American Politics

[demonicvampiregirl]

I'm assuming that, based on human nature, if you give someone a living without requiring them to work for it, they will have no incentive to take up work again and lose that free money. May not be true for everyone, but it's a major problem with the idea of wealth redistribution. Take the money from the rich people, give it to the poor people, the poor people spend it, they're still poor... Where's the solution here? We've been providing welfare for how many years now?

Again you assume that's always the case. Don't judge everyone because of a few idiots doing that. People that are wanting to work are GOING to work. Not just take it as a chance to do nothing. So again I wouldn't put everyone who isn't working into that category.

 

I doubt if they got money to go do things they'd just blow it immediately. Not everyone just sees money and goes on a wild spending spree.

[Rosedamai]

Again you assume that's always the case. Don't judge everyone because of a few idiots doing that. People that are wanting to work are GOING to work. Not just take it as a chance to do nothing. So again I wouldn't put everyone who isn't working into that category.

Not to mention, I've seen kids bullied at school for being poor. Being poor's stigmatized to a very big extent, it's not like people like being poor or anything.

[demonicvampiregirl]

Not to mention, I've seen kids bullied at school for being poor. Being poor's stigmatized to a very big extent, it's not like people like being poor or anything.

*nods* I don't really care how much money you got but you start flaunting it and acting like a idiot because you have money and mommy and daddy can come help you if you get into trouble then I got issues with you. Beyond that I don't care.

 

It's not fun being in that situation at all. It's scary and sucks completely.

[Rosedamai]

It's not fun being in that situation at all. It's scary and sucks completely.

Yep. We had a very bad economic situation in 1997, and the suicide rate went up and everything, and some of my best friends became broke. Wasn't fun at all. It was even harder time for the people who were poor in the first place. I mean, it's not like the government gives you 1 million dollars for getting broke, nor do people not recognize how shabby your clothes start getting and stuff like that. NOT FUN.

[skauble]

I don't know if it's because of our belief in the idea of opportunity, but we tend to heap a lot of blame on the poor in this country.

 

When people talk about welfare spending they generally mean Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in the '90s.

 

The fact is that TANF is not something that people can stay on for their entire lives. In fact, most families stop receiving services long before they hit the time cap.

 

And no one is getting rich, or really even comfortable, from the benefits, because they aren't even enough to lift families above (or near) the poverty level.

 

In addition to that, TANF is a very, very small part of the budget. People often talk about TANF as if it's receiving all of the money set aside for all of the safety net programs. It's not. It's not even close to receiving the majority of that.

 

If we really believe that people will only preform well if there's substantial personal reward then maybe that's something we really need to start examining as a society. Because that's a belief that we don't usually hold on our own personal or spiritual levels, so I wonder why we feel that it's the only way that society can be productive.

[Fuzzbucket]

If we really believe that people will only preform well if there's substantial personal reward then maybe that's something we really need to start examining as a society.  Because that's a belief that we don't usually hold on our own personal or spiritual levels, so I wonder why we feel that it's the only way that society can be productive.

Yes indeed. Thanks for that, skauble. You have only to look at the latest banking scandal in the US - J P Morgan - (not their fault - but Bear Stearns is now theirs and they are stuck with the lawsuit) to see what greed does to people. 21 billion bucks that could have been put to MUCH better use....

 

One source of info

Edited October 2, 2012 by fuzzbucket

[~Kat~]

If by redistributing you mean government seizure of funds from the wealthy to give funds to the poor, who have no motivation to earn money for themselves if they're being handed a living, yes, that's bad. Because it doesn't solve the problem of poverty in the slightest.

Record Number In Government Anti-Poverty Programs

 

More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years.

 

Caseloads have risen as more people become eligible. The economic stimulus law signed by President Obama last year also boosted benefits.

 

"This program has proven to be incredibly responsive and effective," says Ellin Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center.

 

Close to 10 million receive unemployment insurance, nearly four times the number from 2007. Benefits have been extended by Congress eight times beyond the basic 26-week program, enabling the long-term unemployed to get up to 99 weeks of benefits. Caseloads peaked at nearly 12 million in January — "the highest numbers on record," says Christine Riordan of the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for low-wage workers.

 

More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18% increase during the recession. The program has grown slower than others, causing Brookings Institution expert Ron Haskins to question its effectiveness in the recession.

