Anonymous wrote:

food stamp fraud is going down because of electronic cards. The states issue them and monitor them.

Or do we just think it is going down? Fraud is much easier with those cards. It enables people to purchase all sorts of things that are not allowed. It also enables them to be easily sold.

no fraud is definitely tougher. And the data is the data.

food stamp fraud is going down because of electronic cards. The states issue them and monitor them.

Or do we just think it is going down? Fraud is much easier with those cards. It enables people to purchase all sorts of things that are not allowed. It also enables them to be easily sold.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, a generalization would have been to characterize "all" - perhaps you are not familiar with the difference between "all" and "some"?

Second, the nearly 20% unemployment rate in Ward 8 is absolutely dismal and is many times higher than the unemployment rates in several other wards.

Third, don't you agree that it's a problem when people don't have the crucial life skills for getting or keeping jobs? That's what keeps people poor. Wouldn't you agree that this needs to be fixed if the issue of multigenerational poverty is ever to be addressed?

I did not take issue with the problem of people lacking life skills, education, or job training. Since neither the Republican nor the Democratic party is against education and training, I saw no reason to debate it.

But the fact remains that when 80% of a community is doing a thing, you can't say the culture is against that thing. It is just an absurd notion that 83% of Ward 8 goes to work and yet work is not part of the culture.

Where did I say it was the culture of all of Ward 8? You're far more guilty of making broad sweeping statements here than I am.

You seem to have forgotten the subject of this thread. Reread please.

I think it is you who has forgotten about the subject of this thread. Where was Paul Ryan specifically talking about DC's Ward 8? And where are those supposed broad, sweeping generalizations being made here? Since when is 20% equal to 100%? Where was any such claim ever made here?

Look, I'm a bleeding heart liberal Democrat who would be the last person on Earth to side with Paul Ryan but all that seems to be happening in this thread is deflection and it's not really productive or germane, let alone anything that will ever get any of us any closer toward solutions. All I care about is solutions. I have enough of the following a.) decades of history that don't show change and b.) empty talk which does not propose any meaningful solutions. What are the solutions?

The solution begins with investment in poor communities. To be specific, massive investment in:

Health care, including committed and federally-coordinated public health efforts (so that some states, e.g., WV and Mississippi, can't opt out) on lead exposure, teen pregnancy prevention, health/education screening and early intervention services for children, and both emergency and long-term mental health services. Also, a huge investment is needed in drug education and detox services throughout both rural and urban America.

Improved education so that we don't raise yet another generation in which the only way to get a decent, non soul-sucking education in the US is to have the $ to move to a rich neighborhood or pay for private school.

Affordable housing so that people can actually afford to live in places where there are jobs.

The reverse as well: job-building strategies--including moving some federal operations to more remote communities--and a federal change to a living minimum wage so that we begin to see livable-wage jobs in places where housing IS affordable.

Of course, Republicans oppose all of these efforts, which shows you how committed they are to solving the problems of the nation's poor. It has long benefited Republicans to ignore the poor, but as more and more of their own strongholds fall to the scourges of meth, joblessness, and dire educational systems, they will reap what they have sown. My own hometown in Appalachia has one place to go for a job these days: the military recruiting center. Yes, the community still votes against its own interests (Republicans every time), mostly b/c of NRA $$, but it will change.

Most states have medicare options for the poor but I do agree on early intervention, lead, mental health services. Teen pregnancy is a huge cultural issue - and again, it cuts across race to white as well. As for schools - the issue isn't so much school resources (at least not in DC, as the schools serving the poorest demographics get more money per student than the schools serving the richest do) - the issue again is cultural - extremely high dropout rates (40% plus in many DCPS schools) as well as kids who habitually show up late, sneak out early, don't do their schoolwork, don't pay attention in class, disrupt in class, disrespect the teachers, disrespect other students, disrespect, damage and destroy school property... That's stuff that needs serious, directed, concerted human intervention on - magical thinking about "oh, we just build a school exactly like Deal in Anacostia" isn't going to solve it.

