So lets have a real discussion: What if we seriously slashed handouts?

bucs90

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Feb 25, 2010
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This thread is for a real discussion only.

What if we seriously cut handouts? Im not saying Social Security, Medicaid, etc. People pay into that. Thats another topic.

I mean Section 8 housing, welfare, food stamps, etc.

Well...if we seriously slashed all that stuff, we'd have a few results:

- More people would either be looking for a job, or stealing.
- More shitty applicants to the same number of job openings.

Now, Im not saying that would be a bad thing. But how do we deal with it? A lot of lazy or simply unable bodies are going to be without that handout that housed, fed, and paid some bills. They'll need some revenue to replace that. Some wont work. They'll simply steal. Will we need more cops and bigger jails? Maybe.

Demand for low wage jobs will jump, as it is true, cutting that shit will indeed force some into looking for work.

Is it just a simple fact that we overpopulated our country, and dont have enough resources and jobs to go around? Or...is it a fact that we have enough resources, but they are simply pooled together at the top, with the bottom not having any real chance to earn it?

I dont know which is true, or maybe both have some truth.

We do need to get everyone to calm down the discussion, lay off the rhetoric, and talk seriously about this stuff though.
 
It could work in theory... but there are some serious problems. I know I'll probably get shit for talking about "the childreeeeeen!" But there are people born into situations where their parents are drug addicts, or gang members, or who knows what and they only have the slimmest of chances of escaping the cycle. Cutting these "handouts" means that it's taking their slim chance and making it even slimmer.

I think the only answer will be to get creative, but I have no idea how and I don't think anyone else does either.
 
This thread is for a real discussion only.

What if we seriously cut handouts? Im not saying Social Security, Medicaid, etc. People pay into that. Thats another topic.

I mean Section 8 housing, welfare, food stamps, etc.

Well...if we seriously slashed all that stuff, we'd have a few results:

- More people would either be looking for a job, or stealing.
- More shitty applicants to the same number of job openings.

Now, Im not saying that would be a bad thing. But how do we deal with it? A lot of lazy or simply unable bodies are going to be without that handout that housed, fed, and paid some bills. They'll need some revenue to replace that. Some wont work. They'll simply steal. Will we need more cops and bigger jails? Maybe.

Demand for low wage jobs will jump, as it is true, cutting that shit will indeed force some into looking for work.

Is it just a simple fact that we overpopulated our country, and dont have enough resources and jobs to go around? Or...is it a fact that we have enough resources, but they are simply pooled together at the top, with the bottom not having any real chance to earn it?

I dont know which is true, or maybe both have some truth.

We do need to get everyone to calm down the discussion, lay off the rhetoric, and talk seriously about this stuff though.

I'll tell you exactly what happens when you slash the public safety net. The reason it is necessary is because a capitalist society will always have a majority that is under the other classes. If you can't provide some sort of fail-safe for them to stay in a reasonable state of living, all that talk of a civilized society goes down the drain.

Not only that, the less educated a populace is, the less productive they are.
 
Not sure. I know some will say "We'll do whatever we did before we had all these handouts." And in theory, thats a good point. But..the world has changed. So have people. People are fucking crazier than they used to be. I partially blame prescription meds. We were never meant to have these blends of chemicals morphing in our blood stream with unknown side effects.

Anyway....I've always argued that the handouts are meant to simply keep the lower class under some sort of civil control. Just GIVE them enough to stay fed, housed and mostly sustained to the point they aren't excessively violent (i.e. raiding the suburbs to loot and steal). Take that away...and we will have masses of hungry, violent, uneducated and undisciplined people without direction. Thats true...because if they were educated and disciplined, they probably wouldn't have ended up on handouts.
 
It could work in theory... but there are some serious problems. I know I'll probably get shit for talking about "the childreeeeeen!" But there are people born into situations where their parents are drug addicts, or gang members, or who knows what and they only have the slimmest of chances of escaping the cycle. Cutting these "handouts" means that it's taking their slim chance and making it even slimmer.

I think the only answer will be to get creative, but I have no idea how and I don't think anyone else does either.

Thats very true, and I dont know what the answer is to that. Kids are born everyday to shitty poor parents. They really have no chance from day 1.

The movie Starship Troopers is so far fantasy fiction.......BUT....they mention a "child birth" license. Very Commie, I know. But damn....it seems thats where we're headed. If you cant be responsible, you cant birth.
 
I've been around the welfare class a bit in the past and I'm telling you these people are utterly worthless human beings. If you take away their housing and meager amount of money these people will join the literal tens of thousands of non-persons walking the streets of America right now. And that will be a really ugly and fucked up situation. The best thing you can do for the welfare class is improve education, social services and offer better employment opportunities to get these people out of that situation.

But honestly, the social programs and welfare are a small part of the federal budget and really not the problem. It just keeps getting talked about because out of touch Americans love sticking it to someone.
 
This thread is for a real discussion only.

What if we seriously cut handouts? Im not saying Social Security, Medicaid, etc. People pay into that. Thats another topic.

I mean Section 8 housing, welfare, food stamps, etc.

Well...if we seriously slashed all that stuff, we'd have a few results:

- More people would either be looking for a job, or stealing.
- More shitty applicants to the same number of job openings.

Now, Im not saying that would be a bad thing. But how do we deal with it? A lot of lazy or simply unable bodies are going to be without that handout that housed, fed, and paid some bills. They'll need some revenue to replace that. Some wont work. They'll simply steal. Will we need more cops and bigger jails? Maybe.

Demand for low wage jobs will jump, as it is true, cutting that shit will indeed force some into looking for work.

