by Jack Lee
If you were to look solely at the number of new jobs created, 288,000 in June, you might think the nation is doing well, that Obama’s recovery plans are working! If that is what you thought – you would be wrong, well, not completely wrong, but enough that you should be concerned.
It’s not the number of jobs created that has economists worried, it’s the spike in part time jobs or underemployment. The Dept. of Labor 2 days ago reported a sharp rise in the number of part-time workers who prefer full-time jobs increased by 275,000 to 7.5 million during June. The shift toward part-time work is a big reason wage gains remain modest. In June, average wages were up just 2% over the previous 12 months. “Changes in part-time employment go into assessing underemployment, one of the measures of labor-market progress being watched by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. The broadest measure of joblessness, which also takes into account those too discouraged to look for work and those wanting full-time jobs, was 12.1 percent in June. That’s about double the main unemployment rate, which fell in June to 6.1 percent, the lowest in almost six years.” Bloomberg Jul 7.
If the economy was truly as healthy as the White House would have us believe then employees would be getting more hours, not less. This much is just common sense. So, what’s causing the drop in full time workers? One major fact under suspicion is ObamaCare (Affordable Care Act) and the 30/50 plan. Companies with fewer than 50 employees working less than 30 hours per week do not have to provide the government mandated health insurance. Also impacting the working class is the change in subsidies. Many employees working 30-34 hours per week were entitled to government subsidy for health insurance. Under the ACA they now lose that subsidy. Not only that, but their deductibles under the ACA have them paying more out of pocket, especially for prescriptions and in most cases their premiums have gone up too. Those who have actually benefited from the ACA likely number under 1.3 million and this comes at a tremendous cost.
On the other side of this problem doctors anticipate an overhead operating cost increase of about 7 to 9% in 2014, however their ACA reimbursements will only increase by 2.5% leaving doctors to absorb the difference. This is likely just enough to cause those doctors on the edge of retirement to say good-bye, I’m done with this mess.
Court challenges and exemptions have already gutted key portions of the ACA, but as this trend continues one thing isn’t changing, taxpayers will still be stuck paying for the administrative costs and the new layer of bureaucracy that’s been created.
Even Obama’s most ardent liberal supporters of the ACA are pulling back, chagrined at the high costs and its failure to become universal health insurance.
Still there is room for a slight bit of optimism as a number of economists believe that overall the economy is improving despite Obama’s mismanagement of the recovery.
Better brush up on your bartering skills.
The governments optimism about the economy is a little like those minimum daily requirements figures on the back of sweet cereal packages. The government wanted to know what standard had to be met for subsistence, so those numbers don’t reflect what is needed for full blown health…just survival.
We have a party in charge that believes the minimum is plenty for the masses and they actually think they can sustain that condition by taking wealth and redistributing it. But the longer they are in power the less wealth gets used to created new wealth. Opportunity collapses; the people experience declining health and gradual death.
Our economy has been sputtering for six years. We have not seen what could be called robust growth even once during Obama’s term as President. The patient is gravely ill and the administrations “cure” is to bleed the patient! We won’t last much longer under these conditions.
Good advice, Bob.
Good analogy Tina. We are bleeding from a thousand cuts and Obama’s answer is to bleed us more.
Like D’Souza said in “America,” (I paraphrase) Obama’s promise to transform America must first include the destruction of American before it can be rebuilt.
Peggy, it looks like this is one thing that Obama is good at…destruction.
Just wait until all this cap-n-crap Obammie and Govenor Moonbeam are cramming down our throats kicks in.
The cost of gas, diesel and utilities is going to slam an already weak economy.
Energy is the life blood of this economy and the Demoncrats are going to bleed us white.
And people like Libby cheer. In prior posts she has lectured us on how it is good that the cost of fuel will increase. She thinks the crippling changes to come will be good.
Companies will go out of business, jobs will be lost and lives will be destroyed.
The cost gasoline has a direct impact on nearly everyone, but mostly it hurts those earning under 40k a year and this is supposed to be Obama’s people. We could be doing so much better and have fuel down under $3 a gallon if it were not for the greenies and a lot of disinformation on energy production. It’s no wonder that polling shows Obama is coming in last place out of all the presidents since WWII.
“Energy is the life blood of this economy and the Demoncrats are going to bleed us white.”
Don’t be so pitiful. You tell an employer (who pays shit wages) you can’t take the job cause he’s not on the public transit … he’ll get himself on the public transit (so he can continue to pay shit wages).
Think it through!
And he’s still got two years left.
2 more years…God help us.
Libby, the generous.
Can you imagine her as an employer? (You’ll scrub that floor for two dollars and like it. Ya think I’m made of money? Here, go take the transit, eat your vegetables and be back here at 6:00 sharp!)
She hasn’t a clue.
Come on. It isn’t all about “them”. There is also you, and the choices you make.
But, of course, if you choose to willfully pollute … you will be restrained, retrained, and so forth.
You’re always going on about your lack of freedom. But if it’s the freedom to be wasteful and polluting you yearn for … well, you haven’t got that one. And we all feel your pain … but there it is.
Libby: “if you choose to willfully pollute”
Choose to pollute?
How about you stop lying about the motives, intentions, and actions of those you see as the “enemy.”
This nation of “polluters” has not only made people more prosperous and healthy, we have also made the environment cleaner.
NOBODY WANTS DIRTY AIR OR WATER!
People would like balance in our approach to conservation. People would like JOBS and a THRIVING ECONOMY as well as clean air and water.
You and your radical pals put your rigid ideology above the everyday needs of human beings!
That’s STUPID!
You justify your rigid extremist policies by handing out food stamps and extended unemployment benefits…crumbs from elitist radicals.
