NPR: Economy in Crisis; Families cannot afford meat

[retailguy]

RG, I'm not familiar with the Wisconsin program you speak of as I left there a long time ago. Perhaps that was structured as a persoal stopgap measure, I don't know, but if it didn't have a timeline for getting people out of itself and firm qualifications for getting the money and what that money could be used for, then it's not what I'm talking about.

Ziggy, the reason I brought up that program is that what I recall of it (I lived in California when it started, and in Washington when Thompson's term ended), was that it tried to implement exactly what you say you want. It was started by a republican Governor, Tommy Thompson, and one of the things that I am certain it included was a 5 year timeline for removal from the welfare roles. There was some provision, can't remember the details, but it required work to remain on welfare, with job training, etc. The liberal hand-wringing was felt coast to coast. As I recall the ACLU was involved with lawsuits at some point...

You should google it and read about it. You might see that what you propose, which sounds GREAT in theory (and I agree with your desires, BTW), doesn't work in reality. For principally, the very reasons I've been talking about.

And I didn't bring Father John into the discussion to disparage or criticize religion, more to demonstrate that he is absolutely not in a government program and that with many addicts, "giving yourself up to a higher power" is often very successful.

Perhaps you should look at WHY he's had success. See, Father John, should be talking about self esteem, which working builds, and about bible based principles of contributing to society instead of taking from it.

"Conversion" to Christianity is not the goal for most of these programs, however, the "attendee" sometimes needs to participate and agree to hear about the "mission" of the church if they want the help offered. The church is footing the bills, so by default, it can pick the program it wants to provide, and can require the terms on which you or I can participate.

Since Government is using public funds provided by taxpayers, what it can "require" is different. This primary difference is that you & I, and the NPR reporter have all paid taxes, and all have a representative say in how things run. Unless we're members of the church, we have ZERO say in how those programs are run. Can't you see the difference?

I cannot "choose" to exempt myself from my Government. I cannot "choose" to exempt myself from taxes for programs that I don't want to support. The Government cannot "choose" to remove me from participation in the process, nor "revoke" my membership because I don't agree/support the principles of the mission.

To a certain degree the Government MUST at least try to reflect each of our respective groups in the planning, process and mission of the Government. How much say we have depends on how many representatives each of our "little groups" get elected, but to some degree we ALL have some say. Or a legal recourse if we don't have "enough" say.

No matter what the Government tries (and it's tried everything multiple times in the last 50 years), it'll NEVER reach concensus.

Wait. I just thought of this. Isn't giving yourself up to a higher power abdicating responsibility just as giving yourself up to the govt. is? That's beside the point.

NO, not at all. See Howards response above. He's much more elequoent than I am.

What I will say, is that unknowingly, you've hit on a personal belief of mine. 50 years ago, the mission began to eliminate GOD from our lives and replace them with the Government. For me at least, the Government will never replace God, because it is full of imperfect people who make mistakes, and have selfish desires. Whether you believe in God or not, surely you can see the fallicy in replacing something based on perfection, with something based on imperfection?

I agree that the dear Father is doing better than the government and what I'm saying is not that the govt. should give up, but that they need to operate closer to what he is doing. He doesn't have the space or the resources to allow someone to flounder in his system. Neither should the government.

Our Government has some fundamental obligation to it's citizens. The ACLU will never let you or anyone else abandon those obligations. We now have precendent that the "underprivliedged" needs will be taken care of at some rudimentary level. Good luck getting that changed. Maybe when we're broke, out of sheer desperation, but that's about it. Until then.... you and your policies don't stand a chance. And waiting for bankruptcy is not a solution to anything.

Hence, my solution to quit complaining and just accept whatever you get is the likely conclusion. And no, I'm not advocating it, and I don't like it, but all alternatives have been tried and have failed.

And if you don't believe that the will of the people can fix a problem then we may as well pack it in and become a dictatorship because that's what you're saying when you say that we all know it's broken but it should go away. I don't want unemployment compensation to go away, and frankly that's an entitlement program that does work well. It's a model for what I'm talking about. You get what you need at the time and have a time limit on it.

Unemployment is abused too. I have a neighbor that knows to the DAY how long he has to work (in construction) before he qualifies for full benefits. Then he engineers some reason to be laid off, and then sits at home for the full duration of unemployment. When his benefits are exhausted, he catches on with another company and starts the process again.

ALL Government programs have abuse. By there very nature they WILL be abused. When those programs exist to create dependency, as ALL entitlement programs do, they are invetiably headed for disaster.

I disagree that unemployment works well. As a former business owner, I can tell you that the fees are high, and keeping someone intent on abusing the system off unemployment is difficult if not impossible. The business owner is "presumed guilty" until proven innocent, which is timeconsuming & expensive, and not usually worth the effort.

Who said non-religious people don't give? Don't be silly.

I did. Lets be clear. I said that based on my anectodal evidence from several years running my own tax business. While it probably doesn't qualify as statistical evidence, I along with a partner, prepared about 2,000 individual tax returns a calendar year.

You meet a lot of people, and you get to know them VERY well, right down to birthday's, social security numbers and every facet of their financial life including charitiable contributions.