As for "affordable housing" one of the biggest employers in DC is the Federal Government - yet there are tons of young professionals in federal space, GS-7s, GS-9s et cetera who can't even find affordable housing, and they don't qualify for anything in DC. Meanwhile, the folks who mop the hallways and empty the trash in those federal buildings are mostly latinos who commute in from places like Falls Church because they can't afford to live here either. Why aren't those who live in DC taking those jobs? Given 20% unemployment rate in places like Anacostia, it begs the question. Why can't those who work here live here and vice versa? Good question. Also, there are huge residentially zoned areas in DC that are low income, but which use plans from the early 1960s that are massively inefficient in terms of land use. They can and should be rebuilt - but that would mean bringing in folks like the recent grads who are coming to DC - and the political establishment hates that and throws out a vilified version of the word "gentrification". Push federal offices out into remote communities? Sounds like an awful idea to me - as it would destroy DC's tax base along with making federal government a lot more dysfunctional (government has enough problems already, thank you...)

Anonymous wrote:Those articles are two years old. If you think there is only 1% fraud in food stamps, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

food stamp fraud is going down because of electronic cards. The states issue them and monitor them.

Those articles are two years old. If you think there is only 1% fraud in food stamps, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

Anonymous wrote:

Culture is a clever way to blame the poor for their own problems. They basically said the same thing about Negroes in the days of segregation. It was part of their inborn racial "nature". Now it's "culture". Same BS, just a new marketing message.

No. It is cultural if people bring up their kids with a reliance on handouts rather than encouraging them to get a job. It's the same in inner city and Appalachia.

Maybe it's natural to develop a culture that relies on welfare if living wage jobs are impossible to find, or are almost always given to whites, not blacks? Why would you raise your child to aspire to anything more, if it's not really achieveable in your opinion? Who can afford college anymore? Where are jobs that pay enough to live on? What actual job prospects do you think exist for these people?

Anonymous wrote:

The solution begins with investment in poor communities. To be specific, massive investment in:

Health care, including committed and federally-coordinated public health efforts (so that some states, e.g., WV and Mississippi, can't opt out) on lead exposure, teen pregnancy prevention, health/education screening and early intervention services for children, and both emergency and long-term mental health services. Also, a huge investment is needed in drug education and detox services throughout both rural and urban America.

Improved education so that we don't raise yet another generation in which the only way to get a decent, non soul-sucking education in the US is to have the $ to move to a rich neighborhood or pay for private school.

Affordable housing so that people can actually afford to live in places where there are jobs.

The reverse as well: job-building strategies--including moving some federal operations to more remote communities--and a federal change to a living minimum wage so that we begin to see livable-wage jobs in places where housing IS affordable.

Have you ever heard of the War on Poverty? What do you think that was?

Other countries get it right. So can we.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, the GOP is not allowed to discuss the problems in the inner city? Wow. And, for the record, I am familiar with the inner city.

The problem is that so many conservatives have used it as a code word to attack black people, that they have ruined the discussion for all conservatives. As a group, any comment you make about the inner city is going to be viewed with suspicion, and that suspicion has a pretty long basis in fact. If conservatives really want to address the problems of the inner cities, they have to build up credibility.

Did Paul Ryan say something racist? Maybe not, but he fell victim to his own stereotypes about inner cities, whatever those may be, and this is how you can see it. He quoted a study that specifically stated that "urbanity" did not explain its principal findings. Yet he uses it in a comment where he says "We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular". So he actually read a study that said it is not an urban phenomenon, but drew the opposite lesson from it. Why? Because the image that he's fed by Republicans is that poverty and all of its social ills is an inner city phenomenon. And that's just not true.

Today, 30% of non-hispanic white babies are born out of wedlock. Given the number of white people in America, that means there are far more so-called "fatherless" white children being born than blacks. And as a point of comparison, when in the 60's D. P. Moynihan declared black out of wedlock births a social crisis, do you know what that rate was? 25%. So apparently there is a crisis in white out-of-wedlock births, and you would never know it from what the conservative politicians are saying.

Well, you would know it from Anne Coulter and the likes going on and on about single women voters and single mothers wanting the govt to be their husband. I don't think she limits her invective to blacks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you read the article about the woman on food stamps several weeks ago in WAPO. She had two able bodied children who really did not want to make the effort to get a job.

There are millions who abuse and take advantage of the system every year.

http://www.abc2news.com/news/local-news/investigations/millions-commit-food-stamp-fraud-every-year

http://www.wmctv.com/story/19151942/the-investigators-how-welfare-dollars-are-being-abused

These kinds of things are a slap in the face to all of us who work our asses off and pay our taxes. I'm always more than willing to help those who are genuinely, desperately needy, I contribute thousands of dollars to charities and also put in many volunteer hours each year but it punches me in the gut every time I hear of someone taking advantage of the system. This needs to stop.