NOBODY has suggested “freedom to pollute.” You and your pals are despicable, Libby dear, RIGID, BOSSY, and despicable. And your rigid ideology is killing the nation.
Proud are you? Well yes, there it is.
“Energy is the life blood of this economy and the Demoncrats are going to bleed us white.”
Don’t be so pitiful. You tell an employer (who pays shit wages) you can’t take the job cause he’s not on the public transit … he’ll get himself on the public transit (so he can continue to pay shit wages).
Think it through!
That has to be one of the most cotton headed posts in the history of this blog.
What the politicians are doing is destroying what’s left of the middle class and making even the poor worse off. They have created a permanent and growing underclass.
And now they will vastly raise the cost of energy and everything else. And of course they want ever higher taxes. (Just heard Tom Lando is going to start pushing for a sales tax increase again.)
All these things destroy companies, jobs and lives. Yet you are too stupid to see it or you cheer it on (like in the posts where you lectured us on how we all must change our lives according to your statist plans). You are either incredibly stupid or evil or both.
bob: “What the politicians are doing is destroying what’s left of the middle class and making even the poor worse off. They have created a permanent and growing underclass.”
Yeah, I agree, crippling unions and allowing the min. wage to fall below 1968 levels has decimated the middle class and made it nearly impossible to escape poverty.
Oh, that’s not what you meant? You meant we need to further destroy the modest safety nets that still exist for poor people’s own good?
Nevermind, I don’t agree at all. In fact, #*%* all of that. (Chris behave please)
“…That’s how I found myself, one dreary day when my Honda wouldn’t start, in my husband’s Mercedes at the WIC office. I parked gingerly over one of the many potholes, shut off the purring engine and locked it, then walked briskly to the door — head held high and not looking in either direction.
To this day, it is the single most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done.
No one spoke to me, but they did stare. Mouths agape, the poverty-stricken mothers struggling with infant car seats, paperwork and their toddlers never took their eyes off me, the tall blond girl, walking with purpose on heels from her Mercedes to their grungy den.
I didn’t feel animosity coming from them, more wonderment, maybe a bit of resentment. The most embarrassing part was how I felt about myself. How I had so internalized the message of what poor people should or should not have that I felt ashamed to be there, with that car, getting food. As if I were not allowed the food because of the car. As if I were a bad person.
We’ve now sold that house. My husband found a job that pays well, and we have enough left over for me to go to grad school. President Obama’s programs — from the extended unemployment benefits to the tax-free allowance for short-selling a home we couldn’t afford — allowed us to crawl our way out of the hole.
But what I learned there will never leave me. We didn’t deserve to be poor, any more than we deserved to be rich. Poverty is a circumstance, not a value judgment. I still have to remind myself sometimes that I was my harshest critic. That the judgment of the disadvantaged comes not just from conservative politicians and Internet trolls. It came from me, even as I was living it.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/08/this-is-what-happened-when-i-drove-my-mercedes-to-pick-up-food-stamps/
“That the judgment of the disadvantaged comes not just from conservative politicians and Internet trolls. It came from me, even as I was living it.”
Conservatives don’t judge poor people; conservatives are critical of people who abuse and misuse the system as we all should be. Conservatives are critical of a system that traps people in poverty, as we should all be. conservatives are critical of those who use people in poverty as props to advance their own political fortunes and a marxist ideology. Conservatives are critical of policies not people.
People are upset, and rightly so, when they see people using food stamps to buy things that don’t provide basic nutritional value.
As this (former?) Huffington Post writer admits in her confession, the negative remarks and expressions likely come from individuals of every political persuasion. (“even I was living it”)
Even I? As if only the right wing and RW internet “trolls” have the capacity to act like jerks?
This woman’s discomfort is understandable, anyone would feel some measure of emotional distress in those circumstances. But she totally misunderstands the intentions and motivations of the right and indeed the capacity they have for empathy and charitable giving. She should take this lesson, apply it to her attitudes about the right wing, and grow up. maybe then we could have an honest discussion about the real damage that’s been done to the poor in our nation and the best way to alter the situation.
“Conservatives don’t judge poor people;”
“People are upset, and rightly so, when they see people using food stamps to buy things that don’t provide basic nutritional value.”
You don’t even realize that these two statements contradict each other, do you?
And then, of course, there’s always this:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” –Mitt Romney, in front of a room full of wealthy donors
I am sure you’re prepared to do all sorts of logical contortions in order to argue that the above somehow doesn’t amount to “judging poor people”–and you have before–but I really don’t want you to pull something and hurt yourself. So just–don’t, this time, OK?
“But she totally misunderstands the intentions and motivations of the right”
I’m not sure why you believe that your “intentions and motivations” should mean jack shit to a person who can’t pay their bills and isn’t sure where their next meal is coming from because their unemployment ran out and your party decided to cut funding for food stamps.
It is not your intentions, but your actions that define you.
“and indeed the capacity they have for empathy”
Oh, I believe you have the capacity. So use it.
Are you saying it’s totally okay with you when people use food stamps for candy and beer, cigarettes or worse, cash to play the lottery?
Liberals are ignorant of their own dishonesty and their own judgements about the poor.
You insist these programs must remain without reforms of any kind and always with more spending based on your judgements about their inability to help themselves. You judge that they are helpless victims. (You support government programs because it makes YOU feel better) Your dishonesty about it is what gives you that silly sense of smug superiority.
A bit of wisdom from Dr. Thomas Sowell posted here:
See also chart (linked in article) here:
It’s one of the covert reasons the left is pushing so hard for minimum wage increases. They have created this deplorable condition and now they expect small business owners to fix it and cover for their sorry bumbling government “charity”.
