regulated, and I agree that social welfare here should be low (enough to make sure people don't become homeless/starve, but not more).
A big part of this is our poor education system. If people were just educated well enough, then the equality start would then be true. But there's two ways you can think about why it is poor, in my opinion, and they're pretty opposite.
+ Show Spoiler +Teachers used to get paid poorly, so only the people who wanted to really be teachers (the people who were really good teachers) would join the profession. Today they can make a really good living and people just do it for the money and security rather than the urge to teach.
+ Show Spoiler +If we paid teachers more, then more people would push into the profession. With this theory therefore more competition would be between teachers to be better at there jobs. This would greatly enhance our education system.
Also if you do get a "free accident", there is government assistance and an amazing number of charities if your immediate family cannot pay for it. But if it's a freak accident as in you were being stupid, were drunk etc, then the government should not intervene. Hospitals can't refuse patients.
I agree with the though of low welfare, but I want to emphasize more local welfare programs. Also with health care it should be more local. In my experience I've been to Detroit (the fattest American city) and it's nothing like West Michigan where I live.
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On September 29 2011 05:44 Bibdy wrote:
That has nothing to do with welfare...unless you think it does...?
Each State deals with their own welfare cases and funding. I was under the impression you were going off on some rant about Obamacare, which is wholly detached from the reality of how welfare works, so I completely ignored it.
And if you can pinpoint me to a State that would quite obviously be the 'moocher' state for Obamacare, I'd love to see evidence of it.
It can go lower than states. Take the cities of Detroit and Ann Arbor. Detroit is one of the unhealthiest (#1 fattest) and Ann Arbor was named one of the healthiest. Should Ann Arbor be hurt for the people in Detroit's lifestyle? They are around 3 to 4 hours apart.
In my opinion it ruins some motivation to be healthy and also drive up costs for people that stay healthy.
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On September 28 2011 09:46 FabledIntegral wrote:
Well you have to factor in state income taxes too, it's not like they don't exist. In CA I think it's around 9%-11%, I'm not sure off the top of my head, so you're jumping up more. Very little people would argue that a single household with one person making 6 figures (assuming 2 parents 2 children) would qualify as extremely rich anyways. At least in CA, where living expenses are high. You're usually middle to upper middle class. Well, that is on the threshold of making 6 figures (like making around 100k), not like 400k or something where you're pushing the top of upper middle (imo, that is).
State income tax is deductible from federal income tax.
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On September 28 2011 13:10 Supamang wrote:
We lived in a $200K to $300K house. We had mortgages to pay on our house and on my dads office. He had to pay for labor as well. Eventually he had to pay for huge medical costs because my mother, grandmother, and grandfather had cancer.
I cant believe you people. Making me fucking sick. Who the fuck would lie about these things and even worse, who the fuck would call someone a liar without even knowing the guy? Im not whining about my life, you guys are the guys whining about our lives. My entire point was to dispel the notion that having a 6 figure income automatically means youre living in luxury. My family did not have to worry too much about money, but we were far from living in luxury. And look at all the bullshit that you guys start flinging at me for that simple assertion.
Again, what the fuck is wrong with you guys?
Now imagine how much shittier your situation would be if your household only made 70k a year (still above median household income).
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On September 29 2011 05:48 SySLeif wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 05:44 Bibdy wrote:
That has nothing to do with welfare...unless you think it does...?
Each State deals with their own welfare cases and funding. I was under the impression you were going off on some rant about Obamacare, which is wholly detached from the reality of how welfare works, so I completely ignored it.
And if you can pinpoint me to a State that would quite obviously be the 'moocher' state for Obamacare, I'd love to see evidence of it. It can go lower than states. Take the cities of Detroit and Ann Arbor. Detroit is one of the unhealthiest (#1 fattest) and Ann Arbor was named one of the healthiest. Should Ann Arbor be hurt for the people in Detroit's lifestyle? They are around 3 to 4 hours apart. In my opinion it ruins some motivation to be healthy and also drive up costs for people that stay healthy.
Why is it conservatives always talk like they can quantify motivation and simultaneously act like they're experts on the subject? Does it really just boil down to being the only argument you've got?
How can you not have the basic human compassion to understand that not everything that happens to people is their own fault? For instance, corn syrup is used in EVERYTHING in this country. It's a cheap form of sugar (thanks to being subsidized by the government), but incredibly high on calories. My family, from the UK, was utterly blown away by the calorie content of food here. But, at the end of the day America needs cheap food, so the market provides all of this high-calorie, cheap food for us.
Being on welfare, being dangerously obese, being sick because of some hereditary disease, scraping the barrel for financial help for things that aren't completely in your own control and thus having to accept money to help you through these 'conditions' is quite frankly its own punishment. It's humiliating and you're reminded of it every time you make use of it.