I saw firsthand what people gave and to whom they gave it, and how much it was. I saw people give significant amounts of money and I saw others give NOTHING.

There is a correlation between church giving and non church giving. The more an individual gave to their church, the more they gave to organizations not affiliated with religion. The less they gave to a church, the less they gave elsewhere. There were exceptions, but they were very few and far between.

People often tell you their politics, or their cars do it for you. My office was in a strip mall with parking away from the buildings. Washington liberals LOVE bumper stickers, and you can glean a lot about a person from the bumper stickers you see.

So, that is something I believe from the evidence I've gleaned. I could give you 50 examples, or more, of couples that make $40k a year out giving couples that make $150k a year. That example would hold true whether you wanted to look at total contributions or whether you wanted to exclude religious based contributions and just look at secular ones.

[retailguy]

I hope I explained my reasoning clearly enough ........

Yes, I understand. Thanks. And I hope you know I meant no disrespect.

[texaspackerbacker]

I hope I explained my reasoning clearly enough ........

Yes, I understand. Thanks. And I hope you know I meant no disrespect.

Same here, RetailGuy.

I wouldn't read anything all that negative into Ziggy's "higher power" comment. As she said, it wasn't meant to inject religion into the discussion.

If the pathetic suffering poor are to have their situation alleviated at all, and government is not the force to do it, charity from the "haves" is about the only other way. And in this country, far and away, the largest provider and expediter of charity is religious groups. That's objective fact--not a should or shouldn't type controversy, as with government programs.

Sadly, there ARE always gonna be poor--losers who can't cope, even with all the magnificent opportunities our free enterprise system makes possible. That's where I differ with Bobblehead, etc. I say that simple observation of reality proves people like that exist and always will. Compassion just has to take precedence over fairness--the fair thing probably being to let 'em suffer, starve, whatever.

That leads to the bottom line question, can charity--religious and otherwise--do the job? Or does it come down to a question of government programs or suffering? I really don't know.

[MJZiggy]

Perhaps you should look at WHY he's had success. See, Father John, should be talking about self esteem, which working builds, and about bible based principles of contributing to society instead of taking from it.

"Conversion" to Christianity is not the goal for most of these programs, however, the "attendee" sometimes needs to participate and agree to hear about the "mission" of the church if they want the help offered. The church is footing the bills, so by default, it can pick the program it wants to provide, and can require the terms on which you or I can participate.

Since Government is using public funds provided by taxpayers, what it can "require" is different. This primary difference is that you & I, and the NPR reporter have all paid taxes, and all have a representative say in how things run. Unless we're members of the church, we have ZERO say in how those programs are run. Can't you see the difference?

While I see what you're saying (but might disagree on the conversion part as people who do convert in addiction programs TEND to have more success--not a guarantee or predictor), but I think Fr. John has a decent amount of success not so much because he's working with private money, but because he runs a local program. If someone is having difficulty he is there to counsel them, if they are trying to abuse his program, he is standing there looking at them and if they are making progress, he is there to offer praise and further encouragement which is something the government simply cannot do. I wonder if they wouldn't be better off taking all programs down to a local level, though the costs would be unrealistic. Too bad. It would be nice to have a way to make people accountable--for someone to be asking why they were at a convenience store and not a grocery. (Come to think of it, convenience stores shouldn't even take food stamps. What are these people thinking?)

[bobblehead]

I don't want to see people starve, I want to see them work. I don't want them to freeze, I want them to pay the God-Damned heat bill (sorry to resemble Tex for a moment).

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Just for the record, RetailGuy, I'm not the conservative who emphasizes a lack of compassion, etc. While I'm generally not much for liberal government programs, I'm only half-heartedly against them, and would prefer a bit of a safety net to seeing even rotten Americans who may deserve it, suffer.

I hope you read my posts and STRIVE to resemble me instead of apologizing for it.

Tex, my comparison was directed at the "God-damned" part of my comment. I recognize where your viewpoints are, and agree with a lot of them. I do not strive to "emulate" you, sorry, but I don't think the level of confrontation you engage in here, solves anything. Perhaps it makes you feel better, that I don't know, but I don't strive to be like that at all.

And I respect you and your posts too--and agree with many of them. I was mostly joking about striving to emulate my posts--just like when I say Rush Limbaugh has people scouting my posts for material--MOSTLY joking.

As for being confrontational, I VERY seldom say anything derogatory about other posters--although I do quite a bit of "if the shoe fits" sort of thing as with Bobblehead above. When I say "God damned" something or somebody, I generally mean it sincerely, as I am referring to forces which are IMO deliberately harming and disrespecting this country--and "damning"--which basically is praying that God consign them to the lowest region of hell, as leftist politicians and media assholes so richly deserve--is exactly the fate I'm wishing for their sick evil asses. I hope I explained my reasoning clearly enough ........

I don't disagree with you tex, and ultimately we both overstate our position to make it clear. I know you don't advocate huge gov't welfare programs, but I also am not against small ones...designed to help people between jobs. I am not against "reasonable" regulation, I'm against policies that limit competition and let one group benefit from the regulation. Ect, ect, I can go on, but we mostly agree.