Your party of preference, Chris, is morally bankrupt and too arrogant to be honest about it.
Tina: “Are you saying it’s totally okay with you when people use food stamps for candy”
Yes. Absolutely. No question.
“and beer, cigarettes or worse, cash to play the lottery?”
No, because that’s impossible, you ignorant elitist.
“Liberals are ignorant”
This may have been a more convincing statement had you not made it right after revealing you don’t understand how food stamps work.
“You insist these programs must remain without reforms”
Nope. I never said that. That is a strawman argument.
“You judge that they are helpless victims.”
Nope. I never said that. That is a strawman argument.
“You support government programs because it makes YOU feel better”
Yes, being able to eat, feed my family and also go to college does make me feel better.
“Your dishonesty about it is what gives you that silly sense of smug superiority.”
No, the fact that my arguments are morally, logically and factually superior to yours is what gives me that sense of smug superiority.
Sowell: “Most Americans with incomes below the official poverty level have air-conditioning, television, own a motor vehicle”
How dare they. Those are luxuries that only the lower-middle-class should be able to afford. Apparently Sowell believes that you’re not poor unless you’re always a moment away from dying of heatstroke.
“and, far from being hungry, are more likely than other Americans to be overweight.”
Someone needs to tell this economist that eating healthy is often more expensive than eating unhealthy.
http://www.ibtimes.com/healthy-diet-more-expensive-unhealthy-one-study-1497684
http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-eating-healthy-expensive-study-20131206-story.html
“If increasing your income by $10,000 would cause you to lose $15,000 in government benefits, would you do it?”
This is comically out of touch. Who in the universe is getting $15,000 in government benefits? And how many people on welfare suddenly find themselves in the position to earn an extra $10,000 a year, and don’t take it? Hilarious. He might as well just quote Lucille Bluth:
http://assets.nerdwallet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/anigif_enhanced-buzz-13484-1349223560-2.gif
“In short, the political left’s welfare state makes poverty more comfortable”
Poverty has never been comfortable. This is a damned libel.
Mitchell: “As such, it is not very advantageous for them to climb the economic ladder because hard work is comparatively unrewarding.”
Funny how conservatives never stop and think that maybe the problem with this equation is that we’re not rewarding hard work enough. That the problem is not that welfare pays too much, but that working pays too little. That we’re privileging the investor class over the working class.
Tina: “It’s one of the covert reasons the left is pushing so hard for minimum wage increases.”
There are no covert reasons. We support minimum wage increases because we believe that workers are not currently receiving a fair wage for the work they do. We also believe that increasing pay will reduce the necessity for welfare, because people will be getting more money from their employers rather than the government (which is what you claim you want). There is nothing covert or sinister about this; we have been abundantly clear and open about our reasoning. Now you can bitch about people on welfare, or you can bitch about working people who are trying to increase their pay, but it is irrational and hypocritical to bitch about both.
But hey, the fact that a certain argument is irrational and hypocritical has never stopped you from making it before, so.
Chris Imagines that Mitt Romney, who has done more for poor people personally that Chris ever will, looks down on the poor because he can read polling data and is willing to be honest about his chances to get votes from people already committed to Obama.
(Was he in a comma when the President was campaigning in poor neighborhoods? Does he imagine that the polling data Barrack Obama was looking at was any different?)
Chris tapes his acid prejudiced attitudes toward the right over a good man’s honest assessment and imagines he has discovered something rotten.
The rot to be found here is Chris’s dishonesty and his pathetic desire to destroy an honest man’s reputation.
Unfortunately this type of behavior is, more and more, pretty typical for the compassionate, inclusive, non-judgemental Chris.
Chris: “I’m not sure why you believe that your “intentions and motivations” should mean jack shit to a person who can’t pay their bills…”
I’m not sure why you assume that I do believe my intentions and motivations should mean anything to that (imagined) person. You will have to work that out on your own.
In your world it’s impossible to have feelings and compassion for people in those circumstances and at the same time recognize the system isn’t working very well. It’s impossible to feel for those people and talk about the attendant problems that plague the system or the terrible result in poor neighborhoods. Critiquing the current solution, indeed the simple act of pointing out the failures, means I am a heartless human being. It’s not okay in Chris’s perfect PC world to point out that not every recipient is as needy as they claim or as honest in their use of the food stamp program as we would hope.
In other words there is no way to discuss ways to make things work better both for the poor and for taxpayers because your own hateful agenda, to paint the right as hateful and heartless, is more important. Your intention is to choose the worst possible scenario and then claim that I would spit on that person. That makes you a real stupid jerk, Chris.
This presidency, and left wing policies going back for decades, has destroyed the middle class and added greatly to poverty…you are too proud to admit it. The damage done by education unions alone in poor schools is horrendous.
Time:
Daily Caller:
Jim Bovard, WSJ:
The so-called compassionate conservatism of GWB didn’t win him any accolades from people like Chris but his efforts, no matter how well intentioned, only made fraud of the system easier and more prevalent.
People, all people, will take the easiest possible path. It’s human nature. When we make life on the dole too easy incentives to take care of oneself are blunted.
I know its much easier to be smug about your compassion than to become an adult and face the very real problems that our massive welfare state is causing now and will cause in decades to come but you had better learn and learn fast. Your so-called compassion is hurting poor people by dooming way too many, and their children, to permanent poverty status and is encouraging the spread of a morality of entitlement with approval for cheating the system that will eventually, soon, turn america into a third world misery nation.
That entitlement class is growing and growing and you haven’t a clue about what it would take to produce the wealth to sustain it much less whether it’s even possible. In the end your feelings won’t do Jack to help the poor or feed them and the thousands each year that will join them if we continue down this current path.
Grow up!