So what if there's this small number of assholes in the world who sit around in some craphole of an apartment, playing videogames all day, getting fat and living alone? Fuck 'em. Whatever their life is, should be completely meaningless to the rest of us. I've got better things to do with my life, than worry about a fraction of a penny every year paying for that guy, and if they depend on fraudulent activity to maintain that so-called 'life', it's only a matter of time before they get caught. We shouldn't be terrified of a few jackasses laughing behind our back to do the right thing. That's so highschool.
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My point was to bring up that it's only worth spending a metric fuckton of money on security when there's human lives at risk. You couldn't generate support for that kind of change any other way. If it turns out that giving out $100B in welfare costs us another $100B for 100% assurance of welfare security, but giving out $100B in welfare only costs us $15B for only 99.5% welfare security, you're going to have a tough time convincing people that's worth the cost, because it's easy to convince people that what you're doing is overkill, and fiscally irresponsible. Or even worse in my eye, you maintain the same overall costs by taking a ton of money away from all of the legitimate beneficiaries in order to fund that added security. Hurray, made sure that everyone on welfare is on it legitimately. But now the ones left on the system can't even pay a quarter of their rent while they look for work.
I've told you I already understand this, that there is a threshold where it doesn't pay to worry about it anymore, we are not at this threshold (and I think you're grossly wrong with how much money it costs to ensure that a person is qualified for a govt service / this isn't equivalent to how much money it costs to provide for and PAY a man half a world away). I also would like to skim some off the top of the programs (I think you underestimate how many people are on welfare that are on the lower end of middle class with the money they make).
A little off topic, I've seen some absolutely crazy shit at the grocery store I worked at regarding foodstamps (I won't elaborate here, but you can see what I'm getting at, and this was beaten to death in the foodstamps thread).
Even if I was to show you, with evidence, that only 1-2% of all welfare cases are fraudulent (pretty sure that's a rough estimate), it's still left completely up to you whether to believe it or not. You could just as easily accept the figure as claim that there's a LOT more fraud out there going uncaught. Would you let paranoia make the government throw more money at the situation to hire even MORE fraud investigators to spend more money on security, or take it on faith that the current crew of investigators are doing their job perfectly fine and that it's less costly to just keep the system as it is?
We can do the math to figure this out, actuaries do this shit all the time, and come up with solid systems. It's not too hard, the problem is that no one wants to be the asshole that says "you don't need this anymore" or "you've been on welfare for 10 years, are perfectly healthy and you still don't have a job, bye bye" which is one of the reasons why projected welfare costs are growing at such an explosive rate. Besides I wouldn't consider trying to weed out fraudulent users = paranoia, that's just cleaning house whenever it needs to be done to save the good taxpayer money. It happens in every business throughout the world to minimize costs.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On September 29 2011 03:12 TanGeng wrote:
Ahhh, the typical pattern of debate. So much tunnel vision.
User was warned for this post
Fine, I'll clarify. Both sides have wrong approach and take on the question in different directions.
Opportunity in America is actually quite low. The lack of opportunity has to do with a lot of local regulation, state regulation, and if people are unlucky, federal regulation. Everything is so tightly "regulated" that there is an unnecessarily large barrier to entry for many of many of the historically easier ways that people had to start their own business and work for themselves if they find themselves out of a job provided by the larger corporate entities. The heavy regulations is a result of lobbying at all levels of governance by incumbent business and the activities of politicians who cater to these incumbent businesses.
The "Obamacare" provisions do not favor the poor at all. The provisions might favor the abject poor, but those who are marginally capable of paying for health insurance are forced into paying for it by the individual mandate. The payment for health insurance then supplants some of the spending that might be more important for these people on the margins. Spending of this ilk might be healthy food, quality transportation to work, basic entertainment, education, certain vices, or maybe even the deductibles and copay required to get health care. The health insurance bill is better characterized as corporate welfare for the insurance companies. The individual mandate specifically provides legal support for a poor business model for health care delivery.
On the other end of the spectrum, there is a bit of stubborn attachment to what government programs exist, with the unspoken assumption that the existing programs warts and all are better than the inevitable total void of aid and charity that result if the programs were repealed. I don't believe that assumption is valid. There's enough private charity to prove there will still be aid. Scrapping the current welfare regime opens the way to replace them with better systems for helping the misfortunate.
The warts of the current welfare regime that Pillage points out is abuse of government welfare programs. I would recast the flaw as a lack of good internal feedback mechanisms in the system that would enforce responsible use of welfare program. In the case of non-government charity, there is an expected duty by the recipients to use their patron's money wisely. The implicit threat is that an irresponsible recipient risks the possibility of being denied continued funding. For the welfare programs, the enforcement is largely external via the legal system and that gets easily gets expensive.
The lack of feedback mechanism to enforce responsibility is more sinister in its indirect effect because the pathway to prosperity and wealth is responsible use of money. When government makes money available without requirement of responsibility, it is becomes a corrupting influence with the danger of breeding a dependency on handouts instead of fostering a capacity for independence. People who fall into such a trap are placed on track for perpetual poverty.
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On September 29 2011 06:21 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 03:12 TanGeng wrote:
Ahhh, the typical pattern of debate. So much tunnel vision.
