Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you explain children who die due to social services inefficiencies ? Why veteran care is so poor? Why doctors can't pay their overhead if they took only Medicare patients? How the IRS makes errors and destroys people's lives through Leon's, garnishings, etc? If private corporations made these mistakes, heads would roll. And do. Government? Not so much.

I can say that FEWER children die, for any reason, now than at any other time in history. A lot of it is improved nutrition (WIC, food stamps), a lot of it is improved medical care (medicaid). Tax collection has ALWAYS been a source of potential corruption, and a source of great loss when abused. It is better regulated now than it ever has been.

Am I saying that everything is great and we should just leave it all alone and our work here is done? Hell no.

Are you saying that an institution that doesn't function at 100% effectiveness and perfection should be abolished, whether or not there is something better to replace it? Yeah, it kinda sounds like you are.

I'm saying adding to it while acknowledging gross inefficiencies is completely irresponsible. A private corporation would soon go out of business with that model

You allege "gross" inefficiencies. The numbers say otherwise-- quite the opposite, actually. More services provided to more people for less money per service/ person. Your position is a soundbite. It is not reality. Again, we're not talking about our opinions. This isn't how we "feel". You have seen many sad-eyed news reporters talking about this or that child who was failed by the system, and so you believe it to be a scourge upon our nation's children. But if you were able to find and understand the data, the only depiction of objective reality that is available to any of us, you would see that we are so much better off than ever before.

Provide the data

WASHINGTON — A Tennessee congressman who supports billions of dollars in cuts to the food stamp program is one of the largest recipients of federal farm subsidies, according to new annual data released by a Washington environmental group.

Using Agriculture Department data, researchers at the Environmental Working Group found that Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican and a farmer from Frog Jump, Tenn., collected nearly $3.5 million in subsidies from 1999 to 2012. The data is part of the research group’s online farm subsidy database, from which the group issues a report each year.

In 2012 alone, the data shows, Mr. Fincher received about $70,000 in direct payments, money that is given to farmers and farmland owners, even if they do not grow crops. It is unclear how much Mr. Fincher received in crop insurance subsidies because the names of people receiving the subsidies are not public. The group said most of the agriculture subsidies go to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country. These farmers have received $265 billion in direct payments and farm insurance subsidies since 1995, federal records show.

Anonymous wrote:Let's take a welfare who gets $2,500 a month in all sorts of welfare goodies to support her and her four kids (all by different baby daddies of course).

That runs up to $30,000 a year.

Let's say you need one fatcat bureaucrat making $70,000 in total compensation to manage 10 welfare queens.

So each welfare queen sucks up $37,000 in taxpayer dollars a year. Hell, let's make it $45,000 just to be generous and account for the Obama phones and other things they are getting.

Even if there were one million welfare queens taking the max in benefits, that'd add up to $45 billion a year, or what, ~8% of the Pentagon's budget (if you count any lingering Iraq+Afghanistan costs)?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because a lot of people don't believe in punishing children in order to punish their parents.

You can require welfare queen to work for the subsidies. That would also help the children

Anonymous wrote:Because a lot of people don't believe in punishing children in order to punish their parents.

Anonymous wrote:Let's take a welfare who gets $2,500 a month in all sorts of welfare goodies to support her and her four kids (all by different baby daddies of course).

That runs up to $30,000 a year.

Let's say you need one fatcat bureaucrat making $70,000 in total compensation to manage 10 welfare queens.

So each welfare queen sucks up $37,000 in taxpayer dollars a year. Hell, let's make it $45,000 just to be generous and account for the Obama phones and other things they are getting.

Even if there were one million welfare queens taking the max in benefits, that'd add up to $45 billion a year, or what, ~8% of the Pentagon's budget (if you count any lingering Iraq+Afghanistan costs)?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you explain children who die due to social services inefficiencies ? Why veteran care is so poor? Why doctors can't pay their overhead if they took only Medicare patients? How the IRS makes errors and destroys people's lives through Leon's, garnishings, etc? If private corporations made these mistakes, heads would roll. And do. Government? Not so much.

I can say that FEWER children die, for any reason, now than at any other time in history. A lot of it is improved nutrition (WIC, food stamps), a lot of it is improved medical care (medicaid). Tax collection has ALWAYS been a source of potential corruption, and a source of great loss when abused. It is better regulated now than it ever has been.

Am I saying that everything is great and we should just leave it all alone and our work here is done? Hell no.