Tina: “Chris Imagines that Mitt Romney, who has done more for poor people personally that Chris ever will, looks down on the poor”
I’m not “imagining” anything. I am taking the man at his word. He said he believes that the 47% of people who are too poor to pay income taxes do not “take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” and that there is nothing he can ever do to convince them to. There is no rational interpretation of that statement in which Romney is not looking down on those people.
“because he can read polling data and is willing to be honest about his chances to get votes from people already committed to Obama.
(Was he in a comma when the President was campaigning in poor neighborhoods? Does he imagine that the polling data Barrack Obama was looking at was any different?)”
And if Mitt Romney had only been commenting on “polling data,” then your reply would be relevant. But we both know that’s not all he was talking about, because both of us can read. He didn’t just say said that the poor were going to vote for Obama no matter what. He said that the reason for this is that they’re irresponsible and entitled.
You literally have to ignore everything else Romney said after the first sentence I quoted in order to make the argument you’re making right now. The fact that you have to ignore Romney’s actual words in order to defend his statement should tell you that it’s not worth defending.
I understand that Romney tried to pretend that he was only talking about polling data after the fact in order to save face, and claimed that he “never said” that the 47% were irresponsible.
I just didn’t know that there was anyone stupid enough to believe this over their own eyes and ears.
“The rot to be found here is Chris’s dishonesty and his pathetic desire to destroy an honest man’s reputation.”
What the actual hell are you on about? It’s now “dishonest” to quote someone’s actual words, in context, and to take them at face value? You are pathetic.
Tina, your original statement was this:
“Are you saying it’s totally okay with you when people use food stamps for candy and beer, cigarettes or worse, cash to play the lottery?”
But you didn’t show any examples of people using food stamps for any of these items (other than candy). You did show them using their EBT cards, or trading their food stamps for cash, but that is not the same thing as “using food stamps” directly.
Your Daily Caller piece also contains a pretty big misrepresentation of the US Dept of Ag:
“According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, SNAP benefits (which are transferred to the EBT card) can only be used to buy healthy foods such as bread, cereal, fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products.”
But this is not what the Ag Dept says. If you click the link that the Daily Caller provides, the word “only” never appears on the list of approved foods. In fact, the page explicitly says this:
“-Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items
-Seafood, steak, and bakery cakes are also food items and are therefore eligible items
Since the current definition of food is a specific part of the Act, any change to this definition would require action by a member of Congress. Several times in the history of SNAP, Congress had considered placing limits on the types of food that could be purchased with program benefits. However, they concluded that designating foods as luxury or non-nutritious would be administratively costly and burdensome.”
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items
I guess the writer forgot how to scroll down. (Typical Daily Caller shoddiness.)
It’s true that some people do sell their food stamp cards for cash, and I am all for more enforcement against this type of fraud (rare though it may be, and keep in mind that enforcement would require more government workers). But that’s not the same as “using food stamps to buy cigarettes and beer.”
It’s also true that many non-food stores accept EBT cards. But that is not the same as accepting food stamps. EBT cards are also used for cash assistance. Sometimes child support payments are transferred to the cash part of an EBT card. When stores like this say “We Accept EBT,” they mean that they accept the cash option. It is impossible to use the food stamps option to directly pay for non-food items.
There is nothing wrong with shoe stores or hair salons accepting EBT cash. Shoes are a basic need, and haircuts are also necessary especially if one is looking for a job.
There’s also a valid reason for fast food restaurants to accept food stamps: homeless people and others living extreme poverty may not have microwaves or refrigerators, and may rely on fast food.
I also see no problem with food stamps covering candy or soda. Are you saying poor people should never enjoy such luxuries? I agree that some people over-indulge, and that’s wrong, but what’s the solution? Setting limits on how much junk food one can buy with food stamps? That would be another government intervention in people’s lives, something you claim to be against.
The Dept. of Ag paged linked to by the Daily Caller (and which I linked to above) also provides a link to a summary detailing the costs of restricting certain food items. Here’s a good excerpt:
“-There are more than 300,000 food products on the market, and an average of 12,000 new products
were introduced each year between 1990 and 2000. The task of identifying, evaluating, and tracking
the nutritional profile of every food available for purchase would be substantial. The burden of
identifying which products met Federal standards would most likely fall on an expanded bureaucracy
or on manufacturers and producers asked to certify that their products meet Federal standards.
• Responsibility for enforcing compliance would rest in the hands of employees at check-out counters
in 160,000 stores across the nation. While many have modern scanning and inventory control
systems, others – especially small stores and specialty markets – do not.
• New effort would be needed to help participants avoid the rejection of purchases at the check-out
counter, an event with the potential to reduce productivity at the register and stigmatize participants.”
So really, Tina, this “reform” would only be more costly for government, business, and consumers.
The complaint about lobster is just ridiculous and spiteful.
I do agree that lingerie stores accepting EBT cash is a bit ridiculous, and I’d have no problem with the government denying such stores’ application accept EBT cash. But keep in mind that you’re saying the government should decide what a private business can or can’t do in this case.
I’m also torn on whether people should be allowed to withdraw cash from the cash assistance part of their EBT cards. On one hand I think that this should be set aside for approved activities/items, and on the other hand I’m aware that there are still places which only accept cash, and these places are more common in poor areas.
It is a strawman to say that I am against all reform. I simply don’t agree with most of the reforms you have suggested. Restricting foods deemed unhealthy from the food stamp program would actually be more costly and lead to a bigger bureaucracy. Given the low rate of food stamp fraud, more enforcement of the current laws might also be more costly, but I am willing to give that a try. I also agree with you that some stores should not be allowed to accept EBT cards, and I am willing to consider the possibility of disallowing cash withdrawls from the card.
