The Other Side of That Coin

[SAYIT]

There has lately been a lot of legitimate focus on poverty as the root cause of inner city violence and dissatisfaction. Currently the 67% of America's black kids who are raised in poor single-parent households - often with an addiction addled adult - are not just disadvantaged but often are doomed. Those being asked (or required) to relieve some of that poverty (through taxation) are themselves often single parents who through self-sacrifice and determination acquire marketable job skills and then work 12 hour days (perhaps 2 jobs) just to provide the basics and maybe a smidge more. Is it fair to impose upon others the responsibility of providing for kids whose parents not only do not attain job skills, but willfully avoid them?

 

[SassyIrishLass]

The war on poverty is like the war on drugs, unwinnable

 

[eagle1462010]

 

[SAYIT]

The war on poverty is like the war on drugs, unwinnable

Unfortunately it's worse than that.
In the early days of the "War on Poverty," JFK's Assistant Sec of Labor (and later US Senator, NY) Daniel Moynihan authored a report in which he had the cojones to conclude that single parent households would greatly hinder progress toward economic and political equality. He was roundly criticized (even called "racist") by his fellow Dems but 50 years later his conclusions have proven tragically prophetic. The "War on Poverty" has exacerbated the very problem it was so nobly intended to alleviate and has not only created a permanent underclass but has diminished - by taxation - the lives of those just above the poverty line. Today those Dem voices are yammering for increased financial aid - again through taxation - in order to keep that underclass sated and voting Democrat.

INEPTOCRACY - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or even try are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

What is needed is the opposite of welfare. Tax any single parent for any kid born out of wedlock. This includes the father.
If obama can tax people just for being alive (obamacare) then we should be able to tax people for irresponsibly creating life.

 

[georgephillip]

here has lately been a lot of legitimate focus on poverty as the root cause of inner city violence and dissatisfaction. Currently the 67% of America's black kids who are raised in poor single-parent households - often with an addiction addled adult - are not just disadvantaged but often are doomed.

According to the Washington Post, "(f)ifteen Baltimore neighborhoods (including Freddy Gray's) have lower life expectancies than North Korea. Eight are doing worse than Syria.

Author, Christopher Ingraham, begin his short piece by comparing the average lives two hypothetical babies born three miles apart on the same day in Baltimore:

"One is born in Roland Park, a wealthy neighborhood in the north of the city. The other is born just three miles away in Downtown/Seton Hill, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

"The Roland Park baby will most likely live to the age of 84, well above the U.S. average of 79. The Seton Hill baby, on the other hand, can expect to die 19 years earlier at the age of 65. That's 14 years below the U.S. average. The average child born this year in Seton Hill will be dead before she can even begin to collect Social Security."

15 Baltimore neighborhoods have lower life expectancies than North Korea - The Washington Post

 

[SAYIT]

...Currently the 67% of America's black kids who are raised in poor single-parent households - often with an addiction addled adult - are not just disadvantaged but often are doomed.

According to the Washington Post, "(f)ifteen Baltimore neighborhoods (including Freddy Gray's) have lower life expectancies than North Korea. Eight are doing worse than Syria.

The term "doomed" referred to the opportunities those kids will not enjoy. The dangers of being raised in poverty are well established and not pertinent to this thread. The question here is what is society's responsibility toward those kids? How do we require those who are already working 60+ hrs/wk to provide for their kids that they must work a few more to also provide for others?

 

[georgephillip]

How do we require those who are already working 60+ hrs/wk to provide for their kids that they must work a few more to also provide for others?

We don't.
The rich get richer 400 wealthiest Americans now worth 2.3TRILLION as 34billion Mark Zuckerberg cracks Forbes top 10 for the first time Daily Mail Online

 

[SAYIT]

How do we require those who are already working 60+ hrs/wk to provide for their kids that they must work a few more to also provide for others?

We don't.
The rich get richer 400 wealthiest Americans now worth 2.3TRILLION as 34billion Mark Zuckerberg cracks Forbes top 10 for the first time Daily Mail Online

Again you are off topic. Those with 2 kids working 60+ hrs/wk and earning $40,000 - $60,000/yr are absolutely taxed to help support others. I don't understand why you are so adamantly denying this obvious injustice. Could it be the truth is a threat to your financial well being or that of your children or grannies?

 

[Correll]

How do we require those who are already working 60+ hrs/wk to provide for their kids that they must work a few more to also provide for others?

We don't.
The rich get richer 400 wealthiest Americans now worth 2.3TRILLION as 34billion Mark Zuckerberg cracks Forbes top 10 for the first time Daily Mail Online

Again you are off tropic. Those with 2 kids working 60+ hrs/wk and earning $40,000 - $60,000/yr are absolutely taxed to help support others. I don't understand why you are so adamantly denying this obvious injustice. Could it be the truth is a threat to your financial well being or that of your children or grannies?

My wife had an interesting exchange on this with some friends of hers on Facebook a while ago.

We have actually managed to get her to go part time, which has been very nice, and lets her spend more time with our child.

One of our old friends was defending the Obama phones, and discussing how important they were to her when she was at home with her children.

My wife's response was, why should I be forced to work more so that other people can spend time with their children?

