From my email inbox comes news of a fundraiser in support of the campaign of Democrat Rob Zerban, who’s looking to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Paul Ryan in the 1st Congressional district.
Here are the details:
We invite you for an opportunity to support Rob Zerban
Candidate for Congress
1st Congressional District of Wisconsinat our End of the Quarter Rally!
Thursday, the 30th of June
5:30 to 7:00pm
At Ashling On the Lough
125 56th Street
Kenosha, WI$100 – Host
$50 – Supporter
$25 – Friend
donations of any amount are appreciated
Since I probably can’t make it, I am hoping you can ask Rob how much he proposes to raise taxes to “protect” our unsustainable entitlement programs. Please don’t let him off the hook with the usual answer of “only need to tax the top 1%.”
So which unsustainable entitlement programs are you advocating cutting? I’m betting it’s health insurance for the elderly and the poor, because those folks should just stop leeching off the rest of us and suck it up, right?
Zach, I think it can be more about restructuring than just cutting. Let’s make it more sustainable for the future so that something is actually there for the next generation. When did liberals become so much for defending the status quo and damn the consequences. In a lot of ways (not just these programs) we’re stuck in early 20th century thinking when it coes to efficiency and delivery of services.
Elderly doesn’t necesarily mean poor so I think we need to change the mentality that just because you turn 60 that you are entitled to everything under the sun. Again, I am for a safety net for those truly in need, but not so that the so-called poor can afford cell phones and high speed internet.
Ah, so the poor should have to get pre-approval before they’re allowed to buy anything, eh? Pre-approval from whom..more “civilized” folks, I presume? And pre-approval for what, exactly? Better make a well-defined prescriptive list of “things poor people are allowed by society to purchase”. Awfully paternalistic road you’re headed down there.
But anyways, aren’t cell phones and internet access somewhat useful tools for, you know, finding a job and being functional members of society? Ah, but that’s right…because they’re poor they don’t have a right to that stuff. Because you said so.
And further, unless you’re in about the top 5% income bracket, we better start auditing what you purchase, too, “forgotmyscreenname”, because all of us in the bottom 95 take in more in service/benefits than what we pay in to the system. So you’re a freeloader, too (not to put loaded words in your mouth, but that’s basically what you were getting at in a more polite way).
I really get the sense you didn’t mean it that way, but seriously when you think about it those are some pretty disturbing comments you made.
I don’t suppose you have a source for that claim?
A nice car is a useful tool for that too. And I’d could be a much more functional member of society of somebody provided a housekeeper for me, so pony up, taxpayers. Funny thing is, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the cell phones – in some situations, it might well be a appropriate use of tax money to help people out. But the justification you gave is an awful standard to use.
You caught me – 95% as an absolute number is pulled out of my arse, but even as an acedemic excercise it’d be an impossible number to nail down precisely. It’s really getting bogged down in semantics. But look at any area: medicare and ss, the military (care to pay for those glorious freedom bombs out of your own pocket?), transportation (care to make every road, even your local side street, a toll road?), and the list goes on and on.
Really? Interesting, if over-privileged, take on life you have there, unless you’re just being hyperbolic. Anyway, you’re well on your way to making that “list of things poor people are allowed by me to purchase” that I suggested. Keep going if you wish.
It’s the entire reason progressives* fight so hard for mass transit funding, and conservatives* fight so hard to cut it: access to jobs and the means to be functional in society (getting to the grocery store, etc.)
* generalization alert!
Again, an…interesting…take you have there. You’re perfectly entitled to a view that poor people shouldn’t have access to jobs or be allowed to be functioning members of society. Just please shoot me if I ever espouse the same. I’d suggest the standard you’re using (I’ll unilaterally make a list that poor people must abide by) is much, much, much more awful. Honestly – what gives you the right (as a likely fellow freeloader, as we’ve established) to make such determinations?
“And further, unless you’re in about the top 5% income bracket, we better start auditing what you purchase, too, “forgotmyscreenname”, because all of us in the bottom 95 take in more in service/benefits than what we pay in to the system.”
What’s this? Did a liberal just admit that the wealthy pay the bulk of the taxes? Amazing!
You fail in your comparison however, because I receive no direct benefit check from the government. I am not sure how you would calculate my contribution vs. benefits received (roads, military, general government functions). But that is different that someone receiving a welfare check from the government, which is intended to cover basic needs, when those needs could be often be paid by individuals who buy luxuries, with the expectation that the government will provide the necessities.
Where are your social security checks going to go, since you just stated for the record that you’ll be declining them? Hope all of your family members past and present declined social security as well. If not, please submit a list of all things they purchased with said welfare for my approval, please.
And please clarify for me just so I get it right…benefits that are tangible and easily provable, yet not easily quantified are not on your “List of Things I’ll Allow Poor People to Have With my Blessing (LOTIAPPHWB for simplicity’s sake)”. Got it. But jeez this list is getting awfully cumbersome and bureaucratic, and you seem to be twisted in quite the logical knot now for the sake of justifying your freeloading, while allowing yourself perceived moral space to condemn the freeloading of others.
Meanwhile, my questions still remain unanswered: is anyone else going to be allowed input towards your prescriptive list? How will this list be enforced? Does everything have to be submitted for pre-approval, or will receipts do? Does a super duper sincere “pretty please, sir” count for anything? Does your Authority to Judge get passed on by birthright? By bank account size? What?