That said, I am wholeheartedly against wholesale cuts to funding, especially given the poverty and food insecurity crisis in our nation today. I do not at all agree that cutting food stamps would help people rise out of poverty; this rests on the premise that most people on food stamps just lack motivation, when in fact what they lack is money.
I also take issue with your aggressive focus on fraud committed by the poor, while you ignore the fraud committed by the rich and powerful. Corporate welfare amounts to a much bigger giveaway than social welfare, and you don’t have anything to say about it (unless, of course, it’s for something like solar energy, but that’s because it has leftist cooties, not because of any general principle against government subsidies to the rich).
The article I posted was meant to send the message that poverty is not a moral failure, it is a circumstance. But that message clearly didn’t land. You say that you do not look down on poor people, but then you call them an “entitlement class” with a cheating mentality. You can’t have it both ways. You can admit you look down on them, and admit you think they deserve it, or you can stop saying callous things about poor people. But what you can’t do while retaining any shred of honesty is say, “I don’t look down on poor people, I just think they’re unmotivated, irresponsible, entitled, and they’re keeping themselves in poverty by gaming the system.” That is incoherent.
To be fair, I should give you some credit, Tina. I never thought I’d see the day when you agreed with Michael Bloomberg over big corporations. From your Time link:
“Simon gives the example of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to bar food-stamp recipients from buying sugary soft drinks with SNAP dollars. Big companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola fought back against the measure, which was ultimately vetoed by the Department of Agriculture, saying that the measure would be unworkable.”
CBS News:
You believe people are entitled to government assistance and argue vociferously to defend it.
I’m pretty sure you also believe that people in the described demographic were more likely to vote for Obama.
The sense of entitlement in this country is pervasive and why not, our government talks about these programs in terms of what people are entitled to receive.
Studies have shown that people who remain stuck in dependency have little incentive to pull themselves out. One of the reasons is that welfare program rules work against attempts to achieve independence.
Romney was being honest.
You are not being honest; you are being an emotional child.
It’s dishonest to act as if his words were lies. It’s even dishonest to believe his words were insensitive since he was not speaking in public but in private.
You are pathetic not only because you refuse to discuss this subject honestly but because you insist on irrational, emotional arguments as if they were relevant! Your need to prove what you believe is a lack of empathy on the right swamps all reason. You wouldn’t recognize “face value” if it bit your nose completely off.
I’m done with your infantile PCBS. Grow up.
“Romney was being honest.”
OK, then.
Now it’s your turn to be honest.
Are you admitting that Romney was, in fact, looking down on poor people for being entitled, lazy, and irresponsible?
Or are you still pretending that it is possible to view a class of people as entitled, lazy, and irresponsible without looking down on them?
“You believe people are entitled to government assistance”
No. I believe our society functions better when government assistance goes to those who need it. Entitlement doesn’t enter into it. I don’t know if I agree with liberals who believe that food and healthcare are “rights.” I do know that low demand is killing the economy.
I’m a utilitarian, Tina. I favor what works. I don’t have an overwhelming ideological need to bash a certain class of people.
“Studies have shown that people who remain stuck in dependency have little incentive to pull themselves out. One of the reasons is that welfare program rules work against attempts to achieve independence.”
Then let’s give them an incentive. Cutting welfare is not an incentive, it’s a punishment. An incentive would be making sure that they have a well-paying job as an alternative to welfare. That means raising the minimum wage to a level equivalent to the one you started working for many years ago.
Unless you can explain to me why your grandchildren’s generation should get paid less than you did for doing the same type of work.
Romney’s pertinent 47% statements —
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like.”
This addresses the obvious political aim of Democrats which has been especially true for at least 50 years —
Democrats are trying to encourage dependency on government for the explicit purpose of enlarging the pool of voters who can be relied upon to vote Democratic for the rest of their lives, in order to preserve the government handouts they enjoy.
Revealing rekevant Lyndon Baines Johnson quotes —
“I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” (To two governors on Air Force One.)
“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”—Lyndon B. Johnson
The welfare state, created by the Democratic Party and which effectively destroyed the black family by encouraging women to have babies and go on welfare was simply was an extension of the LBJ civil rights policy.
This is a fairly obvious political calculus (despite the vehement and fraudulent denials from Democrats). A calculus that has worked out quite well for the Democratic Party even after welfare reform did a bit to transform welfare from a mere handout to a hand up. Nevertheless, Democratic Party economic policies and the Obama’s refusal to effectively enforce immigration laws continue to increase welfare rolls, to the political advantage of the Democratic Party. There there be know doubt about it, what is best for the nation does not enter into the Democratic Party’s political calculus, they single most important interest is to increase there voter base in order to wield political power.
So … Pie … your guy is a pig, and our guy is a pig … and your point is?
Those LBJ quotes come from a third-hand source, but may be accurate. Whatever his motivations for launching the War on Poverty, it doesn’t change the fact that poverty rates were higher before the War on Poverty began, and have never ONCE gone back to pre-1964 levels since.
What Pie and Tina refuse to address about Romney’s comments is that it is just plain stupid to insult half the country a few months before an election. Of course, Romney didn’t know he was going to be videotaped, but it was still a huge error in judgment. I understand that the conservatives here share Romney’s expressed belief that the 47% of people who pay no income tax are lazy, entitled, and irresponsible, but I don’t think most of the country agrees with that estimation, which is at least part of the reason Romney lost.
Actually, it’s amazing, and confounding, and entirely peculiar to our state: Truman, LBJ … political hacks and decidedly unscrupulous fellows (also Dems) … until they hit the White House … and some underlying honor resurrected itself … they did splendid things. Truman desegregated the army … that was huge. And LBJ? … someday we will have another President of African descent, one who was not raised by white ladies, and then we will have arrived, karmically speaking, and it will all be laid at the feet of that pig … Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Chris: “Are you admitting that Romney was, in fact, looking down on poor people for being entitled, lazy, and irresponsible?”