 

As caseloads for all the programs have soared, so have costs. The federal price tag for Medicaid has jumped 36% in two years, to $273 billion. Jobless benefits have soared from $43 billion to $160 billion. The food stamps program has risen 80%, to $70 billion. Welfare is up 24%, to $22 billion. Taken together, they cost more than Medicare.

 

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washin...ynet30_ST_N.htm

[brairtrainer]

Yes, but most of those people who were thrust on to welfare was because they lost their jobs and can't find work. Should we punish them and their kids for losing a job and causing everything to go down hill because they can't pay for food and other necssities?

 

My dad lost his job when the main company that was buying his companies products moved to Mexico. My dad was even down there briefly to help set it up before they layed off all the workers in the plant he was working in.

 

My dad was out of a job. We thought we were going to have to move because there were no processing engineer jobs around, and for the ones he found they either didn't offer the money we needed to survive, he was turned down because his college gradutating gpa was not a 3.5 despite the fact he went to a Nationally Ranked top 10 school for engineering, and had to take a job in that was three hours away that required us to pay for an apartment for him since we couldn't sell our house (waiting on company apprasiers) and ending up with less money and less support then if we'd stayed on unemployment.

 

My mom had no luck finding jobs up there, being told that she was too quilified for some, told that she was asking for too much for others (she worked for the state EPA and was trying to avoid areas where she knew the ground water was tainted). In the end someone offered my dad a resonable job back and home and he's back with us, but being in that situation is tough.

 

You do get looked down on for being poor. People wouldn't look at me straight in the face when I had to bring my youngest sister to band practice because our mom was working and there was no babysitter to watch her. My government teacher went quiet after my dad had to quit city council so he could move and take this job. My boyfriends mother argued with him about dating me because I had to have been poor(amoung other things....but the fact that my dad was out of work was a bad, bad thing).

 

We weren't poor, but we were poorer then the people in most of my classes and it could be felt.

[skauble]

The problem with decrying the current social net programs as failures is that that argument tends to ignore that alternatives that would largely address the problems in a longterm fashion have been repeatedly shot down because a lot of folks don't want to make the initial investments which are, admittedly, quite pricey.

 

At this point in time, we don't think that seriously reducing poverty is worth the expense and then we vilify the poor to try to align reality with the belief systems we claim.

 

In America we act like it's some kind of law of nature that everyone's entitled to as much money as can be amassed and that counterbalancing that with social obligation destroys freedom. But that's not an immutable truth, it's just how we choose to value things.

 

Some people cringe at the idea of redistribution, but we live in a society where athletes and actors and stockbrokers can make more than fireman – people who run into burning buildings and pull people out. So I'd suggest that maybe the problem isn't with redistribution, but with distribution itself.

 

Why is it that in a country where 20% of the people have over 80% of the wealth that it's such blasphemy to say, not that the rich shouldn't be rewarded, but that the reward shouldn't be quite so disproportionate?

 

Frankly, not only do I think that it's time that we examined that, but I believe that the need that we feel to provide social programs at all speaks to the fact that, as a society, we're in a place where we're ready to shed some of those original ideas.

 

Capitalism is a very cynical system because it assumes that money is the ultimate motivator. And while I agree that it's an incredibly strong one, it isn't even close to the most effective. Would you leave your spouse for a million dollars? Tell your kids that you hate them? Reveal an incredibly painful and personal confidence entrusted to you by your best friend? Probably not.

 

The problem is that we believe that caring is the greatest motivator, but we reserve it for a small group of those around us. But it's expandable. When there's a disaster we see how people are able to stretch that to encompass those they will never even meet. That broadening is completely within our ability as a society.

 

And does that mean that I think that everyone has to all make the same amount money? No. But does it mean that I think that the concept of social obligation and the idea of non-monetary motivators should not be derided as an affront to freedom in an effort to prevent even their consideration? Yeah.

 

We may not be ready to transform ourselves right now, but I honestly believe that the fact that we're discussing it at all, that we're actually struggling to keep these programs going, even though they are only minimally effective, means that we're steadily heading in that direction. And pretty soon I think that enough people will stop being driven by the voices shaming them for such thoughts that we'll begin to have a genuine and open debate about where we're going as a society and what we need to do to get there.

[TikindiDragon]

Record Number In Government Anti-Poverty Programs

 

More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years.

