Is it fair that all the big pols like Kerry and McCain have half a dozen houses?
And the guys who own them like Adelson can afford to own 3,000 houses worth $1 million each?
But instead you are worried about houses for poor people.
You are a sucker.
Is it fair that all the big pols like Kerry and McCain have half a dozen houses?
And the guys who own them like Adelson can afford to own 3,000 houses worth $1 million each?
But instead you are worried about houses for poor people.
You are a sucker.
no doubt wrote:
E Jack Ulate wrote:And I also don't like my tax money spent on subsidies for farmers. Now what, bitch about that.
You do realize in 2014, 72% of the entire USDA budget goes straight to food stamps? Only 15% of the budget is allocated to farm and commodity programs. That 15% includes maintaining cooperative services, food and safety inspections, agriculture research services, forest services, and subsidies to farmers.
Another 6% of the budget goes to conservation and forestry and the remaining 6% to marketing and regulatory services and rural development.
Farm subsidies are a minuscule part of the farm bill.
By the way, the 2015 budget has food stamps now taking up a whopping 76% of the budget, compared to 11% for farm and commodity programs. The food stamp programs has absolutely exploded under Obama.
I noticed you ignored the comments by Mr Ulate about unnecessary wars. How much money is WASTED by the Defense Dept?
If you are talking about government subsidies for low-income housing, then A, B and C have the same answer: everybody benefits over the alternative, making it "fair" at least to that extent. In the long term, everyone is better off when you have stable homes for poor people because that is more likely to produce smarter/more creative/more productive poor person children. We have seen examples of this in every developed country since WWII and I don't see how you can dispute that basic premise.
Your points seem to go to government subsidized housing generally - I doubt you know how Section 8 or other subsidy programs really work (Section 8 is just the tip of the iceberg). That being said, there is a lot to criticize in the actual implementation of government subsidies. For example, I believe that charging tenants a percentage of their income rather than a flat rent based on quality/location of the apartment is a terrible policy choice, as are restrictions on evicting tenants. Poor tenants should have the incentive to pay more for better housing and be subject to the same standards of behavior as everyone else. Additionally, someone making 20k a year should not spend 30% of their income on housing because that leaves too little for necessities and nothing for saving.
exthrower wrote:
Liberalism has created a class of dependent children looking for 'daddy' to take care of them. Sounds kind and loving but in reality produces an inferior Human being..
The generalized thinking that Section 8 and foodstamps are some kind of luxury is laughable. The system is bad. The problem lies in replacing it with something that's better. One side advocates replacing the entire system with 'hard work'! Okay. Perhaps some small fraction of the pool finds a way to better employment but in large part the result is widespread homelessness and hunger. How would children and seniors meet such criteria? They won't.
One side defends a flawed policy solution to a real problem. The other side casts blame without offering any semblance of a correction or alternative that would lead to a better outcome. American politics in a nutshell.
I believe that there are people who need help. I believe that the social programs can provide help. The problem with the social programs is that there are very few conditions required of those receiving help from the social programs. Those receiving housing assistance should be required to keep their place of residence clean, and free of squatters and be subjected to random inspections. Those receiving food assistance should be required to provide receipts weekly. Those receiving welfare checks should be required to provide receipts and the money mandated to be spent on items of need. That is, no cable, no fancy phones, etc.
My point is simply we as a society need to help people, however, we make it too easy. Help has to come with some burden and stipulations. Hopefully, this would provide encouragement or incentive for those receiving benefits to get a job so as to have some niceties rather than just necessities. As it stands now, there are no incentives outside of pride. This causes idleness which can be bad in so many ways.
I don't mind discussing things here with reasonable people but I get very short with people who presume to know stuff that they don't so let's make a few things that you're totally wrong about clear.
You don't know who I vote for or what I expect of them. I certainly don't think many of them, whether I vote for them or not, are "right" all or even most of the time.
You don't know my circumstances and where I can afford to live or can't. The pittance of my tax money that goes to Section 8 housing pales next to what goes to endless wars in the Middle East but neither one prevents me from doing things that I want. If we wanted a place on the beach we'd get one. I don't think living there is worth what such a place would cost but if I did I could live there.
I certainly have never thought of myself as an exalted public servant. I had a job to do and dealing with people's housing issues was part of that job. I hated that part of that job and once I left it I swore I would not deal with those issues again but despite that distaste I firmly believe that we're better off with programs that relieve homelessness than we'd be with even larger numbers of people living on the streets and while you whine about one of those programs you present no alternative except the usual fuzzy stuff about letting "The Market" deal with it with no description of how that would work.