What the hell is wrong with you? Some people are lazy, think they are entitled, and are irresponsible! Deny that and you are in need of therapy!
But that is not what he said.
Romney said they BELIEVED those things…changing that perception isn’t easy and it certainly wasn’t possible in a campaign where your opponent is promising them more handouts and preferences.
I’d like to know what prompted this statement. it sounds like they were discussing the best ways to spend time and money. Not everything is possible.
” I do know that low demand is killing the economy.”
And it will as long as there are no jobs and opportunity because people are being penalized for taking risks and investing. And as long as special interests rule the nation and the President keeps picking winners and losers.
“Then let’s give them an incentive. Cutting welfare is not an incentive…”
Not true! Hunger is a great incentive.
But who brought up cutting welfare? Welfare can be cut at least by the amount of fraud in it and that’s sizable. Those social workers are just going to have to be more discerning about who gets it.
” An incentive would be making sure that they have a well-paying job as an alternative to welfare.”
That’s not incentive. Did the government do your homework for you or did you do it to achieve something?
“That means raising the minimum wage to a level equivalent to the one you started working for many years ago.”
Another progressive myth. See here:
And this is good too.
My grandchildren will be paid minimum wage when they start work and will move on to better work and better pay as their skills and experience allow…it will be up to them not some elitist politician in DC trying to get votes.
“it is just plain stupid to insult half the country a few months before an election”
If it had been Romney’s intent to insult people he would have made those statements in public instead of a private meeting. The only person who hoped to insult people is the person who took the recording and released it to help Obama…worked too. It worked because of the decades long bait the Democrat leadership uses…they could give a damn if the poor ever get an opportunity to do better.
Romney was more likely to make life better and not just for the poor but all Americans. That fraction of Independents in the middle are regretting they didn’t choose Romney now…as a are a number of the poor who are wising up to the fact that Democrats lie and they don’t understand economics or how freedom creates opportunity.
At #35 Libby “someday we will have another President of African descent…”
Yeah,,,and he’ll be a Republican!
” and it will all be laid at the feet of that pig … Lyndon Baines Johnson.”
An accident of fate and unachievable except for broad
Republican initiation and support.
Chris: “Are you admitting that Romney was, in fact, looking down on poor people for being entitled, lazy, and irresponsible?”
Tina: “What the hell is wrong with you? Some people are lazy, think they are entitled, and are irresponsible! Deny that and you are in need of therapy!”
Tina, I never denied that “some people are lazy, think they are entitled, and are irresponsible.”
Do you see the difference between saying that SOME people are lazy, entitled, and irresponsible, and saying that 47% OF THE COUNTRY is lazy, entitled, and irresponsible?
And why can’t you just answer the question I asked you? Does calling people lazy, entitled, and irresponsible count as “looking down on” them, or doesn’t it?
“But that is not what he said.”
Oh, this should be good.
“Romney said they BELIEVED those things…”
Do you actually believe there’s a difference between saying someone believes they are entitled, and calling them entitled? Of course you don’t. You are just pretending to because it makes it easier to make the absurd argument you’re making right now.
Also, Romney did not say that the 47% simply “believed” they were irresponsible. He said that they were irresponsible:
“I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
I mean, do I actually have to sit here and diagram this sentence for you? You are ignoring what’s right in front of your face, the clear meaning of Romney’s words, because you are incapable of ever criticizing a Republican.
Extreme partisanship should be classified as a learning disability.
“And it will as long as there are no jobs”
You have it entirely backwards. Jobs do not create demand. Demand creates jobs.
“and opportunity because people are being penalized for taking risks and investing.”
WHO is being penalized for taking risks and investing?! The investor class has HUGE tax advantages over the working class.
“And as long as special interests rule the nation and the President keeps picking winners and losers.”
If you didn’t want to pick winners and losers, you’d support making the capital gains tax equivalent to income tax (like Reagan did). You’d spend as much time complaining about corporate welfare as you do social welfare. You’d complain as much about oil subsidies as you do solar subsidies. You are perfectly fine with the government picking winners and losers, you just want people and groups you identify with (on a tribal level) to be the winners.
“Not true! Hunger is a great incentive.”
Look, you can complain about being called callous towards the poor, or you can say things like the above. You can’t do both and retain any shred of self-respect.
“But who brought up cutting welfare?”
Your party, silly.
“Welfare can be cut at least by the amount of fraud in it and that’s sizable.”
It’s “sizable?” OK, what size? Give me a percentage.
“Those social workers are just going to have to be more discerning about who gets it.”
And what criteria would you implement? How would this be enforced? Do you understand that this could create more bureaucracy? Those social workers are not robots; they have to be paid, by your tax dollars.
“That’s not incentive.”
What? Of course it is.
“Did the government do your homework for you or did you do it to achieve something?”
What are you talking about? Do you believe the government has a role in creating good jobs, or don’t you?
“Another progressive myth. See here:
Tedeschi looked at after-tax income for minimum-wage earners — the differences include the creation and expansion of the EITC, much less taxation of low incomes (thanks, President Reagan!) and other new and more-generous tax credits. It turns out minimum-wage earners with families are much better off than they used to be (see chart)
This reflects one of the points Neumark raises about the superiority of the EITC over the minimum wage: The former can be tailored to increase incomes the people who actually need it, i.e., working families (and whose relatively uncommon plight minimum-wage advocates always cite), while the latter risks shutting out less-skilled people (especially teenagers and single minority men) out of the labor market.”