 

Caseloads have risen as more people become eligible. The economic stimulus law signed by President Obama last year also boosted benefits.

 

"This program has proven to be incredibly responsive and effective," says Ellin Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center.

 

Close to 10 million receive unemployment insurance, nearly four times the number from 2007. Benefits have been extended by Congress eight times beyond the basic 26-week program, enabling the long-term unemployed to get up to 99 weeks of benefits. Caseloads peaked at nearly 12 million in January — "the highest numbers on record," says Christine Riordan of the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for low-wage workers.

 

More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18% increase during the recession. The program has grown slower than others, causing Brookings Institution expert Ron Haskins to question its effectiveness in the recession.

 

As caseloads for all the programs have soared, so have costs. The federal price tag for Medicaid has jumped 36% in two years, to $273 billion. Jobless benefits have soared from $43 billion to $160 billion. The food stamps program has risen 80%, to $70 billion. Welfare is up 24%, to $22 billion. Taken together, they cost more than Medicare.

 

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washin...ynet30_ST_N.htm

Ummm.... yes. What's you're point? We're in a recession. People lose their jobs in a recession. It's not really a suprise that as the unemployment figures rise so do the costs of benefits.

 

There's plenty of people out there that really, really, want to work and simply can't find the jobs because of the way the economy is at the moment. Personaly I think we should be supporting those people who have lost out over this recession, rather than giving the tax breaks to the big-earning bankers that caused it in the first place.

 

But, hey, I'm a socialist Englishman so obviously I'm totally ignorant of how things work

[lightbird]

~Removed~

 

We weren't poor, but we were poorer then the people in most of my classes and it could be felt.

 

This basically sums up my childhood/teenage years. Of course, I come from the economically sensitive Eastern Europe, but still, it's the same. We weren't nearly poor enough to qualify for financial aid, but I never had nice things until I could scrape together some money of my own for them. And while it may sound shallow, people DO look down on you a lot, if you don't have extras besides the vital necessities for carrying on with the basic social duties of going to school etc. Noone thinks you're a likeable, interesting person and will help you have a healthy social life just because you haven't kicked the bucket yet.

Hence why I don't believe in this:

If by redistributing you mean government seizure of funds from the wealthy to give funds to the poor, who have no motivation to earn money for themselves if they're being handed a living, yes, that's bad. Because it doesn't solve the problem of poverty in the slightest.

 

I mean, I still live with my parents even though I graduated with a Master degree this summer (and the job I picked up for the useful experience in my field isn't at all fancily paid in my country, not if I want to rent even just a room somewhere else), and they're not eager to kick me out. By that logic, I'm basically handed a living, yes, but I do not get to choose much of exactly what I would like to have, and I certainly am not handed any extras, which aren't necessarily important for my survival. As someone earlier already commented on a similar sentiment, most people won't be satisfied with the bare essentials that they can't choose, for that matter, and *will* want to earn some extras of their own.

 

With that, I think that giving aid to poor families/individual (most of whom DO try to get a living) is like handing a footstool to someone so that they can reach something on a higher shelf. I think that it's in fact easier to have belief in one's ability to carve out a future for themselves when you don't have to worry all the time about whether you'll have anything to eat and a place to sleep at in the nearest future.

Edited October 2, 2012 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Syaoransbear]

I'm assuming that, based on human nature, if you give someone a living without requiring them to work for it, they will have no incentive to take up work again and lose that free money. May not be true for everyone, but it's a major problem with the idea of wealth redistribution. Take the money from the rich people, give it to the poor people, the poor people spend it, they're still poor... Where's the solution here? We've been providing welfare for how many years now?

At least in that situation the money gets injected back into the economy instead of sitting there doing nothing in someone's off shore bank account.

[Fuzzbucket]

Actually, philpot, when I was out of work, and more recently, when a relative was off work on sick pay for almost a year (genuine, in case anyone was suggesting otherwise) I was bored stiff at home, and I am quite sure she would have got better sooner (she was in a major stress related depression, which her employer admitted was down to their unreasonable work demands !) if she had been able to go out and DO something (but when you are on sick pay, if you DO do that they are liable to cut you off, and no way was she fit to take on an actual job.) Almost everyone I know who is or has been out of work is ACHING to have a reason to get up in the morning....