Are you saying that an institution that doesn't function at 100% effectiveness and perfection should be abolished, whether or not there is something better to replace it? Yeah, it kinda sounds like you are.

I'm saying adding to it while acknowledging gross inefficiencies is completely irresponsible. A private corporation would soon go out of business with that model

You allege "gross" inefficiencies. The numbers say otherwise-- quite the opposite, actually. More services provided to more people for less money per service/ person. Your position is a soundbite. It is not reality. Again, we're not talking about our opinions. This isn't how we "feel". You have seen many sad-eyed news reporters talking about this or that child who was failed by the system, and so you believe it to be a scourge upon our nation's children. But if you were able to find and understand the data, the only depiction of objective reality that is available to any of us, you would see that we are so much better off than ever before.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you explain children who die due to social services inefficiencies ? Why veteran care is so poor? Why doctors can't pay their overhead if they took only Medicare patients? How the IRS makes errors and destroys people's lives through Leon's, garnishings, etc? If private corporations made these mistakes, heads would roll. And do. Government? Not so much.

I can say that FEWER children die, for any reason, now than at any other time in history. A lot of it is improved nutrition (WIC, food stamps), a lot of it is improved medical care (medicaid). Tax collection has ALWAYS been a source of potential corruption, and a source of great loss when abused. It is better regulated now than it ever has been.

Am I saying that everything is great and we should just leave it all alone and our work here is done? Hell no.

Are you saying that an institution that doesn't function at 100% effectiveness and perfection should be abolished, whether or not there is something better to replace it? Yeah, it kinda sounds like you are.

I'm saying adding to it while acknowledging gross inefficiencies is completely irresponsible. A private corporation would soon go out of business with that model

Really? We didn't see many heads roll after the banking crisis, and when health insurers screw their insured, usually the result is that they lawyer up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you explain children who die due to social services inefficiencies ? Why veteran care is so poor? Why doctors can't pay their overhead if they took only Medicare patients? How the IRS makes errors and destroys people's lives through Leon's, garnishings, etc? If private corporations made these mistakes, heads would roll. And do. Government? Not so much.

I can say that FEWER children die, for any reason, now than at any other time in history. A lot of it is improved nutrition (WIC, food stamps), a lot of it is improved medical care (medicaid). Tax collection has ALWAYS been a source of potential corruption, and a source of great loss when abused. It is better regulated now than it ever has been.

Am I saying that everything is great and we should just leave it all alone and our work here is done? Hell no.

Are you saying that an institution that doesn't function at 100% effectiveness and perfection should be abolished, whether or not there is something better to replace it? Yeah, it kinda sounds like you are.

I'm saying adding to it while acknowledging gross inefficiencies is completely irresponsible. A private corporation would soon go out of business with that model

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me get this straight, tea partiers hate handouts to pathetic poor people who just love living on welfare but handouts/bailouts to huge corrupt selfish corporations are awesome? Do you also have a 22 million dollar mansion in the Hamptons that you bought from profits while laying off employees and taking tax payer money?

Don't forget: It's the republicans who mostly oppose any increase in minimum wage. Not only do they want the unemployed to starve, they want the least-skilled-but-still-working to get very, very thin.

You want to talk about work ethic?? Try getting up and going to McDonalds six days a week for $8.25 an hour, for years, with no paid vacation, no hope of promotion. THAT'S some hard work, right there.

And even though you're working full time and still living below the poverty line, the teabaggers are trying to terminate your food stamps benefits. Because they've got the best interests of your children at heart. After all, what's their incentive to improve their lot in life if they're lavished with things like food and health care?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you explain children who die due to social services inefficiencies ? Why veteran care is so poor? Why doctors can't pay their overhead if they took only Medicare patients? How the IRS makes errors and destroys people's lives through Leon's, garnishings, etc? If private corporations made these mistakes, heads would roll. And do. Government? Not so much.

I can say that FEWER children die, for any reason, now than at any other time in history. A lot of it is improved nutrition (WIC, food stamps), a lot of it is improved medical care (medicaid). Tax collection has ALWAYS been a source of potential corruption, and a source of great loss when abused. It is better regulated now than it ever has been.

Am I saying that everything is great and we should just leave it all alone and our work here is done? Hell no.

Are you saying that an institution that doesn't function at 100% effectiveness and perfection should be abolished, whether or not there is something better to replace it? Yeah, it kinda sounds like you are.

I'm saying adding to it while acknowledging gross inefficiencies is completely irresponsible. A private corporation would soon go out of business with that model