$22 Trillion spent on the war on poverty in the last 50 years...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting responses. I would like to hear the issue of self responsibility. If you cannot take care of yourself I agree you should not starve, be homeless, or suffer health wise. But if someone else is going to pay for that then you should have to concede some of your freedoms such as how you spend financial support, have to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle, not have children while you cannot afford to take care of yourself. In the case you do not say " thank you" for the help and keep living a destructive lifestyle, then I believe it is you who forfeits the safety net. At that point if a charity wishes to help wonderful but government has to draw lines at no wins

Slavery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You forgot to divide that by 50,the number of years of the total expenditure. That would be a little more than $3,000 per person/year. So would I donate $3000 a year to help my fellow citizens living in poverty, I would.

Yes, but the goal is to get people out\of poverty, not have intergenerational poverty where the same percentage remains for fifty years!

This is not liberal's goal, obviously.

Uh, no. It's conservatives who like to keep people in poverty so that they always have abundant cheap labor available for their businesses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about metrics from the outset when the welfare payments start and tracking the results and putting incentives and dis-incentives in place to meet goals, not send a check through the mail for XX years unaudited?

We do that already. Your state does it. Federal law requires re-determinations of eligibility for Medicaid on an annual basis, and for SNAP it's every six months. TANF has broader state discretion, but no one is allowed to have TANF benefits for more than 60 months in an adult lifetime. Some states make it even less than that.

Ever since the TANF law passed in 96, we've cut welfare rolls in half.

Most of the fraud that occurs with social safety net programs isn't from the recipient, but from providers like grocery stores, landlords, and doctors. The rich people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A better start would be to end corporate welfare in which companies get away with paying such low wages that a person working a full time job or two part time jobs ends up at the poverty line and thus subsidized by the taxpayer.

By all means. Let's cut off the food stamps. Safeway, Kroger, Wegmans, Albertsons and all those other large corporations do not need corporate welfare.

They should pay a living wage. And, they can afford to do so.

They do. If they didn't, their workers would be dying and no one would be working.

No they don't. If that were true we wouldn't need food stamps! A huge percentage of people collecting food stamps and other government benefits are in fact working full time.

----> Then how about they stop working there? When enough people stop working there, the store gets the message and has to raise wages.

# "Just stop working there" - and live off of what? You act like they have an abundance of choice. They don't. You take much for granted and have no idea what you're talking about.

How about we deal with the out-of-control housing market, in which rent consumes an inordinate amount of many peoples' income, and home ownership is out of reach?

How about moving out of the cities. You want NYC, you are going to pay NYC prices. It's really up to you where you live.

Fine, then move those jobs out of NYC. Companies need to embrace telework and other kinds of better models.

----> I agree.

How about we deal with wealth inequality, for example there being no legitimate reason why a corporate CEO today should be making tens of millions of dollars a year when his predecessor a few decades ago wasn't even making 1 million a year. That CEO today isn't actually any more effective, special or worth the extra money than his predecessor was.

The more YOU do, the more wealth inequality there is. Stop doing. We've experienced your agenda in full force. YOU are the problem. You've been dealing with wealth inequality for 50 years. Newsflash: it ain't working!

No. For the last several decades it's been YOUR agenda: Trickle-down, corporatist oligarchy. THAT ain't working.

----> No, you have been in power and have set the welfare programs in motion. They don't go away when you leave. Hullo?

# Welfare was only ever intended to be a safety net, a bandaid to fill gaps. But, trickle-down economics have only made the gaps worse and thus, the ER patient who originally came in to be patched up and be sent on his way now becomes a permanent ward because it's harder and harder for him to get back on his feet. Again, wealth gaps and greedy, selfish Republican policies to protect the 1% and exploit everyone else are the reason the gaps keep getting wider.

How about we actually reward the producers and those who create jobs, like small business, and disincentivize and much more aggressively tax people who just suck money out of the economy, house flippers and middlemen and hedge fund traders and arbitrageurs who make their money through manipulating real estate, commodities, stocks, currency et cetera and who don't actually produce anything or contribute in any meaningful way to society. And even more so with predatory businesses.