 

Sure, a few people abuse the system - but very few. The big issue is the actual lack of jobs - and of course the fact that - in my case anyway - almost everyone would say at interview that I was overqualified, and take on someone else

 

Yes we are in a huge depression, and the people with millions should be prepared to pay their FAIR share - which is a lot more than most of them are paying now. Not least because so very many of them got that rich on the backs of the rest of us. Time to pay back. As Warren Buffet will tell you

[demonicvampiregirl]

Sure, a few people abuse the system - but very few. The big issue is the actual lack of jobs - and of course the fact that - in my case anyway - almost everyone would say at interview that I was overqualified, and take on someone else

That's the thing people that whine about the abuse don't get. It's just a few compared to the many that actually use it for it's purpose.

 

With that, I think that giving aid to poor families/individual (most of whom DO try to get a living) is like handing a footstool to someone so that they can reach something on a higher shelf. I think that it's in fact easier to have belief in one's ability to carve out a future for themselves when you don't have to worry all the time about whether you'll have anything to eat and a place to sleep at in the nearest future.

 

I can agree here! That is why I'm not really against it. I don't see how it's so bad that the ones with all the money get some taken so they help the poorer people.

Edited October 2, 2012 by demonicvampiregirl

[Fuzzbucket]

I can agree here! That is why I'm not really against it. I don't see how it's so bad that the ones with all the money get some taken so they help the poorer people.

I'd go further and say I can't see how it is good if they don't.

[philpot123]

You do get looked down on for being poor. People wouldn't look at me straight in the face when I had to bring my youngest sister to band practice because our mom was working and there was no babysitter to watch her. My government teacher went quiet after my dad had to quit city council so he could move and take this job. My boyfriends mother argued with him about dating me because I had to have been poor(amoung other things....but the fact that my dad was out of work was a bad, bad thing).

 

I know that feel. Doesn't change my views.

 

At this point in time, we don't think that seriously reducing poverty is worth the expense and then we vilify the poor to try to align reality with the belief systems we claim.

 

What exactly do you mean by this? Are you saying that the reason we still have poor people is because people aren't willing to pony up and give away their money? I've said this before, I'm all for private donations of funds. I think it's the responsibility of those who possess wealth to give of what they have freely. But I don't think it's the government's responsibility to force them to do so. I can't find support for that anywhere, and I can't see evidence that it helps anything.

 

Personaly I think we should be supporting those people who have lost out over this recession, rather than giving the tax breaks to the big-earning bankers that caused it in the first place.

 

I agree. I just disagree with the mode of support. I also believe that demanding that the rich job creators "pay more" isn't going to help create jobs one bit. I've lost count of how many local, non-millionaire business owners have told me they could and would hire more people if they weren't being hit with such heavy taxes.

 

At least in that situation the money gets injected back into the economy instead of sitting there doing nothing in someone's off shore bank account.

 

Pretty sure one of those rich guys who has offshore bank accounts is already putting more back into the economy than most of the people on welfare combined, sooo...

 

Almost everyone I know who is or has been out of work is ACHING to have a reason to get up in the morning....

 

I'm not saying "everyone who's out of a job likes that." I'm saying if people are advocating increasing welfare, increasing wealth redistribution programs, the people that literally get handed a living for doing nothing aren't going to want to go back out and take a minimum wage job. It's not solving the problem. Poor people are still poor.

 

Yes we are in a huge depression, and the people with millions should be prepared to pay their FAIR share - which is a lot more than most of them are paying now.

 

Define fair. They're already paying millions in taxes between income, property, and sales tax. I fail to see how they aren't paying a fair share. What people are advocating is making them pay OVER their fair share.

 

 

 

So you guys think welfare is really helping the poverty problem? It's working well? Or it's working poorly, so we need to increase the size of the welfare program? It's not working, so lets do it more?

 

 

[Kestra15]

Pretty sure one of those rich guys who has offshore bank accounts is already putting more back into the economy than most of the people on welfare combined, sooo...

Really? I saved several lives when I was unemployed through my voluntary work, and in an average night would relieve the local A&E of two bed-wasters as well as all the minor treatments - that's a lot of money I was saving the NHS per night, which is that little bit more relief for the economy. Yes, some of those people would have done much more, but all of them? No.