I am not calling "fairness" a tertiary issue. I try very hard to be fair in all my dealings. But I may do something that I believe is very fair and someone else may see it as unfair. You cannot get an agreed upon definition of fairness in most situations. You see something unfair about the Section 8 program and I don't. I see a LOT unfair about the housing market and you evidently don't. You can go on all you want about the unfairness and you won't convince me and I can go on all I want about how it's not unfair and I won't convince you. So why bother?
Help those who help themselves wrote:
I believe that there are people who need help. I believe that the social programs can provide help. The problem with the social programs is that there are very few conditions required of those receiving help from the social programs. Those receiving housing assistance should be required to keep their place of residence clean, and free of squatters and be subjected to random inspections. Those receiving food assistance should be required to provide receipts weekly. Those receiving welfare checks should be required to provide receipts and the money mandated to be spent on items of need. That is, no cable, no fancy phones, etc.
My point is simply we as a society need to help people, however, we make it too easy. Help has to come with some burden and stipulations. Hopefully, this would provide encouragement or incentive for those receiving benefits to get a job so as to have some niceties rather than just necessities. As it stands now, there are no incentives outside of pride. This causes idleness which can be bad in so many ways.
So the fix to our social programs is to spend more money and government resources on them? And that money would be meant not to encourage success but to police the bad? Explain why taxpayers would support this approach.
Would you rather a single mother of two be homeless or in subsidized housing? A few of my family members have been in subsidized housing for a length of time. Most people in these situations don't want to be in them. In each case the family member was working full time, no substance abuse issues. The problem was their full time pay could not cover the cost of an apartment plus day care. Day care for 2-3 kids is expensive. Should have they made better choices and not have 2-3 kids or picked better significant others. Yes. But we all make mistakes.
I do believe all these subsidized programs should be strictly overwatched with time limits so they are not taken advantage of.
Alan
The government spent about $16.5 billion on Section 8 in 2013 to benifit 3.1 million households. Where are the riots about the $15.9 BILLION in crop insurance "Welfare" that farmers received in 2013 to benifit roughly 1 million. I know for a FACT that this is an area that is abused regularly. I think affordable housing for families should definitely be the long term priority. It would be nice if every business had equal protection on yearly profit opportunities. .
runningart2004 wrote:
I do believe all these subsidized programs should be strictly overwatched with time limits so they are not taken advantage of.
Alan
What happens when they are taken advantaged of?
no doubt wrote:
E Jack Ulate wrote:And I also don't like my tax money spent on subsidies for farmers. Now what, bitch about that.
You do realize in 2014, 72% of the entire USDA budget goes straight to food stamps? Only 15% of the budget is allocated to farm and commodity programs. That 15% includes maintaining cooperative services, food and safety inspections, agriculture research services, forest services, and subsidies to farmers.
Another 6% of the budget goes to conservation and forestry and the remaining 6% to marketing and regulatory services and rural development.
Farm subsidies are a minuscule part of the farm bill.
By the way, the 2015 budget has food stamps now taking up a whopping 76% of the budget, compared to 11% for farm and commodity programs. The food stamp programs has absolutely exploded under Obama.
So-- by your own numbers:
We spend 20 Billion dollars a year directly subsidizing farmers.
We spend ~ 110 Billion or subsidizing food purchases (which by the way subsidize the farmers by increasing demand for their goods).
1% of the population lists their occupation as farmer.
22% of the population received food stamps.
Even if we ignore the additional income that farmers make from increased demand for their goods, the average subsidy to each farmer is about 4 times larger than the average subsidy to each person who receives food stamps.
You are right-- something is terribly unfair.
Look-- I don't know about you, but I'm fully in favor of feeding the hungry on purely religious grounds. The case for subsidizing farms by stabilizing prices is a lot less clear.
At first the cost to the taxpayer would be higher. Additional government jobs probably would be needed. I don't know how many. I also don't know how many jobs could be consolidated. I do feel, however, that if a burden of checks and balances were created and that niceties were not being had, that ultimately, because the hassle more people would be encouraged to try and provide for themselves. This in turn could possibly reduce the welfare payrolls, thus creating less cost to the taxpayers in the long run.
The Teabagger Shuffle wrote:
Interestingly, many of the same voices whining about liberal policies and handouts are the same ones crying about having to pay a dime for anything to do with watching running events. They whine about Flotrack, whine about not being able to watch some foreign track meet or marathon without paying for Universal Sports, and so on. Whine about not getting free Wi-Fi at home, most likely, and do all they can to swipe an unsecured feed from their neighbors.
...
Interestingly, unless you can prove some correlation, you are talking out of your ass.