Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients

[davekc]

Whatever the cost of public transpo, it will never hope to approach the costs of individual cars, trucks, and limos - especially those that require fossil fuel. Not just because it's finite, but because protecting the supply has cost so many lives, and that's a lot worse than just blowing money, IMO.
And as for the fed vs state/local issue, much of the money spent by states and localities is disbursed to them by the federal government.

One last thing: for those who feel that union workers are surly, lazy, and incompetent: I think you should go work for WalMart - they hate unions too, and you deserve each other.

I think you are looking for a perfect utopia that doesn't exist. It doesn't matter whether union workers are incompetent or lazy. The economics aren't there. Just as we seen with Walmart, raise the minimum wage to 12.50 and they decided not to build five stores in DC.
So.....if you raise the wages to say 15.00 per hour on a non skill job, you just put another percentage out of work. Those working will have to pay more tax to subsidize the ones that aren't working like you have now. So.....that raise just went for supporting the ones that aren't contributing.
Basically just moving money around or.."income redistribution".
Of course you can go after the "rich" which is one percent of the population. Bad news is there isn't enough of them. Even if you took every penny they have, you aren't even close to covering the gap. As unions keep having to give concessions and fall in numbers, I believe that practice will continue.

 

[LDB]

That's the liberal response though to defend and promote public transportation. Public transportation loses money like crazy but it's fine because it's better than individual private vehicles. That's arguable but the fact that public transportation is a money loser and a drain on tax revenues isn't.

The fact that some of the monies used by the state and local entities comes through the federal government is also a moot point. The closer to local one stays the better run and more efficient in most cases. The more federal involvement, the less efficient in every way.

 

[davekc]

That is true. That is why in most places, public transportation is being cut back. Just too expensive to operate. Most towns are running in the red now. It is one of the first things that will take a hit. Actually, it is already happening.

 

[AMonger]

Basically just moving money around or.."income redistribution".
Of course you can go after the "rich" which is one percent of the population. Bad news is there isn't enough of them. Even if you took every penny they have, you aren't even close to covering the gap. As unions keep having to give concessions and fall in numbers, I believe that practice will continue.

Not only that, but if you confiscated the wealth of all those we consider rich and gave it directly to everyone we consider poor, in a few years, most of the formerly rich will be rich again, and most of the formerly poor will be poor again.
There's a reason the rich are rich and the poor are poor (generally), and it's due to human nature and can never be legislated away. Lefties have an infantile notion that everything can be legislated if we just want it bad enough and invoke the right incantation.

 

[cheri1122]

Pragmatists know that unrestrained capitalism has a nasty way of becoming fascism. Because it's human nature for the greedy to keep taking, until they are stopped.
We can do much better at creating a balance by considering working as parts of a team, with a common goal, rather than adversaries. Goes for liberal/conservative, management/worker, black/white/brown, north/south, whatever. That's not utopia, it's just smart, and we're currently behaving pretty stupidly.

 

[LDB]

So as a "team" we should take away from some to give to others to create the utopia, uh, balance?

 

[AMonger]

Pragmatists know that unrestrained capitalism has a nasty way of becoming fascism. Because it's human nature for the greedy to keep taking, until they are stopped.

Fascism, being an unholy merger of state & business, requires 2 parts, one of them--the ones with the guns, exercising violence--being government. And it's them that you're calling on to do the restraining. And that human nature you mention, human nature that's flawed, is at work in the government people, too. You don't get elected and then get sat in a chair with electrodes hooked to you to get an intelligence & morality enhancement. They're the same idiots you see driving in the left lane when they shouldn't be, locking their keys in the car, emailing photos of their genitals, leaving young girls to drown in a submerged car while they disappear to work out a cover story--these are the guys you trust to restrain businessmen? Businessmen are geniuses and saints next to those assclowns.

 

[Ragman]

with electrodes hooked to you to get an intelligence & morality enhancement. They're the same idiots you see driving in the left lane when they shouldn't be, locking their keys in the car, emailing photos of their genitals, leaving young girls to drown in a submerged car while they disappear to work out a cover story . . .

Don't forget to include the ones that indulge in foot tapping in the mens room toilet stalls.

 

[davekc]

Pragmatists know that unrestrained capitalism has a nasty way of becoming fascism. Because it's human nature for the greedy to keep taking, until they are stopped.
We can do much better at creating a balance by considering working as parts of a team, with a common goal, rather than adversaries. Goes for liberal/conservative, management/worker, black/white/brown, north/south, whatever. That's not utopia, it's just smart, and we're currently behaving pretty stupidly.

I believe what you are wanting or describing is socialism.

 

[layoutshooter]

I believe what you are wanting or describing is socialism.

And???????? IF ANYONE can afford ANY luxury item them should be BANNED from ANY form of government FORCED CHARITY. I am TIRE of paying for cigarettes, drugs, booze, cupcakes and tattoo's. Earn it, or shove it.

 

[cheri1122]

I believe what you are wanting or describing is socialism.