User was warned for this post On the other end of the spectrum, there is a bit of stubborn attachment to what government programs exist, with the unspoken assumption that the existing programs warts and all are better than the inevitable total void of aid and charity that result if the programs were repealed. I don't believe that assumption is valid. There's enough private charity to prove there will still be aid. Scrapping the current welfare regime opens the way to replace them with better systems for helping the misfortunate.
That's not what happened during the Great Depression. Private charity coffers were wiped out. Can the conservatives here provide one historical citation? It's like they're running on theorycraft when giving out StarCraft strategies rather than observing what actually works for StarCraft strategies.
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On September 29 2011 02:55 SySLeif wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 02:52 Deja Thoris wrote:On September 29 2011 01:53 SySLeif wrote:On September 29 2011 01:49 Deja Thoris wrote:On September 29 2011 00:07 SySLeif wrote:
I have a question for people who think this is actually significant.
How does making class warfare in our country solve anything?
This isn't about class warfare This is about doing what is right and equitable. Like someone said, this isn't being talked about for vindictive reasons. Hell, even the richest of the rich agree that their portion of the tax burden is too low (those that are honest about it) You need to get it out of your head that the rich are" being punished for their success" That simply bullshit. They are just being asked to cough up what most think is their fair share. Yes, it is actually about class warfare at this point. That's the only thing Democrats can do to win elections. "The Republicans are only for the rich!" The rich pay their fair share, and even more than their fair share most of the time. Also if you look at small business owners who's business's take in a revenue of over 250,000 a year, instead of hiring a new person or two they are forced to pay more taxes. We have some of the highest business and corporation tax rates in the west. Also they are being punished. Why should I go to college and become a doctor to make good money when I know the person who never worked hard in their life is relying on me to pay more taxes than him so that he can sit on his but and collect welfare? High on rhetoric (punishing success blah blah) Low on facts (USA has amongst the highest tax tates in the west) - Complete and utter bullshit. Its clear your pov is just a political one and you won't let facts cloud your judgement. I'll leave you be now. I said the corporate and business tax rates. Our political class has managed to maintain America's rank with the second highest corporate tax rate in the world at 39.3% (average combined federal and state). OECD study, "Taxes and Economic Growth," Maybe if you could read what I wrote, you wouldn't be so ignorant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg/1000px-Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg.png
Headline tax rate doesn't really matter, what matters is what the corporations / businesses actually pay after all of their dodges have been deducted.
I know one of the graphs is old but I doubt there have been seismic shifts in the corporate tax rates of countries in the past few years. Where is the USA? Oh look, its corporations are paying less tax as a % than Canada, the UK, Luxemborg, Portugal, Norway, Netherlands, Greece, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Finland, Italy, Austria, Sweden, France, Germany and Belgium.
Once again, the facts don't make me look ignorant.
*Edit, I only included western countries and excluded stuff like Turkey since I guess thats up for debate since they have a foot in Asia too.
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On September 29 2011 06:01 RedDeckWins wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2011 13:10 Supamang wrote:
We lived in a $200K to $300K house. We had mortgages to pay on our house and on my dads office. He had to pay for labor as well. Eventually he had to pay for huge medical costs because my mother, grandmother, and grandfather had cancer.
I cant believe you people. Making me fucking sick. Who the fuck would lie about these things and even worse, who the fuck would call someone a liar without even knowing the guy? Im not whining about my life, you guys are the guys whining about our lives. My entire point was to dispel the notion that having a 6 figure income automatically means youre living in luxury. My family did not have to worry too much about money, but we were far from living in luxury. And look at all the bullshit that you guys start flinging at me for that simple assertion.
Again, what the fuck is wrong with you guys? Now imagine how much shittier your situation would be if your household only made 70k a year (still above median household income).
Ill refer you to my post after the one you quoted:
On September 28 2011 13:31 Supamang wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2011 13:23 hummingbird23 wrote:
Hmm, if that's the living standards of someone making 100K a year, what might be the living standards of someone making roughly a third to half that? More difficult. My living standards were not bad. They were actually quite good. But people seem to be suggesting that my family would be rolling in cash and wiping our asses with $100 bills. All I wanted to say was that we did not/could not live a lavish lifestyle If 3 of someones family members got cancer, most likely not all of them would get treatment. If 3 kids were applying to top end colleges, they would likely be massively in debt and/or some of the kids would have to settle for less prestigious and in-state schools. They might have 1 car instead of 2, their house might be 1 story instead of 2. Nothing about those things that I had growing up are luxurious, but they are also things that people with less income cannot enjoy.
You guys are seriously just unbelievable. Youre treating me like Im the one whining about my situation. I never said that. NOT FUCKING ONCE. Ive been in this thread arguing for progressive tax rates and taxing the super rich more to help pay for government social programs.
Then the moment I mention my family has a 6 figure income, people start telling me im an arrogant liar living a high consumption lifestyle and talking to me like I need to go to some sensitivity training seminar.
Jesus fucking christ
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