My god, the victimhood is strong here. Meaningful? That's a definition in your head. House flippers? Should we all sit around and watch soap operas all day and expect money from heaven to pour down on us? How about some individual incentive to better yourself?

Again, we SHOULD NOT incentivize people who don't produce or create anything, or those who harm the economy by impoverishing others. Has nothing to do with "victimhood", has everything to do with creating a more stable and robust economy. The more that money circulates, the more powerful and robust an economy becomes. That means, people with disposable income. Consumerism drives demand and demand drives supply. Can't get any more capitalist than that!

----> However, we are incentivizing people who don't produce or create anything. Look at the welfare rolls?!!

# I totally agree we should be getting people off of welfare rolls. As do most people, including most liberals, contrary to conservative mythology. But in order to do so, we need to give them something else. Just kicking them off and letting them live on the streets isn't a solution. How about job training, life skills, childcare for single moms, et cetera - take the steps necessary for them to actually become self-dependent. And not just self-dependent, but productive workers and contributors to the economy. And that takes an investment - one that we have been not doing a good job in making due to ideologies, misguided priorities and partisanship. We have no problem throwing away a trillion dollars to the war machine or to a tax cut for the rich, yet we balk at even spending a million on getting Americans functional and working.

[/quote

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We now have the "working poor" - two parent households both working full time for minimum wage at Walmart - who don't have enough to cover food and rent.

You people are so quick to blame the programs to help the poor but not the society that continues to create the poor (not enough housing and high rents, low minimum wage, lack of public transportation, etc).

I am happy to pay for any program that feeds, gives medical attention, education and housing for any American child.

This is important. We have less rent control and affordable housing than ever before. People cannot move out of the expensive cities because there is no public transportation in a lot of suburban and rural areas. We have major companies that pay only minimum wage despite earning billions.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting responses. I would like to hear the issue of self responsibility. If you cannot take care of yourself I agree you should not starve, be homeless, or suffer health wise. But if someone else is going to pay for that then you should have to concede some of your freedoms such as how you spend financial support, have to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle, not have children while you cannot afford to take care of yourself. In the case you do not say " thank you" for the help and keep living a destructive lifestyle, then I believe it is you who forfeits the safety net. At that point if a charity wishes to help wonderful but government has to draw lines at no wins

Slavery.

Wow. I agree with the first PP.

So you're saying that if we set up some parameters for people receiving taxpayer money, we are enslaving them? So if we were to say that people on welfare cannot spend money on, oh....I don't know....fancy hats, that's akin to slavery (especially when these same people are saying the welfare they get isn't sufficient)? We, as people giving money to poor people, have every right to block poor expenditures of that money. If the poor people getting the fruits of our labor don't like it, they don't have to take our money.

[Anonymous]

Liars figuring. 1967 was several years after the major benefits kicked in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting responses. I would like to hear the issue of self responsibility. If you cannot take care of yourself I agree you should not starve, be homeless, or suffer health wise. But if someone else is going to pay for that then you should have to concede some of your freedoms such as how you spend financial support, have to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle, not have children while you cannot afford to take care of yourself. In the case you do not say " thank you" for the help and keep living a destructive lifestyle, then I believe it is you who forfeits the safety net. At that point if a charity wishes to help wonderful but government has to draw lines at no wins

Slavery.

Wow. I agree with the first PP.

So you're saying that if we set up some parameters for people receiving taxpayer money, we are enslaving them? So if we were to say that people on welfare cannot spend money on, oh....I don't know....fancy hats, that's akin to slavery (especially when these same people are saying the welfare they get isn't sufficient)? We, as people giving money to poor people, have every right to block poor expenditures of that money. If the poor people getting the fruits of our labor don't like it, they don't have to take our money.

You can't ban people from having children. You cannot enslave their reproductive rights because they get welfare.

We give money to poor people because that's the right, ethical, and productive thing to do. We don't give them money to control their behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The poverty rate was 22% in 1960, and it was much worse for black people. Most black people were poor before 1960. Now most black people are middle class. Social Security keeps up to half of all seniors out of poverty.

