It's Time to End the "War on Poverty"

[PittsburghAfterDark]

It?s time to end the ?War on Poverty?.

Our nation has been involved in a quagmire of liberal programs stemming from failed President Lyndon Baines Johnson?s ?Great Society? that were designed to eliminate poverty and have not worked or reduced poverty rates in this country.

Instead failed liberalism has created generations of government slaves.??They aren?t obligated to work, they aren?t obligated to contribute to their own well-being and the net effect of the ?Great Society? has been to produce generational subsistence level poverty amongst program beneficiaries.??The only thing they?re asked to do is vote Democrat every 4 years or their benefits may be cut.

LBJ and liberals have created perpetual slaves to the political ruling class.??Cut off the checks or delay them and their helplessness and desperation become apparent.??

So I ask, what is the exit strategy of pulling out of failed liberal policies and programs???When do we begin our drawdown???Where is the timetable for withdraw?

We?ve spent countless amounts of blood and treasure on this failed war.??Over $10 trillion in government wealth transfers have accomplished absolutely nothing.??In poor areas meant to be improved by government largesse hopelessness is the norm.??The main method of people improving themselves isn?t work, it?s drugs.

Whether it is the inner city crack dealer or the rural crystal meth maker these are the routes out of government mandated and imposed poverty.?? Countless lives are lost in the struggle of containing this firestorm of crime on both sides of law enforcement activities.

Children are born with no hope, no future and government as the breadwinner instead of a father.??The cycle of an undereducated mother becoming pregnant at an early age breeding more of the same is an indisputable fact of the poor in America.

The states contribute as much to this problem as the Federal government.??Countless alphabet agencies and programs continue feeding the cycle.??What has it accomplished???What lives have been helped instead of destroyed by a sense of entitlement and hopelessness?

Where are even the ancillary success stories???What city, state or government program in the past 38 years since the ?Great Society?s? inception has lifted people out of the ghetto, shack, government housing or poverty???There aren?t any.

So before we waste more countless millions lives on a failed strategy stemming from lies from a sitting Democratic President and liberal Congress it?s time for an exit strategy.

It?s time to acknowledge the mistakes and lies of liberal statements and promises and withdraw from this failed war.

[Churchel]

Your argument might hold more water if the minimum wage was more than 5.15 an hour. I do not know anyone who can live on 824 dollars a month.

[bobbylien]

Someone making $5.15 an hour would have to work more than 40 hours a week. 40 hours is nothing, I'm working upwards of 55-60. Its not hard.
If they work 60 hours a week they would make about $1300 a month. Which is enough to live off of and save some money to go back to school.
The minimum wage is meant for kids, not for adults. Any adult still making 5.15$ an hour has made some HUGE mistakes with his/her life. Even Wal-Mart employees make more than $5.15.
You could live on 824$ a month but it wouldn't be a fun life.

[AlonzoMourning23]

Under clinton poverty was reduced, while social programs expanded. Though the execution of it, and the scale of it has been questionable. They should have free (or minimal fee) work training, education, day care, health care, drug rehab (often difficult to get into, especially those who've had trouble in the past. In sweden anyone can go no matter how much they screwed up, how cooperative they are or what they're on, and they're more succesfull the u.s., canada etc. which regulate who comes in) and so on for the very poor.

Though there are also homeless people in boston, cambridge etc. who work, some full time. Many homeless people have mental health issues, many that's what caused homelessness, others where fine but became addicted to substances or developed mental health issues after being homeless. Though deinstitionalization caused a dramatic increase in homelessness, and many people move down the economic chain due to mental health issues. Though that's only one segment.

The programs mentioned above, ones that target the problem itself, not just symptoms, have either not been carried out or not carried out in an adequate manner due to budget cuts and such. Countries that do institute those programs adequatly have lower poverty rates. You look at countries like sweden, denmark, they have these "liberal" programs. Everything can be tweaked to make it work better, but the difference is dramatic between countries like that and countries like the u.s.

[Churchel]

Lets take my mother for example. When the die-cast industry moved to china in the early 90's my parents household income went from 65K to 25K. My mother went back to work, at the new Walmart in their local area.

She started in 1996 @ 5.75 an hour, 10 years later as the head tech at the Walmart pharmacy she makes 9.75 an hour. Finding another job in her field will not raise her level of income any. Its called "redlining" where corporations get together and figure out the mean and meridian wages and use that to benchmark and keep employees from recieving a higher income. There is no reason to look for a better paying job in that particular field and grade. Think of it as a "corporate union".