1% fraud rate, as quoted in the article, is pretty low. Tax evasion, not including technically legal tax avoidance, is about 10% of the entire federal budget.

The solution begins with investment in poor communities. To be specific, massive investment in:

Health care, including committed and federally-coordinated public health efforts (so that some states, e.g., WV and Mississippi, can't opt out) on lead exposure, teen pregnancy prevention, health/education screening and early intervention services for children, and both emergency and long-term mental health services. Also, a huge investment is needed in drug education and detox services throughout both rural and urban America.

Improved education so that we don't raise yet another generation in which the only way to get a decent, non soul-sucking education in the US is to have the $ to move to a rich neighborhood or pay for private school.

Affordable housing so that people can actually afford to live in places where there are jobs.

The reverse as well: job-building strategies--including moving some federal operations to more remote communities--and a federal change to a living minimum wage so that we begin to see livable-wage jobs in places where housing IS affordable.

Have you ever heard of the War on Poverty? What do you think that was?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, a generalization would have been to characterize "all" - perhaps you are not familiar with the difference between "all" and "some"?

Second, the nearly 20% unemployment rate in Ward 8 is absolutely dismal and is many times higher than the unemployment rates in several other wards.

Third, don't you agree that it's a problem when people don't have the crucial life skills for getting or keeping jobs? That's what keeps people poor. Wouldn't you agree that this needs to be fixed if the issue of multigenerational poverty is ever to be addressed?

I did not take issue with the problem of people lacking life skills, education, or job training. Since neither the Republican nor the Democratic party is against education and training, I saw no reason to debate it.

But the fact remains that when 80% of a community is doing a thing, you can't say the culture is against that thing. It is just an absurd notion that 83% of Ward 8 goes to work and yet work is not part of the culture.

Where did I say it was the culture of all of Ward 8? You're far more guilty of making broad sweeping statements here than I am.

You seem to have forgotten the subject of this thread. Reread please.

I think it is you who has forgotten about the subject of this thread. Where was Paul Ryan specifically talking about DC's Ward 8? And where are those supposed broad, sweeping generalizations being made here? Since when is 20% equal to 100%? Where was any such claim ever made here?

Look, I'm a bleeding heart liberal Democrat who would be the last person on Earth to side with Paul Ryan but all that seems to be happening in this thread is deflection and it's not really productive or germane, let alone anything that will ever get any of us any closer toward solutions. All I care about is solutions. I have enough of the following a.) decades of history that don't show change and b.) empty talk which does not propose any meaningful solutions. What are the solutions?

Oh gosh, you got me. He didn't specifically mention Ward 8. I guess he would not include that in "inner city". And since all you care about is solutions, you must have been very frustrated to hear Paul Ryan's discussion.

Yes, I'm frustrated with guys like Paul Ryan but I'm also frustrated with people like YOU who not only don't have solutions, you try to deny that some of these problems even exist, which takes us even farther away from having solutions than no solutions at all.

I'm not denying the problem. I am wholeheartedly rejecting Ryan's opinion as to the cause, namely culture. We have solutions but you aren't going to buy into it if you are still blaming poverty on culture.

Improved education so that we don't raise yet another generation in which the only way to get a decent, non soul-sucking education in the US is to have the $ to move to a rich neighborhood or pay for private school.

Do you have any idea how much money is poured into education for poor children--and has been for years and years, yet the results are pathetic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, a generalization would have been to characterize "all" - perhaps you are not familiar with the difference between "all" and "some"?

Second, the nearly 20% unemployment rate in Ward 8 is absolutely dismal and is many times higher than the unemployment rates in several other wards.

Third, don't you agree that it's a problem when people don't have the crucial life skills for getting or keeping jobs? That's what keeps people poor. Wouldn't you agree that this needs to be fixed if the issue of multigenerational poverty is ever to be addressed?

I did not take issue with the problem of people lacking life skills, education, or job training. Since neither the Republican nor the Democratic party is against education and training, I saw no reason to debate it.

But the fact remains that when 80% of a community is doing a thing, you can't say the culture is against that thing. It is just an absurd notion that 83% of Ward 8 goes to work and yet work is not part of the culture.

Where did I say it was the culture of all of Ward 8? You're far more guilty of making broad sweeping statements here than I am.

You seem to have forgotten the subject of this thread. Reread please.

