Food stamps.

First off, long, long ago, the churches and other local community organizations helped persons and families who needed assistance. This was not an ideal system; some complained that the church(s)/organizations involved would demand "membership", "favors", or the like.

Somewhere along the line, WE decided, wouldn't it be great, in a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", if the people (the government) helped each other, like with public dams, public sewers, public roads, public parks, public schools, public assistance for the disabled, public assistance for the elderly, etc.

It WAS a unanimous, YES!

It is still a good idea(s.) The problem is ONLY in how we do it.

Frankly, I'd sooner make companies close down their factories which are using cheap child/prisoner labor in other countries and move those companies home. Raise tariffs, back out of NAFTA, and employ Americans--rather than have to assist them! In other words, tell our industries, "If you make it overseas, sell it overseas!"

Again, I feel I am a minority ... <sad-frown>

Regards,
TA
 
You are not a minority, TA. You resonate with a lot of people from both ends of the political spectrum. It is sad that for many many items, there is no possibility to pick something with a "Made in USA" label.

I totally agree with establishing an economic environment where jobs are being brought back to America. It is time that America stop apologizing for being pro-American. It is time for everyone else in the world to stop blaming America for being pro-American. It is also time for America to actually BE more pro-American.

. . . oh yeah, this comes from me, a Canadian living in USA and loving it . . . so go ahead, put that in context . . .

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan
 
BTW, what I see as the a source of this problem is greedy people. People who take too much money for themselves and distribute too little to other people. What taxpaying are sometimes/often? paying for is this greed when it concerns working people on food stamps. Working people who don't make enough wages go on food stamps.

I've read/heard that some Walmart employees are on food stamps due to their wages.
People who run Walmart are among the richest people in the country/world?.
If you as a taxpayer get upset, this should upset you the most. Subsidizing Walmart while people who run it get filthy rich at the expense of the general public.

What we need is more equal wages. If wages were more equal less people would go on food stamps. Because of this, I feel that there should be some kind of wage cap in place. I have been to groups that have discussed wages and the bottom line is, it has to come from somewhere. Wages cannot be raised without it coming from somewhere and causing inflation. Therefore I feel the most wealthy should be the ones to give instead of the general working public. Their wages need to be cut so other people can earn more.

It's tough to change this system as an individual.
People should support home businesses more, buy local when possible, avoid places like Walmart that exploit people and the general population. Do what we can to support fair wages. If we buy from a person/business in our community, then that individual gets better wages and hopefully will not go on food stamps or other government program.
 
petluvr said:
It is my opinion that many have certain "luxuries" that could be given up instead of going on government assistance. Internet, cell phones, computers for example. My mother raised four children in a home that had NO running water and NO bathroom. She worked a job that paid 7 bucks an hour and still we were never on any type of government assistance, sure that was 25 years ago and things are more expensive now, however these types of programs are there for people who need a little assistance to get back on their feet, NOT for people to live lifetimes on.
Click to expand...

And all of America's poor should just shove off and go live in shanty towns like most of the rest of the world? The fact that those considered poor here would still be wildly wealthy by the standards of most of the rest of the world is a testament to how much we are doing right. I have to agree with Eup to some degree, that there needs to be much less collusion between big business and government in the US, but in the sense that it is just as prohibitive if not moreso to an actual free market economy as any government regulation could be. On the other hand, as important as the ideas of a free market are to the health of a capitalist system, they also foster very many less than ideal situations.


Back to welfare though... There are a lot of myths perpetuated in our society to villianize the recipients of welfare. From stories of welfare queens to others about people rolling out of their escalades to buy food with food stamps. I don't doubt that somewhere out there, these things have happened, but all the studies I was forced to read to obtain my sociology degree more than bear out that that situation is faaaaar from the norm. Beyond that, welfare recipients are not able to stay on the program indefinitely, and there are salary cutoffs, that reduce or remove benefits well before a person would reach the subsistence line in terms of income. Factor in the presence of dependants, and the situation gets even worse. As much as the people should work to suppor a healthy and functioning government, the government needs to give its supporters as many of the proper tools to become functional and productive members of society. To others that might mean different things, but for me, that evens out to universal healthcare, and a quality education for everyone, regardless of the socio-economic makeup of their neighborhood, something that more often than not in this society, relates pretty closely to the color of their skin.
 
