The Obama Years- A GOP love story

[tshile]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

As I get older I see peers, co workers, etc who openly talk about taken advantage of the system and I agree its time for change. We need to look closely at long term welfare reciepient and how we define disability payments. We created a culture of fraud and abuse. You should aim for a 5% threashold with fraud and waste within all govern programs...I think disability and welfare, we are dealing around the high teens to possibly 20% or 1 in 5. That's terrible.

I'm glad you brought this up because in my opinion it's the starting point of the conversation and most people skip it.

When you have an entity trying to 'take care of' a group of people there is going to be waste. It's unfortunate, but there are just too many people that are more interested in gaming the system instead of living an 'honest' life; whether that be welfare recipients getting money they shouldn't, or organizations/businesses/'community groups' that seek to keep the system broken so that their role in it is preserved/increased.

So the question is - what is an acceptable level of waste? Once we can agree on that, then we can actually start talking about how we can take the current system and alter it to meet that goal.

Until we, as a country, start discussing it in that way welfare is going to be remain this broken point of contention between the two sides. The arm waving about abuse and anecdotal stories of beach bums from the right lacks the substance needed to actually make a real case for real reform without hurting the people welfare is actually intended to help.

The left is all too happy just leaving things the way they are right now. If you're going to incite change, you have to make compelling arguments. The Right hasn't been very successful lately in doing that. The fact that there's a large group of people on the left looking for any chance to label the Right's ideas as racist, classest, etc shows just how carefully you have to attack the subject if your interest is in actually causing change.

[Daseal]

Welfare is a really difficult subject. I've met quite a few people that were/are on welfare, and it's interesting. I worked with a guy that worked his ass off every day that had kids too young, and was on welfare. He hated it, but it was a hell of a lot better than his kids going hungry. He worked the whole time and got off it as soon as he could. I then met a friend of my girlfriend, at the time. She grew up on welfare her entire life. She ended up getting a full ride to a top tier university. Upon finishing her degree, she went and lives back home with her mother, on welfare. These are two examples. One of the system being used correctly, the other of the system failing. To be honest, meeting that girl was eye opening. Her comments constantly hinted that she was owed something, and people should be handing her things at every turn. She was given many opportunities and failed to capitalize on either.

The real problem to me, is you have to have a safety net for people. Having a class of people with no money, no prospects, and no hope is bad for countries. Ideally we find a way to shrink welfare programs, but get more people back on their feet. Personally, I feel like pushing for a higher working wage is a step in the right direction. We're paying more one way or another (taxes vs slightly higher prices).

To me, there's a big issue when the single largest recipient of welfare benefits are members of the US military. My guess is this may be more of a loophole than anything. Their paychecks are small, but they also don't have to provide housing for themselves. We need to find ways to help make people self sufficient. Sadly, it's more efficient for a single mother with 2 kids to stay home on welfare than to work a full-time minimum wage job.

[Giantone]

Originally Posted by Daseal

To me, there's a big issue when the single largest recipient of welfare benefits are members of the US military. My guess is this may be more of a loophole than anything. Their paychecks are small, but they also don't have to provide housing for themselves .

With all due respect what the hell does that mean ,a loophole ???

[Giantone]

Originally Posted by tshile

The left is all too happy just leaving things the way they are right now. If you're going to incite change, you have to make compelling arguments. The Right hasn't been very successful lately in doing that. The fact that there's a large group of people on the left looking for any chance to label the Right's ideas as racist, classest, etc shows just how carefully you have to attack the subject if your interest is in actually causing change.

I fully and whole heartily agree there needs to be change in the welfare system ,people who have been on it forever need to be trained to take care of and for themselves .Your big mistake is blaming the left ,it is in reality the fault of everybody in government ,left ,right ,tea ,independent etc ,what needs to be done is stop the "blame game" .

[Daseal]

It means many members of the military are provided housing, thus their income indicates that. Especially in the DC area an apartment (with a roommate) will run you at least 800 in rent alone. That's far from living large either.

Originally Posted by Giantone

With all due respect what the hell does that mean ,a loophole ???

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by Giantone

I fully and whole heartily agree there needs to be change in the welfare system ,people who have been on it forever need to be trained to take care of and for themselves .Your big mistake is blaming the left ,it is in reality the fault of everybody in government ,left ,right ,tea ,independent etc ,what needs to be done is stop the "blame game" .

Yeah I think when u talk about these issues, people need to put aside GOP or dem, left and right and politics in general. Just sit down and say hey we have a possible issue with the welfare system and go from there. U need an outside audit from the private sector as well.

In fact that is how everything should start, no politcs and actual real numbers

[Giantone]

Originally Posted by Daseal

It means many members of the military are provided housing, thus their income indicates that. Especially in the DC area an apartment (with a roommate) will run you at least 800 in rent alone. That's far from living large either.