That doesn’t make the historically low min. wage a “myth,” Tina. It’s also important to note that the EITC usually only applies to couples or people with children, so my question still stands: why should my generation (most of whom are waiting to get married and have children) work for a lower minimum wage than the one you worked for?
“And this is good too.”
No, it’s just the same sloppy reasoning and ignorance of recent evidence Forbes is infamous for.
“My grandchildren will be paid minimum wage when they start work and will move on to better work and better pay as their skills and experience allow…it will be up to them not some elitist politician in DC trying to get votes.”
And yet, they will still be starting with a lower min. wage than you did. And they probably won’t be eligible for EITC right away to make up for it. You are still denying them an advantage that you received. I’d like to see you explain that to them.
“If it had been Romney’s intent to insult people he would have made those statements in public instead of a private meeting. The only person who hoped to insult people is the person who took the recording and released it to help Obama…worked too.”
THIS IS HILARIOUS.
You literally just said that as long as you badmouth people behind their backs, if you don’t think they will ever find out, then that’s perfectly fine and doesn’t count as an “insult.” But the real insult comes from someone who exposes the original badmouthing. THAT’s the moral outrage to you; not that Romney badmouthed the poor to a room full of rich donors so that they would give him more money, but that he was caught. And the person who caught him is the one America should be angry at.
Do we need any more proof that you have absolutely no moral principals worth speaking of?
Oh here it goes again, Romney makes one minor misstatement during an exhausting campaign and the left never forgets! That “47 percent” comment was actually about the number of people who don’t pay federal taxes. The inference was they are becoming dependent on government. This played directly into the democrat stereotype of Romney as a rich guy who looked down on the little people who didn’t pay their fair share while inferring that 47%of the country is dependent on the government. Chris wants to keep on hurting him by bringing it up again, even though Romney was making a valid point.
Here’s the point Romney was trying to make and this is from a research paper by a couple of PHD’s: “The United States held a dubious distinction in 2011—44.7 percent of the population pays no federal income taxes. While this percentage is a cause for concern, the figure is an improvement compared to the 48.5 percent of the population who paid no federal income taxes in 2010. America is increasingly moving away from a nation of self-reliant individuals, where civil society flourishes, toward a nation of individuals less inclined to practicing self-reliance and personal responsibility. Government programs not only crowd out civil society, but too frequently trap individuals and families in long-term dependence, leaving them incapable of escaping their condition for generations to come. Rebuilding civil society can rescue these individuals from the government dependence trap.”
“Americans polled by Rasmussen believe that government dependence is too high. In a September 2013 poll, 67 percent of adults nationwide said that too many Americans are dependent on the government.[1] ”
“69.4% of a federal programs goes into dependence programs.” Office of Management and Budget 2013
“The Index has now grown by 80.1 percent since 2001. One of the most worrying trends in the Index is the coinciding growth in the non-taxpaying public. The percentage of the population who do not pay federal income taxes, and who are not claimed as dependents by someone who does pay them, jumped from 15 percent in 1984 to 48.5 percent in 2010. However, the portion of the population who did not pay federal income taxes dropped to 44.7 percent in 2011. The recent decrease is likely due to expiring tax credits that were temporarily authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the start of the economic recovery. This means that in 1984, 35.3 million paid no taxes; in 2011, 139.3 million paid nothing.[7]”
In 2011 the government dependence score equaled 332 total value points compared to 1962 when it was just 16 value points. That’s a dramatic rise and again this was Romney’s concern and it’s a valid concern too! See the chart located here Scroll down the page until you come to Index of Dependence on Government.
From the Daily Signal: “In a clandestine tape recorded in May and obtained by the magazine, former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) remarked that 47 percent of taxpayers pay no federal income taxes. He notes, among other things, the increase in dependency on government in the country.
This is not a widely held secret: 47 percent of all tax filers paid no federal individual income taxes in 2009, and in 2011 that figure was 46 percent. This is all perfectly legitimate as taxpayers take advantage of various credits, deductions, exemptions, and the like. These filers are largely (but not exclusively) low-income Americans including seniors and students.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that these taxpayers are dependent on the federal government. (More on that later.) But it does raise a crucial issue for our democracy: Who should pay to fund the federal government?
Just read this and wondered if the progressive/liberals would say Gandhi misspoke too.
Gandhi’s Seven Dangers To Human Virtue:
1 – Wealth Without Work
2 – Pleasure Without Conscience
3 – Knowledge Without Character
4 – Business Without Ethics
5 – Science Without Humanity
6 – Religion Without Sacrifice
7 – Politics Without Principle
Pretty much describes the Democrat/Progressive party.
Also learned the definition of a Progressive:
A Communist with patience.
Patience: is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances.
The Progressive movement took over the Dems decades ago and are now working on the Repubs. Slow, methodic and from within will be the final step of our “transformation” unless voters wake up this November.
When almost half of this country (47%) aren’t paying taxes, how much longer will it be before the rest realize the fools they’re being played for?
Harry Reid was successful in his participation from the Senate floor from helping to take out Romney, now he’s moved on to attacking the Koch brothers. (Worth reading the complete article.)
Behind Harry Reid’s war against the Koch brothers:
“At first, it seemed like just another example of Harry Reid being Harry Reid.
The Senate majority leader, whose unscripted attacks can veer into bellicosity and take liberties with facts, spoke on the Senate floor last October and appeared to blame billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch for the government shutdown.
“By shutting down the government,” Reid said, “we’re satisfying the Koch brothers and Ed Meese, but millions of people in America are suffering.” In January, he went further, accusing the Kochs of “actually trying to buy the country.”