The initiatives will never be 100% successful because we have a democracy, where politicians battle about these types of policies. Historically, conservatives have fought anti-poverty programs tooth and nail. That, by definition, will cut effectiveness. And that's evident in the South, where poverty rates are by far the highest. The Bible Belt.

What would poverty look like without governmental redistribution of wealth? More like it does in developing countries.

You need to read A Clash of Police Policies, By Dr. Thomas Sowell

The statistics he cites are eye opening.


https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/08/16/a-clash-of-police-policies


Yes, he's black if that helps you.

Yes, we know he's black. He's also an asshole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The poverty rate was 22% in 1960, and it was much worse for black people. Most black people were poor before 1960. Now most black people are middle class. Social Security keeps up to half of all seniors out of poverty.

The initiatives will never be 100% successful because we have a democracy, where politicians battle about these types of policies. Historically, conservatives have fought anti-poverty programs tooth and nail. That, by definition, will cut effectiveness. And that's evident in the South, where poverty rates are by far the highest. The Bible Belt.

What would poverty look like without governmental redistribution of wealth? More like it does in developing countries.

You need to read A Clash of Police Policies, By Dr. Thomas Sowell

The statistics he cites are eye opening.


https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/08/16/a-clash-of-police-policies


Yes, he's black if that helps you.

Yes, we know he's black. He's also an asshole.

PP here, my first assessment was correct. it is SO much more complicated than his 5 paragraph article. He makes it so simplistic. It's not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We now have the "working poor" - two parent households both working full time for minimum wage at Walmart - who don't have enough to cover food and rent.

You people are so quick to blame the programs to help the poor but not the society that continues to create the poor (not enough housing and high rents, low minimum wage, lack of public transportation, etc).

I am happy to pay for any program that feeds, gives medical attention, education and housing for any American child.

This is important. We have less rent control and affordable housing than ever before. People cannot move out of the expensive cities because there is no public transportation in a lot of suburban and rural areas. We have major companies that pay only minimum wage despite earning billions.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting responses. I would like to hear the issue of self responsibility. If you cannot take care of yourself I agree you should not starve, be homeless, or suffer health wise. But if someone else is going to pay for that then you should have to concede some of your freedoms such as how you spend financial support, have to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle, not have children while you cannot afford to take care of yourself. In the case you do not say " thank you" for the help and keep living a destructive lifestyle, then I believe it is you who forfeits the safety net. At that point if a charity wishes to help wonderful but government has to draw lines at no wins

Slavery.

Wow. I agree with the first PP.

So you're saying that if we set up some parameters for people receiving taxpayer money, we are enslaving them? So if we were to say that people on welfare cannot spend money on, oh....I don't know....fancy hats, that's akin to slavery (especially when these same people are saying the welfare they get isn't sufficient)? We, as people giving money to poor people, have every right to block poor expenditures of that money. If the poor people getting the fruits of our labor don't like it, they don't have to take our money.

You can't ban people from having children. You cannot enslave their reproductive rights because they get welfare.

We give money to poor people because that's the right, ethical, and productive thing to do. We don't give them money to control their behavior.

It's not right or ethical if people are going to have kids to increase their welfare payments.... and don't tell me that doesn't happen, because it sure as hell does. Gaming that welfare system happens all the time.

People enroll in to food stamp programs also and then set up a store front and sell the food they receive for profit. That's all documented. It's not policed nearly enough.

[Anonymous]

LBJ created generational poverty.

The best welfare that can be given to the poor are jobs. And President Trump's going to give the poor jobs. He's in process of re-industrializing America. I know that fixing the intentional disasters of Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama will be a task for a true leader. Thank God that we now have a man's man running our operation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LBJ created generational poverty.

The best welfare that can be given to the poor are jobs. And President Trump's going to give the poor jobs. He's in process of re-industrializing America. I know that fixing the intentional disasters of Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama will be a task for a true leader. Thank God that we now have a man's man running our operation.

LBJ did that by intent. It was his way of having "the n's vote Democrat for the next 200 years." (His statement, not mine.)

[Anonymous]

Why yes he did.