I'm still don't understand what you mean loophole ?So do you think the military should or should not be getting welfare or do you think getting a housing allowance is welfare and just a tip an 800 hundred dollar a month apartment doesn't exist in the DC area (not one that is livable ) .
Question do you consider programs such as "wick" welfare ?Do you know that some Military base's don't have enough housing so they have to find housing else where ,so now there is commuting ,gas ,utilities, which point of fact they also pay while living on a base .I guess what I'm asking you is that do military families deserve help or not ?

[tshile]

Originally Posted by Giantone

I fully and whole heartily agree there needs to be change in the welfare system ,people who have been on it forever need to be trained to take care of and for themselves .Your big mistake is blaming the left ,it is in reality the fault of everybody in government ,left ,right ,tea ,independent etc ,what needs to be done is stop the "blame game" .

My 'big mistake' is blaming the left?

I had a post where I blamed the right and the left for their politics on the issue. I also blamed the middle by saying we're constantly having the wrong conversation. You took a few sentences out of the whole post and then said I was 'blaming the left.'

The left does have blame. So does the right. The entire subject has become the stereotypical political football.

If our 'leaders' stop engaging in idiotic games of rehtoric over the issue, then we can actually go about trying to solve it. I do not see a point in hiding from the fact that these people have done a bang-up job in getting people riled up over the wrong things, stifling any possibility of actually fixing the problem.

[tshile]

Originally Posted by Daseal

To me, there's a big issue when the single largest recipient of welfare benefits are members of the US military. My guess is this may be more of a loophole than anything. Their paychecks are small, but they also don't have to provide housing for themselves. We need to find ways to help make people self sufficient. Sadly, it's more efficient for a single mother with 2 kids to stay home on welfare than to work a full-time minimum wage job.

I'm confused on this as well... as I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

If you're saying that military members wind up on welfare after their service then I would join you in saying that's a big problem and one that needs fixing. I know it happens, but I'm not aware of it being a huge problem (maybe that's my own ignorance.)

If you're saying the benefits military members and their immediate families receive constitutes 'welfare' in the same sense as what is generally referred to as 'welfare' (ie: poor/non working people) then I'll politely disagree with you. In my opinion we don't do enough for our service members, and I have to strongly question whether the people that feel otherwise have ever bother serving themselves or have had close family that has. Comparing their benefits respective to what they do for a living to those that do not have a job or work extremely low wage jobs to qualify for 'welfare' is, in my opinion, very disrespectful.

[Daseal]

I'll take it back. The Military wasn't as high in the spending as I thought. I guess the statistic was government employees, which included Military. 104M worth of food stamps used on Military bases in 2012, which I believe is the most recent number.

A Private is given approximately 20K in salary and approximately 20K in food/housing incentives from the military.

I'll take back my statement.

[Giantone]

Originally Posted by Daseal

I'll take it back. The Military wasn't as high in the spending as I thought. I guess the statistic was government employees, which included Military. 104M worth of food stamps used on Military bases in 2012, which I believe is the most recent number.

A Private is given approximately 20K in salary and approximately 20K in food/housing incentives from the military.

I'll take back my statement.

maybe we should be talking about Wal-Mart who's employee need welfare to survive yet work full time .

How Walmart's Low Wages Cost All Americans, Not Just Its Workers


The size of Wal-Mart is sometimes difficult to visualize. To put it into some context, consider the following: 100 million U.S. shoppers patronize Wal-Mart stores every week. Wal-Mart has twice the number employees of the U.S. Postal Service, a larger global computer network than the Pentagon, and the world's largest fleet of trucks. Americans spend about $36 million dollars per hour at the stores. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other company in the world, capturing one of every four dollars spent on food in the U.S. The average American family of four spends over $4,000 a year there. Each week, it has 200 million customers at more than 10,400 stores in 27 countries. If the company were an independent country, it would be the 25th largest economy in the world.
Given the sheer size of Wal-Mart, how it pays "associates" is likely to have an outsized impact on their local and state communities, according to a number of studies.
Wal-Mart's low wages have led to full-time employees seeking public assistance. These are not the 47 percent, lazy, unmotivated bums. Rather, these are people working physical, often difficult jobs. They receive $2.66 billion in government help each year (including $1 billion in healthcare assistance). That works out to about $5,815 per worker. And about $420,000 per store. But the federal and state aid varies widely; in Wisconsin, a study found that it was at least $904,542 a year per store. (See the accompanying chart.)

[tshile]

Yup...

I know someone with 2 kids working at walmart. She has a degree in dental hygiene, but she refuses to give up her walmart job.

Why?