 

[SAYIT]

...One of our old friends was defending the Obama phones, and discussing how important they were to her when she was at home with her children. My wife's response was, why should I be forced to work more so that other people can spend time with their children?

The justice of requiring Americans to support others (through taxation) is fundamental to this issue. The fact that those on the margin - already working 60+ hrs/wk - are taxed to support others is clearly unjust.

 

[georgephillip]

Again you are off topic. Those with 2 kids working 60+ hrs/wk and earning $40,000 - $60,000/yr are absolutely taxed to help support others. I don't understand why you are so adamantly denying this obvious injustice

Because you are presenting a false dichotomy by implying it is the responsibility of middle class earners to to fund welfare payments. Another, of many, alternatives to cutting welfare payments for the poor would include suspending federal income taxes for all workers earning less than $100,000/year and making up the missing revenues by increasing the tax burdens of the richest Americans.

 

[gipper]

...Currently the 67% of America's black kids who are raised in poor single-parent households - often with an addiction addled adult - are not just disadvantaged but often are doomed.

According to the Washington Post, "(f)ifteen Baltimore neighborhoods (including Freddy Gray's) have lower life expectancies than North Korea. Eight are doing worse than Syria.

The term "doomed" referred to the opportunities those kids will not enjoy. The dangers of being raised in poverty are well established and not pertinent to this thread. The question here is what is society's responsibility toward those kids? How do we require those who are already working 60+ hrs/wk to provide for their kids that they must work a few more to also provide for others?

Agreed.

Allowing government, which is almost always corrupt and ineffective, to use force to tax the productive to provide for the unproductive, is immoral.

However society does have a responsibility to care for the poor. Society...not government.

One of the most truthful statements ever made is, "when government subsidizes something, you get more of it."

 

[SAYIT]

Again you are off topic. Those with 2 kids working 60+ hrs/wk and earning $40,000 - $60,000/yr are absolutely taxed to help support others. I don't understand why you are so adamantly denying this obvious injustice

Because you are presenting a false dichotomy by implying it is the responsibility of middle class earners to to fund welfare payments. Another, of many, alternatives to cutting welfare payments for the poor would include suspending federal income taxes for all workers earning less than $100,000/year and making up the missing revenues by increasing the tax burdens of the richest Americans.

You are speaking of shifting the federal burden (which is already the least onerous of the three on $40,000 - $60,000 households) off the lower middle class and onto others but you ignore the state and local taxes which also fund all manner of social programs and while I have not suggested cutting welfare payments, I have questioned the morality of taking from the barely-squeaking-by and giving it to the not-even-trying. We have made it possible for those who choose to avoid responsibility to do so at the expense of everyone else. To summarize the point of The Moynihan Report, gov't support programs have indeed directly contributed to the breakdown of the two-parent household and subsequently to that of entire communities. Fifty years of the corrosive "War on Poverty" has divided us and made poverty more entrenched.

 

[georgephillip]

To summarize the point of The Moynihan Report, gov't support programs have indeed directly contributed to the breakdown of the two-parent household and subsequently to that of entire communities

The Negro Family: The Case For National Action (the 1965 Moynihan Report) was written by Assistant Secretary of Labor[1] Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a sociologist and later U.S. Senator. It focused on the deep roots of black poverty in America and concluded controversially that the relative absence of nuclear families (those having both a father and mother present) would greatly hinder further progress toward economic and political equality.

"Moynihan argued that the rise in single-mother families was not due to a lack of jobs but rather to a destructive vein in ghetto culture that could be traced back to slavery and Jim Crow discrimination.

"Though black sociologist E. Franklin Frazier had already introduced the idea in the 1930s, Moynihan's argument defied conventional social-science wisdom.

"As he wrote later, 'The work began in the most orthodox setting, the U.S. Department of Labor, to establish at some level of statistical conciseness what 'everyone knew': that economic conditions determine social conditions. Whereupon, it turned out that what everyone knew was evidently not so.'"

The Negro Family The Case For National Action - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Moynihan was a prophet. And this issue has nothing to do with poverty. Poverty is a symptom, not a cause. Cultural poverty is the result. And at the current rate it will spread to beyond only blacks. This is about unstructured families, mainly no daddies. It is as empirical as the sunrise.
I will repeat my idea and I will present it to my state legislature (though it will fall on deaf ears as they're all democrats) but we need to impose taxes on any parents who create children out of wedlock. With DNA technology every real parent can be determined. That tax will continue until the kid reaches 18 or the parents marry or create a married circumstance providing a mother and a father, whichever comes first.

 

[bucs90]

Carpet bomb Baltimore with condoms.

Every year...give a $500 social bonus to every community resident who has NOT made a baby out of wedlock.

In the end...the tax payer wins.

 

[SAYIT]

I will repeat my idea and I will present it to my state legislature (though it will fall on deaf ears as they're all democrats) but we need to impose taxes on any parents who create children out of wedlock...

On its surface the idea of punishing those who burden society by their poor choices seemed absurd to me until a couple of distant cousins (by marriage) were punished for their inability to afford Obamacare. I guess what's good for the goose...

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Carpet bomb Baltimore with condoms.

Every year...give a $500 social bonus to every community resident who has NOT made a baby out of wedlock.

In the end...the tax payer wins.

That's backwards. That's like extortion. Rewarding people for not doing bad things instead of punishing them for doing bad things.