If you get the sense I don’t take you seriously, you’re correct. I’d respect your viewpoint and that of many others of your ilk, when you devote proportional time and outrage to corporate, bankster, and wall st welfare fraud. And I’d respect the viewpoints more if I didn’t think they were just useful tools of the filthy rich in the class warfare they’ve been perpetrating on the vast majority of us (not just the poor) for a generation or more. And don’t ask why I just submitted more citation for my viewpoints, when all you good folks ever have are anecdotes. Guess I’m just feeling generous.
You entirely missed the point. My original point is that making reforms to social programs doesn’t necessarily mean destorying them, as liberals would have us believe, as they say it’s the status quo or nothing. My other point was that more of us think we are entitled to benefits (e.g. government should help me pay for food, health care, and heat so I can spend money on things I need: cable, internet, fancy phones, and sneakers). You are the one who suggested having to qualify expenses, as if you somehow believe I am out of line for suggesting there’s a problem here.
^bangs head on wall^ Think I heard that loud and clear. Let’s boil it down:
a) You explicitly define luxuries as the set of items you explicitly mentioned. I request that you kindly provide a complete list of things that are luxuries vs necessities, and also to cite where you get the moral authority.
b) Since you’re also likely a net beneficiary, by your own logic you also have no right to “luxuries”, as defined by you.
No I am banging my head on the wall. You are not addressing the real point that people feel entitled to assistance, which frees up money for them to buy video games and the like. I am not saying people don’t have a right to luxuries, but if you can afford such extras then don’t take government assistance! Some people need to get their priorities straight. I don’t see how you can defend such a practice.
I don’t understand what you think I am a beneficiary of, but I don’t get a government check every month. I also don’t have cable, a new car, an iphone, or go on many expensive vacations. I pay all my bills and live below my means so I can save for important things like retirement (not counting on there being a Soc Security check for me to return even if I wanted to).
Yet one of my friend’s siblings claims to be “poor” yet has plenty of luxuries. So essentially we are paying so she can have an ipod, when maybe you or I can’t afford one on our own.
Get it now? Don’t get so caught up in what I think are luxuries or necessities, but I do think I have some moral authority when I as a taxpayer have to give up my hard-earned money to pay for someone else’s non-necessities. So there’s my list: if you can’t pay for food, shelter, heat, or basic clothing then I feel for you. But if you SAY you can’t pay for food, shelter, heat, or clothing AND are buying other things, then there’s a serious problem and that person doesn’t need our help.
I’ll just go ahead and agree with what JCG wrote, because he summed up how I was going to respond. I don’t see cell phones as being a luxury; in many homes they’ve replaced a land line, so while you want to attack the “so-called poor” for having cell phones, keep in mind that some people view a land line as not being as convenient as a cell phone.
It may not be convenient, but cell phones are often costlier (esp. with internet access). All I am saying is that I don’t think it is right to take money from those who are responsible to give food stamps to people who have iphones and a $100/month service plan.
JCG, I am not saying pre-approval of expenses but why should we give benefits to people who spend their money on so-called necessities like cable TV (or is that needed to find a job too)? I am all for helping out those who need it, but not those who have spare funds to take their kids to Disneyland. And yes, I know people like that. We all do.
Holy boogieman overload! Seriously?!
So, have you ever done any of those things? Because unless you’re filthy, filthy rich you’re a freeloader, too when it comes to government benefits. We all are.
Further, I don’t deny there are people who truly abuse welfare-type benefits. Of course there are. It’s human nature and should be stopped wherever found. I just get fed up with the endless stream of strawman hyperboly we hear over an anecdotal case here and an anecdotal case there about people defrauding, perhaps, several thousand dollars. When we have corporate welfare recipients who are defrauding us of millions, with nary a peep heard about it in the supposedly liberal mainstream media.
Our overall federal tax rate is about 15% GDP, which puts us near the bottom of the barrel among the world’s industrialized nations. A generous safety net, we do not have.
Besides, I’m awfully, awfully tired of the so-called deficit hawks in this country who insist we can’t raise taxes on the wealthiest among us…who are profiting quite handsomely these days off of the suffering of others. Who are the truly unserious ones when it comes to the debt, then?
And if I remember correctly, isn’t our nation’s tax rate the lowest it’s been in 50+ years? If that’s the case, then it would seem we don’t have a tax problem; we have a revenue problem.
I see what you did there! Well played, anti-RoJo!
Yeah our tax system is great — that’s probably why corporations are haning out in Ireland. Because the rate here is 35%. You say the rate is so low — that’s because our economy is sluggish. Our tax system is nonsensical.
We wouldn’t have a supposed “revenue problem” if we would cut spending. The problem right now is spending is skyrocketing under Obama, but that doesn’t mean we should raise taxes to match his ridiculous spending habits.
Furthermore…
“To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of…
The goal is not to keep the poor from starving but to create dependency, because dependency translates into votes for politicians who play Santa Claus.
For politicians, giving a man a fish every day of his life is the way to keep getting his vote. “Entitlement” is just a fancy word for dependency.”
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2011/05/24/dependency_and_votes
Speaking of Santa Claus Forgot….Paul Ryan is playing Jude Wanniskis “Two Santa Claus” theory perfectly.
Nice. First I ever heard of this. Upon looking up, found this quote from Dwight Eisenhower:
“the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it” — That may be true, but that doesn’t mean it is always beneficial. Let’s play that out and say that the day comes when the mass of the people (90% of the country) decides government should provide everyone a hot tub and that the other 10% of the country should pay for it. The government might not be able to escape that responsibility, but it would be unfortunate.
However, when the day comes when the whole system goes bust and broke (hello Greece) then those responsibilites go bye bye, like it or not.