Because if she did she'd get just enough of a raise to no longer qualify for gov't assistance, which would net out as less money for her and her kids.

I tried to explain the longer term benefits of moving into an actual career and off of gov't assistance... within 2 or 3 years she should easily be paid enough to net out ahead - not to mention the non-monetary benefits of moving your household off the welfare program.

She can't process it. Can't risk going a year with slightly less money.

So she's forever stuck at walmart, and on Gov't assistance.

I know the GOP gets lambasted for the way they characterize welfare recipients - in many ways it's ignorant. But the cry from the left that the abuse and incentive to stay on the system doesn't exist is equally as ignorant.

And so far the only real answer the left has given is to raise minimum wage. And the people pushing for it the most (ie: the people actually on minimum wage) don't seem to get how that nets out long term for them (not very good...)

Instead of this person being a productive member of our society and raising 2 kids in such a household, she's living off gov't assistance and raising her kids in the same manner. We're paying for 1/2 of their 'household income' instead of it being earned via a job she's perfectly capable of doing.

The. System. Is. Broken.

[over the mountain]

the system is broken.

reducing the amount of food stamps a recipient gets isnt fixing the problem though.

complex issue.

a politically unfavorable issue as well imo.

If you are for welfare reform = mean and out-of-touch. Against welfare reform = bleeding heart politician letting tax money go to waste.

a lot like the runaway costs of healthcare before ACA, a president/party needs to step up and make some unfavorable decisions to try and reform welfare. a lot like the runaway cost of healthcare, someone needs to put their head on the chopping block and do the right thing for this country.

unfortunately that person will take a lot of immediate attacks and wont be in office in 10-20 years when the benefits of those tough decisions can be appreciated.

[tshile]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

the system is broken.

reducing the amount of food stamps a recipient gets isnt fixing the problem though.

complex issue.

a politically unfavorable issue as well imo.

If you are for welfare reform = mean and out-of-touch. Against welfare reform = bleeding heart politician letting tax money go to waste.

a lot like the runaway costs of healthcare before ACA, a president/party needs to step up and make some unfavorable decisions to try and reform welfare. a lot like the runaway cost of healthcare, someone needs to put their head on the chopping block and do the right thing for this country.

unfortunately that person will take a lot of immediate attacks and wont be in office in 10-20 years when the benefits of those tough decisions can be appreciated.

I agree completely. It would seem to be a situation ripe for compromise in the interest of what is best for the country... for whatever reason compromise has been made a dirty word (not just by politicians - there are a lot of actual voters that are firmly entrenched in one side so much they view compromise as a synonym for defeat...)

You have to find a way to de-incentivize being on the system without doing harm to those that truly need it.

I have ideas... how about being on gov't assistance = doing work for the government? You need tax payer money to 'live' - then pick up trash on the side of the road 10 hours a week, etc. What they're doing and how much they have to do can easily be modified to strike a balance between pushing people towards getting off the program and recklessly punishing people for falling on hard times.

Or how about making a stamp on your ID that means you're not on welfare? Restrict the purchasing of certain items to those with the stamp - alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Lottery tickets... god, the number of people that waste money on lottery tickets... We can't make those on welfare get that stamp, that would be too 'humiliating', so why don't we do something to those not on the system?

We need to cut where food stamps are accepted... My local pizzeria should not have a sign that says "Now Accepting EBT Cards!" EBT cards should not have transactions from strip clubs on them...

The problem of solving poverty in the US is hard and complicated, and ultimate probably only gets solved by having an education system that's worth a crap (lol - good luck.)

But there's plenty we can do to curb the waste and make the system more efficient and/or have better results. But first we need to determine an acceptable level of waste so we have a goal to shoot for and a way of measuring our progress towards that. We also need an acceptable level of hardship we place on legitimate welfare users (those not abusing the system) because that's going to happen and without know what is acceptable to our society we have no way of measuring success/failure of changes and we continue in this blind-monkey-throwing-darts mentality that got us in this mess to start with.

Those are hard conversation to have, so I have zero faith they'll ever happen.

[over the mountain]

there are 2 separate social welfare programs - food stamps (SNAP) and cash assistance. I believe both can be used/accessed on a person's EBT card.

food stamps cant be used at ATMs or used at strip clubs etc. pretty sure you cant buy prepared food or sweets etc. fairly restrictive.

Cash assistance money (however) can be withdrawn from pretty much any ATM (i think). its like the gov't deposits $180/mo in a person's debit card account. they should just do away with cash assistance and make it all SNAP .. but then ppl wouldnt be able to buy gas ... and if you allowed ppl to used SNAP for gas there would be a ton of people standing at gas stations offering to buy you $20 worth of gas on their EBT card for $10 cash etc ...