His staff affectionately refers to such ad libs as Reid “getting out ahead of his skis,” but the professional left, which had spent years agitating for a high-level Democratic campaign against the Kochs, cheered and urged him on.
The result has been a highly unusual election-year campaign against a couple of relatively unknown private citizens whom Reid and his Democrats are seeking to make into caricatures of a Republican Party that, on issue after issue, caters to the very rich at the expense of everyone else.
After Reid’s ad-libbed comments, his office developed a strategy for a coordinated campaign that’s expected to resume this month and carry clear through Election Day and beyond. It’s been shaped and reinforced by Reid’s staff, including former operatives of the liberal Center for American Progress, which had pioneered Koch-bashing politics years earlier. An eclectic cast of characters was also involved, including Reid’s wife, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a top Democratic pollster, two brothers who wrote a business-management book and various liberal super PACs and nonprofits.”
Continued..
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/harry-reid-koch-brothers-108632.html#ixzz37HlndifJ
Re #33 Libby : “So … Pie … your guy is a pig, and our guy is a pig … and your point is?”
You are equating Romney with that monumentally cynical racist ass LBJ? SHEESH, YOU REALLY ARE DUMBER THAN A BAG OF DOORKNOBS.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Re: #39 Post Scripts : “Oh here it goes again, Romney makes one minor misstatement during an exhausting campaign and the left never forgets! That “47 percent” comment was actually about the number of people who don’t pay federal taxes. The inference was they are becoming dependent on government. This played directly into the democrat stereotype of Romney as a rich guy who looked down on the little people who didn’t pay their fair share while inferring that 47%of the country is dependent on the government. Chris wants to keep on hurting him by bringing it up again, even though Romney was making a valid point.”
Precisely. But the English major ass always takes it a step further to continue his personal attacks. This the usual pattern of the left. Tiresome, tedious brats.
As if the English major ass has some sort of moral superiority bench from which to flog Tina. Drop dead you absurd, foul, and pompous toad.
I have no interest in “hurting” Romney. He’s over with. I do have an interest in exposing the sneering contempt for the poor held by too many conservatives, as has been proven here by those who have attempted to spin and defend his comments. If a Democratic politician had referred to the rich as entitled and irresponsible, you would have all cried class warfare. But when Romney uses these adjectives to describe the 47% of Americans too poor to pay income taxes, you cheer.
How many more elections would you like to lose before you realize this attitude needs to change?
Chris, you misinterpreted the entire premise for the my comment. I’m neither cheering nor jeering Romney, I’m presenting facts that are alarming to those on the left and right who care about the continuation of the United States as a viable democracy.
Libertarian Kevin Carson of the Center for a Stateless Society takes aim at Romney’s 47% comments, and turns the tables on the “makers v. takers” rhetoric of the Republican party:
The “Makers” and “Takers” — Not Who You Think
The old “53% vs. 47%” meme that got so much attention in the 2012 election resurfaced this week when it came out that Colorado gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez apparently first coined it at a 2010 Rotary Club speech. The 47% who pay no income tax, he said back then, are “dependent on the largesse of government” and “perfectly happy that someone else is paying the bill.” The talking point got traction with the Tea Party and was soon picked up by politicians like Paul Ryan (who warned we were approaching “a net majority of takers vs. makers”) and Mitt Romney.
Of course this is pure buncombe. It presupposes that high taxable incomes result primarily from being “makers,” when the truth is just the opposite. The higher your income, in fact, the more likely you’re a taker who’s — all together now! — dependent on government.
It’s possible to get moderately wealthy — say, an income that qualifies you for the “top 1%,” which is somewhere under $400,000, or assets in the low millions — through genuine entrepreneurship. Even at this level, of course, it’s more likely you have an income heavily inflated by membership in a licensing cartel, or help manage a highly authoritarian, statist corporation where your “productivity” — and bonuses — are defined by how effectively you shaft the people whose skills, relationships and other human capital are actually responsible for the organization’s productivity. But it’s at least possible to get this rich by being a maker of sorts, by being more adept than others at anticipating and meeting real human needs.
But you don’t get to be super-rich — to the tune of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars — by making stuff. You get that filthy rich only through crime of one sort or another (even if it’s technically perfectly legal in this society). You get the really big-time money not by making stuff or doing stuff, but by controlling the conditions under which other people are allowed to make stuff and do stuff. You get super-rich by getting into a position where you can fence off opportunities to produce, enclosing those natural opportunities as a source of rent. You do it by collecting tolls and tribute from those who actually make stuff, as a condition of not preventing them from doing so. In other words you get super-rich by being a parasite and extorting protection money from productive members of society, with the help of government.
So don’t be fooled by the fact that some of us aren’t paying any income taxes. We pay lots of taxes — to rich takers who live off our largesse. The portion of your rent or mortgage that results from the enormous tracts of vacant and unimproved land held out of use through artificial property rights is a tax to the landlord. The 95% of the price of drugs under patent, or Bill Gates’s software, is a tax you pay to the owners of “intellectual property” monopolies. So is the portion of the price you pay for manufactured goods, over and above actual materials and labor, that results from embedded rents on patents and enormous brand-name markups on (for example) Nike sneakers over and above the few bucks a pair the sweatshops contract to make them for. So is the estimated 20% oligopoly price markup for industries where a few corporations control half or more of output. If by chance you do pay federal income tax, half of it goes to support the current military establishment or pay off debt from past wars — wars fought for the sake of giant corporations.
The “takers,” in short, are the people Romney spoke to at $1000/plate fundraisers, who pay Hillary Clinton several hundred grand for a speech reassuring them Wall Street’s not to blame. The entire Fortune 500, the entire billionaire plutocracy, depends on largesse from us makers — and they can only do it with government help.
http://c4ss.org/content/29214