 

But equally yes, there are a lot of people on various welfare programs who do nothing with their lives. Which is why I've always supported suggestions of people being on welfare for only a limited amount of time unless they continually provide evidence of active job-seeking, or other circumstance that would limit their job-seeking capability (carers, disabled, new mothers, etc).

 

It annoyed me that I would apply for literally several jobs per day when I was unemployed and still do some twenty or thirty hours a week voluntary work, and yet there were loafers who did nothing and just sat around all day watching TV, and they'd have the same rights to welfare as me. I'd be actively seeking work and be painted with the same brush as those who did nothing all day long. It is frankly humiliating and insulting to be seen that way - which is why when I hear about every jobless person being 'scrounging benefit-seekers' I get annoyed; a lot of us aren't. In the same way that not all students are rich, conceited scroungers who have never done a day's work; a lot of my friends I've known in my seven years of uni have had holiday or part-time jobs from which they actually get most of their money from.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Kestra15

[demonicvampiregirl]

Almost 2,400 Millionaires Pocketed Unemployment Benefits

 

And your average citizen always abuses the system? :/

[brairtrainer]

Almost 2,400 Millionaires Pocketed Unemployment Benefits

 

And your average citizen always abuses the system? :/

this^

[skauble]

At this point in time, we don't think that seriously reducing poverty is worth the expense and then we vilify the poor to try to align reality with the belief systems we claim.

 

What exactly do you mean by this? Are you saying that the reason we still have poor people is because people aren't willing to pony up and give away their money? I've said this before, I'm all for private donations of funds. I think it's the responsibility of those who possess wealth to give of what they have freely. But I don't think it's the government's responsibility to force them to do so. I can't find support for that anywhere, and I can't see evidence that it helps anything.

 

What I mean by that is that in a country this wealthy and with the vast amount of resources that we possess, there's no reason that people should be under the poverty level or that children go to bed hungry.

 

And if that's happening, when we know that he have the ability to stop it, then it means that we've placed a greater value on something else. Right now, we've placed more value on people being able to amass a lot of money than on ending poverty. And you can certainly make the argument that it's a matter of freedom and that it's a necessary part of the American system, but that argument has to come with the acknowledgement then that we value that system more than ending people's suffering,

 

Capitalism is a valid economic system, but it comes with a certain amount of cruelty that we generally just pretend doesn't exist. And that's where I think that vilifying the poor comes in.

 

As I stated above, TANF is the welfare program meant when we talk of living off of welfare. But A. that's impossible to do, B. it's not a comfortable life because they're still below the poverty level, and C. the average family doesn't even use their benefits for the full amount of time they're given.

 

And yet, baring all of that in mind, when was the last time any of us heard even the briefest of welfare discussions without someone bringing up the idea that welfare actually discourages people from working because they can just be set for their whole lives by getting on the program.

 

Every time. No matter how misrepresentative it is of the poor in our society, it comes up every time. It's the persistent assertion that poor people just want to be poor, much like the insistence that the homeless all chose to be homeless. Which, conveniently, completely absolves us of the need to examine the choices we make to value our current economic system over solving these social issues.

 

The second reason that I think we vilify the poor is because there's still a lot of people, even many of those who don't necessarily practice the religions into which they were born, who see America as having a Judeo-Christian outlook. Just look at how outraged the Republicans were that the Democrats would take the word God out of their platform, and how upset and defensive the Democrats were as they bizarrely tried to pretend that it was some kind of accident.

 

In that context, the idea that people suffer in the midst of a society that even in bad times is more prosperous that a large portion of the world is incongruous with our ideas of love and kindness. But if the poor are disadvantaged because they simply choose not to be productive, then the ethical questions regarding our own actions disappear.

 

Let's face it, the rich don't work harder than everyone else. They certainly may work as hard as other people, but there are folks out there working three jobs, barely sleeping, missing out on their family, and those people are often doing it without things like healthcare, good living conditions, hope. It's a myth that the rich have money because they worked harder than everyone else, any yet we still tend to see having wealth almost as a virtue. Much the same way that we often view poverty as a moral failing.

 

Capitalism really is a very effective economic system, but it's not necessary to freedom. Other systems have freedom, they're just different kinds. And, at they end of the day, it's about the things we choose to give value. Right now, that's the right to gather hordes of money. And yes, we value it above truly helping the needy. And that's fine, but then we shouldn't handle the moral dilemma that creates by making the poor our to be lazy wastrels.