Is it just a simple fact that we overpopulated our country, and dont have enough resources and jobs to go around? Or...is it a fact that we have enough resources, but they are simply pooled together at the top, with the bottom not having any real chance to earn it?

I dont know which is true, or maybe both have some truth.

We do need to get everyone to calm down the discussion, lay off the rhetoric, and talk seriously about this stuff though.

I'll tell you exactly what happens when you slash the public safety net. The reason it is necessary is because a capitalist society will always have a majority that is under the other classes. If you can't provide some sort of fail-safe for them to stay in a reasonable state of living, all that talk of a civilized society goes down the drain.

Not only that, the less educated a populace is, the less productive they are.

This is the most intelligent post I've read on this subject.
 
If we don't start to cut spending somewhere what will the results be? Just taxing the so called super rich more will solve nothing even you taxed them at 50% or more you would not even make a dent in our 16 trillion and counting debt. I have said this before if we want to really start dealing with this problem we will have to raise taxes but we can't just confine it to the rich and we will have to do serious across the board cuts most important we all have to come to terms with the fact there is no easy simple painless way to deal with this problem. This will take a long time it will be tough and people will get hurt but until we accept this fact were going nowhere in dealing with this problem.
 
I've been around the welfare class a bit in the past and I'm telling you these people are utterly worthless human beings. If you take away their housing and meager amount of money these people will join the literal tens of thousands of non-persons walking the streets of America right now. And that will be a really ugly and fucked up situation. The best thing you can do for the welfare class is improve education, social services and offer better employment opportunities to get these people out of that situation.

But honestly, the social programs and welfare are a small part of the federal budget and really not the problem. It just keeps getting talked about because out of touch Americans love sticking it to someone.

Yeah, I agree. I think some rage about it out of principle, not neccessity. I've always thought the same thing: That handout is the only thing keeping civility (or what we consider civil for the ghettos and trailor parks). Without that, we'd realize that we overpopulated a country without enough resources to sustain that many people. I mean, when a 4 year college grad cant get a job, how is some dipshit trailor park dweller with a rap sheet gonna find work? Add on to it our government IMPORTING millions of low wage workers, and the poor blacks and white trash in our society have even less of a chance. THEN, add in what I consider a bit of a heavy-handed law enforcement system (Im a former cop too, says a lot) that throws people a rap sheet for possessing a harmless plant or other very minor shit....and its a cycle that really sucks.

THAT said, its far from impossible to make it in this country. ANYONE can. My thought though is that for those that DID make it...they live close to those that didn't, and we dont have huge walls around our towns. The handout is a small token to toss to those who didn't make it...so those of us who did can live and go about our lives without serious fear from the hungry, lazy, dumb and violent. The cops mostly keep that shit under control.
 
Not sure. I know some will say "We'll do whatever we did before we had all these handouts." And in theory, thats a good point. But..the world has changed. So have people. People are fucking crazier than they used to be. I partially blame prescription meds. We were never meant to have these blends of chemicals morphing in our blood stream with unknown side effects.

Anyway....I've always argued that the handouts are meant to simply keep the lower class under some sort of civil control. Just GIVE them enough to stay fed, housed and mostly sustained to the point they aren't excessively violent (i.e. raiding the suburbs to loot and steal). Take that away...and we will have masses of hungry, violent, uneducated and undisciplined people without direction. Thats true...because if they were educated and disciplined, they probably wouldn't have ended up on handouts.

I agree somewhat. There needs to be a culture change, one that won't be coming anytime soon. We are a generation growing comfortable and entitled to instantaneous gratification. Drugs, sex, fast food. It's all cheap and all available. I'm not against any of them, just in excess. I feel like, when people have the choice between working harder to provide and finding a quick fix, more often than not it's the latter.
 
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It would be interesting to see people demanding a living wage from the corporate moochers.
 
Interesting that many on the right want to make it more expensive to start a business.
 
If we don't start to cut spending somewhere what will the results be? Just taxing the so called super rich more will solve nothing even you taxed them at 50% or more you would not even make a dent in our 16 trillion and counting debt. I have said this before if we want to really start dealing with this problem we will have to raise taxes but we can't just confine it to the rich and we will have to do serious across the board cuts most important we all have to come to terms with the fact there is no easy simple painless way to deal with this problem. This will take a long time it will be tough and people will get hurt but until we accept this fact were going nowhere in dealing with this problem.

No doubt we must have production and growth. We NEED to be the most powerful country in the world, economically and militarily. Those two are what sustains the success inside our borders.

I think that is where Social Security, Medicaid, etc, somes in. 65 for SS is simply too young. It was never meant to be a 20-30 year pay program.

Also, this one is very important to me, WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT OUR OBESITY PROBLEM. Obesity related problems contribute a HUGE amount to our healthcare bills. Supply/Demand......obesity and the complications from it has caused a HUGE DEMAND for more healthcare, which of course, raised prices. That is one of the things I do like about the Obamas...Michelles push for health and fitness. Im not so sure about mandating nutrition...but shedding light on it, providing info, educating people on it, thats a great thing. Hell, even the government funded recreation departments are great. They're low cost/high reward. Thats a good use of tax money if people participate and get fit.

So......lots of problems, lots of possible solutions. How do we get politicians to actually act on it?
 
I personally love talking about the budget and find it to be one of the most interesting political subjects right now. I have to say I'm strongly disappointed in the Obama Administration for pussying around the budget as the deficit was the initial reason I voted Obama the first time around.

But back on subject, it actually would be pretty easy to balance the budget by returning to Clinton era tax rates, getting the fuck out of Afghanistan, closing tax loop holes and tweaking a few government programs. If the federal government would do these things, the economy would start roaring again in America I believe.

Check out this game from the New York Times where you can decide the budget. It helped me understand the situation.
Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com
 
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