Not at all. Capitalism is the most effective system, but it requires the same restraints on antisocial tendencies as every other human activity. The genius of the Constitution is the recognition that power corrupts if left unchecked, and in the balance it created to address that. We've allowed the powerful to go unchecked, through complacency, and if we don't address it, life in the US may get very ugly.

 

[cheri1122]

Post #50 is an example of just one way it's already getting pretty ugly.

 

[AMonger]

Post #50 is an example of just one way it's already getting pretty ugly.

Someone wanting to keep their own money is ugly?

 

[LDB]

Common sense is ugly? How?

 

[AMonger]

Not at all. Capitalism is the most effective system, but it requires the same restraints on antisocial tendencies as every other human activity.

So who are these moral and ethical supermen qualified to exercise this restraint? How can men as manifestly corrupt as politicians be trusted to do this restraining? Who's going to restrain them? Two men are no more moral than one. When the fox guards the henhouse, what happens to the hens?

We've allowed the powerful to go unchecked, through complacency, and if we don't address it, life in the US may get very ugly.

The powerful left unchecked are the ones you propose do the checking!

 

[layoutshooter]

Post #50 is an example of just one way it's already getting pretty ugly.

Why is requiring that those who are on the take not have the ability to buy luxury items? How is wrong? IT'S NOT THEIR MONEY! IF a person can afford to buy luxury items it is obvious that they already have enough to cover 100% of life's needs. If they can afford luxuries they have NO NEED to take from those who EARN.

 

[AMonger]

Why is requiring that those who are on the take not have the ability to buy luxury items? How is wrong? IT'S NOT THEIR MONEY! IF a person can afford to buy luxury items it is obvious that they already have enough to cover 100% of life's needs. If they can afford luxuries they have NO NEED to take from those who EARN.

Correct.

What one person receives without earning, another person earned without receiving it. It was stolen from him. In this country, there's a consensus that it's better to be stolen from than to have people starving and dying in the streets, even if it is a result of their own sloth.

So how does buying them enough food to survive morph into buying them plasma TVs, iPads, rims for their car, luxury food items out of the price range of those footing the bill, etc? I go to the store, see even the mahi mahi and think, "No, too pricey." Yet those on food stamps are able and known to purchase even more expensive items regularly.

I'm waiting for someone to defend this.

 

[Humble2drive]

In this country, there's a consensus that it's better to be stolen from than to have people starving and dying in the streets, even if it is a result of their own sloth.

Other than the incorrect use of the word "stolen" you have summed up the result of a long time commitment by a majority of the electorate that votes based on altruistic values.
It is that altruism that has allowed the percentage of people on the welfare rolls to increase to a level where they are now able to exert some control over elections based on their own self interest.
As with many of our current problems, we were warned about this but nobody listened:

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject. - Ayn Rand at BrainyQuote

When people brag that we live in the greatest country in the world, many of them cannot justify the number of hungry and homeless as being congruent with that statement so they allow our Government to impose additional taxation to help those less fortunate. They get to wash their hands of any guilt while they pretend that the Government is taking care of the problem.

So how does buying them enough food to survive morph into buying them plasma TVs, iPads, rims for their car, luxury food items out of the price range of those footing the bill, etc?

It doesn't. While it is true that total welfare payments are too high to provide an incentive to work, it is a stretch to claim that welfare recipients receive enough to live on plus buy luxury items.
Disposable income for welfare recipients comes in most part by cleverly cheating the system in a number of ways.

 

[layoutshooter]

" it is a stretch to claim that welfare recipients receive enough to live on plus buy luxury items.
Disposable income for welfare recipients comes in most part by cleverly cheating the system in a number of ways."


They CAN buy "luxury" items on their welfare cards. I have watched them. Saw one woman buy 10 DOZEN cupcakes for her granddaughters birthday. That is NOT what welfare is intended for. There should be only a limited number of generic food staples that can be bought with "food stamps". Frozen pizza etc shall not be included. They are not working so the have all the time in the world to cook proper meals. There is absolutely no need for the luxury of prepared food.

IF they are clever enough to "cheat the system" they SHOULD be using that cleverness to EARN a living.

If they can AFFORD to buy luxury items there is NO NEED for welfare. I don't care HOW they pay for it.

 

[Humble2drive]

They CAN buy "luxury" items on their welfare cards. I have watched them. Saw one woman buy 10 DOZEN cupcakes for her granddaughters birthday. That is NOT what welfare is intended for. There should be only a limited number of generic food staples that can be bought with "food stamps".

Silly me, I wasn't thinking of cupcakes as a luxury item.
Of course they CAN buy luxury items with welfare money; however, common sense indicates that they have other sources of income. That was my point.

Frozen pizza etc shall not be included. They are not working so the have all the time in the world to cook proper meals. There is absolutely no need for the luxury of prepared food.

Silly me again. I didn't think frozen pizza was a luxury item either.
Your rant regarding the controlling of how people should eat has shades of Mayor Bloomburg on it.