Isnt the point of this thread to empower those who might need/want food stamps but feel too embarrassed (or other) to take the aid that is offered to them by the country?

can we keep our comments about the point of the topic so that it doesnt get closed like all of the other irrelevant rants that people insist on making? i have seen too many good threads get closed because people feel the need to put in their .02 completely irrelevant and off topic cents.
 
I fail to see the lack of relevance of anyone's posts so far. Just because someone might not see the interconnectivity of numerous factors and how they all have an effect on how policy is shaped in the US, it is not safe to assume that just because it's beyond the grasp of their understanding, that it's irrelevant... :huh::huh:

Or should we all limit our comments to something along the ilk of:

"yay foodstamps"
 
Nobody is forced to work at WalMart. Like any other business WalMart doesn't want to pay people any more than they have to. And there is no shortage of people willing to work for what WalMart pays. Who here wants to pay more than they have to for anything they buy? If WalMart is absolutely the only employment opportunity available to someone, they're luckier than the person who has no employment opportunity. Unless of course you buy into the concept that the govt owes its citizens a living. Which in reality means that we all owe each other a living.
 
TechAquaria said:
Frankly, I'd sooner make companies close down their factories which are using cheap child/prisoner labor in other countries and move those companies home. Raise tariffs, back out of NAFTA, and employ Americans--rather than have to assist them! In other words, tell our industries, "If you make it overseas, sell it overseas!"

Again, I feel I am a minority ... <sad-frown>

Regards,
TA
Click to expand...

Wonderful in theory, but just thinking about how severely this would raise all of our costs is terrifying. I for one, think that having all of this "grunt work" outsourced to other countries, not only gives them a step into the global economy they may not have previously had, but also frees up good old American talent and ingenuity for bigger and better things. Now all we have to do is figure out what those bigger and better things are...
 
Inka4040 said:
Wonderful in theory, but just thinking about how severely this would raise all of our costs is terrifying. I for one, think that having all of this "grunt work" outsourced to other countries, not only gives them a step into the global economy they may not have previously had, but also frees up good old American talent and ingenuity for bigger and better things. Now all we have to do is figure out what those bigger and better things are...
Click to expand...

Well, and if I understand the platform you build that argument on, well, yes.

Yes, it will always be cheaper to have a group of slaves which live at vastly lower levels of wealth to work for us. Indeed, great strides are being made here in the USA of getting prisoners to work for very little--however, I can see this carried out to a point where we finally carefully craft laws so that we "keep our work force." Already, we "in partnership" with countries doing this, one example, China.

If we carefully impoverish our "workers", yes, they will work for food, housing, clothing and medicine alone. They can live right in the factories (like in China.) No need for them to have a car, no house, not many possessions, etc.

Isn't this the problem we are seeing now. Or, in other words, instead of exporting our quality of living to 3rd world nations, we are now importing those 3rd world conditions here.

Let me give you a prime example: In the early 1970's when I first began college, 80% of people/families OWNED their own homes--they were not BUYING them from a bank. Today, only 20% of the people/families OWN their own homes--the rest are either purchasing them or just have given up on ever owning a home. The younger people, coming along, since they are born into this world, at this time, this looks "normal" too. To me, who have seen it degrade from a much different time, this looks appalling!

Let me give you another example: In those same early 1970's, the minimum wage was somewhere around $1.65 to $1.85 USD an hour. Today, as near as I can tell, everything is about 10 times as much, in cost, as it was in 1970. If you extrapolate the minimum wage, from back then until now (taking the lower figure), I come up with 1.65 X 10 = $16.50.

I DO BELIEVE the above is a correct appraisal of what has occurred. In other words, the poor are now twice as poor! And, I believe this crosses all income levels, class levels--the only ones who have been immune to "the "poverty-izing" of America are the extremely wealthy and those in the hall of great power.

Just my off-the-wall and off-the-topic two cents worth. Check it out. Go to a library and pull some microfiche records of the newspapers back then. Look at the price of gas, groceries, apts., homes, cars, etc.

Remember "The Matrix?" Just depends on if you take the blue pill, or if you take the red pill ...

Regards,
TA
 
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