I think it is you who has forgotten about the subject of this thread. Where was Paul Ryan specifically talking about DC's Ward 8? And where are those supposed broad, sweeping generalizations being made here? Since when is 20% equal to 100%? Where was any such claim ever made here?

Look, I'm a bleeding heart liberal Democrat who would be the last person on Earth to side with Paul Ryan but all that seems to be happening in this thread is deflection and it's not really productive or germane, let alone anything that will ever get any of us any closer toward solutions. All I care about is solutions. I have enough of the following a.) decades of history that don't show change and b.) empty talk which does not propose any meaningful solutions. What are the solutions?

The solution begins with investment in poor communities. To be specific, massive investment in:

Health care, including committed and federally-coordinated public health efforts (so that some states, e.g., WV and Mississippi, can't opt out) on lead exposure, teen pregnancy prevention, health/education screening and early intervention services for children, and both emergency and long-term mental health services. Also, a huge investment is needed in drug education and detox services throughout both rural and urban America.

Improved education so that we don't raise yet another generation in which the only way to get a decent, non soul-sucking education in the US is to have the $ to move to a rich neighborhood or pay for private school.

Affordable housing so that people can actually afford to live in places where there are jobs.

The reverse as well: job-building strategies--including moving some federal operations to more remote communities--and a federal change to a living minimum wage so that we begin to see livable-wage jobs in places where housing IS affordable.

Of course, Republicans oppose all of these efforts, which shows you how committed they are to solving the problems of the nation's poor. It has long benefited Republicans to ignore the poor, but as more and more of their own strongholds fall to the scourges of meth, joblessness, and dire educational systems, they will reap what they have sown. My own hometown in Appalachia has one place to go for a job these days: the military recruiting center. Yes, the community still votes against its own interests (Republicans every time), mostly b/c of NRA $$, but it will change.

Anonymous wrote:Did you read the article about the woman on food stamps several weeks ago in WAPO. She had two able bodied children who really did not want to make the effort to get a job.

There are millions who abuse and take advantage of the system every year.

http://www.abc2news.com/news/local-news/investigations/millions-commit-food-stamp-fraud-every-year

http://www.wmctv.com/story/19151942/the-investigators-how-welfare-dollars-are-being-abused

These kinds of things are a slap in the face to all of us who work our asses off and pay our taxes. I'm always more than willing to help those who are genuinely, desperately needy, I contribute thousands of dollars to charities and also put in many volunteer hours each year but it punches me in the gut every time I hear of someone taking advantage of the system. This needs to stop.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, a generalization would have been to characterize "all" - perhaps you are not familiar with the difference between "all" and "some"?

Second, the nearly 20% unemployment rate in Ward 8 is absolutely dismal and is many times higher than the unemployment rates in several other wards.

Third, don't you agree that it's a problem when people don't have the crucial life skills for getting or keeping jobs? That's what keeps people poor. Wouldn't you agree that this needs to be fixed if the issue of multigenerational poverty is ever to be addressed?

I did not take issue with the problem of people lacking life skills, education, or job training. Since neither the Republican nor the Democratic party is against education and training, I saw no reason to debate it.

But the fact remains that when 80% of a community is doing a thing, you can't say the culture is against that thing. It is just an absurd notion that 83% of Ward 8 goes to work and yet work is not part of the culture.

Where did I say it was the culture of all of Ward 8? You're far more guilty of making broad sweeping statements here than I am.

You seem to have forgotten the subject of this thread. Reread please.

I think it is you who has forgotten about the subject of this thread. Where was Paul Ryan specifically talking about DC's Ward 8? And where are those supposed broad, sweeping generalizations being made here? Since when is 20% equal to 100%? Where was any such claim ever made here?

Look, I'm a bleeding heart liberal Democrat who would be the last person on Earth to side with Paul Ryan but all that seems to be happening in this thread is deflection and it's not really productive or germane, let alone anything that will ever get any of us any closer toward solutions. All I care about is solutions. I have enough of the following a.) decades of history that don't show change and b.) empty talk which does not propose any meaningful solutions. What are the solutions?

Oh gosh, you got me. He didn't specifically mention Ward 8. I guess he would not include that in "inner city". And since all you care about is solutions, you must have been very frustrated to hear Paul Ryan's discussion.

Yes, I'm frustrated with guys like Paul Ryan but I'm also frustrated with people like YOU who not only don't have solutions, you try to deny that some of these problems even exist, which takes us even farther away from having solutions than no solutions at all.