 

But I don't think it's the government's responsibility to force them to do so. I can't find support for that anywhere, and I can't see evidence that it helps anything.

 

There's support for it everywhere and it does help, it just doesn't eliminate the problems.

 

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, TANF, the government defraying the cost of ER visits for the uninsured, job training programs, subsidized child care, and on and on are all programs that the government funds, in part or in full. Lots of people support them, even if they do believe they could be better run - and we know that's true if they've survived a recession like this one.

 

And of course they help. I can guarantee you that somewhere, today, an elderly person bought food, a disabled person saw their doctor, a child had dinner, a mother was able to go to work, and all because of those programs. They address the problems, they just don't solve them.

 

But their existence tells us two things:

 

1. We already believe in redistributing people's money to solve social problems like poverty.

 

2. We just don't believe in it enough, right now, to commit to eradicating them.

 

 

 

...This post kind of turned into a book at some point and, agree or disagree, if you managed to get through it my hat's off to your dedication to the discussion...Of course, if you just skipped to the end, that's understandable, too.

[brairtrainer]

 

...This post kind of turned into a book at some point and, agree or disagree, if you managed to get through it my hat's off to your dedication to the discussion...Of course, if you just skipped to the end, that's understandable, too.

Read all the way through, and honestly I believe we will never truely get rid of poverty, but if we have things in place to allow people in that situation to be able to try to get out or put their children in a better sitcuation overall then we've done the good we need too.

 

We don't need to get rid of the programs, but we don need to refine them. Get rid of programs that spend for example 100$ for every 1 dollar or 50 cents of aid they give out, and make the ones that are most effective more effective.

 

I'm also for drug testing if your on welfare, and if you get tested positive and you have dependents that they get moved from your home and placed in a different one, but I also know the foster care system and the adoption system are in shambles.

 

I believe foster parents need to take a written test and have surprise visits while they are fostering kids until they have done the job well for one year, because we don't need more abused kids in the system.

 

I believe that the rich need to give back, and though I know people are donating some aren't and we need to cut tax breaks for the rich (once again mitt's dancing horse). I believe in a flat tax, with credits or breaks for kids (because tax breaks for kids help but they don't cover the cost of raising a kid) and a level in which you don't pay taxes to be covered (poverty level).

 

Honestly this is what I think, and thats why I'm not voting for the major parites. They don't get it.

[hazeh]

I don't see what the problem is with paying percentage tax. That seems the most fair to me.

[demonicvampiregirl]

I believe foster parents need to take a written test and have surprise visits while they are fostering kids until they have done the job well for one year, because we don't need more abused kids in the system.

I think that should be in place ALL the time not just for a year. They can hear about that before hand and be all nice and turn into monsters afterwards.

[skauble]

Read all the way through, and honestly I believe we will never truely get rid of poverty, but if we have things in place to allow people in that situation to be able to try to get out or put their children in a better sitcuation overall then we've done the good we need too.

I definitely agree with you that the current social net programs could all be refined.

 

But I do wonder what people see as the impediments to one day ending poverty. At one time I think it really was almost logistically impossible to wipe out poverty. Likewise, I think that before certain industrial and technological advantages it was probably not reasonable to expect that all of the resources needed could have been produced. Nowadays, however, I think that we've reached a time when we might want to examine exactly what things we see as standing between us and the elimination of this problem.

 

For instance, we produce a huge amount of food in this country. Enough to end the persistent hunger issues that we have. So why is it that we haven't managed to do that? Is it that it's impossible or is it just that we haven't pinned down and aggressively addressed the things that are standing between us and that goal?

 

ETA: Speaking of the poor and social programs, we've been upgraded!

 

Paul Ryan: 30 Percent 'Want Their Welfare State,' 70 Percent 'Want The American Dream'

 

Apparently 17% of folks moved from people who will never take responsibiliy for themselves to people who aren't slackers. This is the kind of optimism I like to see. Ryan didn't even write off an entire third of the country. That's empathy right there.

Edited October 3, 2012 by skauble

[brairtrainer]

Food is pinned down to the fact that we evolutionarly felt the need to consume more in order to survive. Now that it is abundent we haven't been able to stop ourselves.

 

The reason we can't end poverty is because poverty is defined by living on a portion of money that is hard to live on, and as the standard of living rises then so does the poverty level (not the people in it but what is considered poverty.