[rebel farmer]

hmm, schoool lunch program, school b'fast pfast program, quite a few healthy child initiatives have done quite a bit of good. visiting nurse programs have helped a lot, especially with elderly in rural areas. and senior programs like meals on wheels have helped both the disabled and seniors to live a higher quality life while not having to be institutionlised, saving us money in the run. but there has been lots of waste and ultimately, like the war on drugs, we have been defeated to date. i'm no fan of paying taxes, but i'm nofan of sending children into schools that are falling apart, driving across bridges that aren't safe, and having hospitals that won't stand up to a major earthquake, all of which is the status quo here in oregon. i'd much rather stop giving subsidies to the huge agro/chem corporations and theirgenetically modified crops that they spray with tons of poison that my water and my air and let's maybe create some decent jobs repiring and rebuilding infrastructure. sort of a mini new deal. we could start in new orleans, huh?

[wonder cow]

There has never been a "war" on poverty, more of a slight disagreement with it.

I would say to the OP that your post is filled with the typical fallacies and media created myths concerning US social spending, government dependence, etc.

And to call all of these programs 'failures' is a gross exaggeration. Head Start, for example, has been a successful and beneficial program.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/impact_study/reports/first_yr_execsum/first_yr_execsum.pdf

And WIC has been tremendously successful, without a doubt.

[Athena]

I wasn't sure what programs were the result of Johnson's efforts, so I had to google his Great Society and I found this site:
Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson has been credited with being one of the most important ... critics say Johnson?s ?Great Society? created a welfare dependent culture. ...
www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Lyndon_Baines_Johnson.htm - 26k - Cached - Similar pages

From I read, I think his programs have been greatly successful, at least in changing the reality of Blacks.

Johnson hoped his Elementary and Secondary Education Act1965 would help children to get out of the ghettos. The poorer states like Mississippi benefited greatly from the federal funding and by the end of the 1960?s the percentage of African Americans obtaining a high school diploma rose from 40% to 60%. However, a combination of ghetto peer pressure and traditions and reluctant officials limited the Act?s effectiveness. Johnson?s 1965 Higher Education Act was more successful as it gave significant aid to poor black colleges; it led the number of African American college students to quadruple within a decade. Lyndon Johnson?s introduction of Medicare and Medicaid helped to address the issue of poor health in the minorities, African American infant mortality halved within a decade.

In this paper it is said the Cold War with the USSR was a significant pressure in cleaning up our own act and doing something about poverty.
Perhaps the backward sliding we have done, and the all the political decisions that have been bad for workers, is a negative effect of winning the Cold War?

[Athena]

Instead failed liberalism has created generations of government slaves. They aren?t obligated to work, they aren?t obligated to contribute to their own well-being and the net effect of the ?Great Society? has been to produce generational subsistence level poverty amongst program beneficiaries. The only thing they?re asked to do is vote Democrat every 4 years or their benefits may be cut.

I do believe we have a problem, but I think it is replacing liberal education with education for a technology society with unknown values.
We stopped transmitting our culture and left moral training the church.
We destroyed our national heroes and began praising efficiency- all of which is what happened to German education when the Prussians took control of Germany.

Yes, our young no longer understand civic duty, and they are amoral at best. They do not understand only high moral people can have liberty, and it seems everyone has forgotten the democratic principles and values, and wrongly thinks only religion gives us morality. This is devastating to our civilization, but it was Eisenhower who got this change in education, not Johnson. Every generation we get further away from the 1958 National Defense Education Act, the worse things get, because today if parents know anything of our past values, they learned that from their parents not from their education, and their education lead them to believe their parents and our past is out dated and old fashioned.

The national youth crisis started with public education, not bad parenting, but because these young didn't learn the meaning of being American, they can not teach that to their children. Blaming Johnson and the poor for our problems, seems like dangerous media spin to me.

[Athena]

Someone making $5.15 an hour would have to work more than 40 hours a week. 40 hours is nothing, I'm working upwards of 55-60. Its not hard.
If they work 60 hours a week they would make about $1300 a month. Which is enough to live off of and save some money to go back to school.
The minimum wage is meant for kids, not for adults. Any adult still making 5.15$ an hour has made some HUGE mistakes with his/her life. Even Wal-Mart employees make more than $5.15.
You could live on 824$ a month but it wouldn't be a fun life.


Low wage workers are essential to making international competition, and that is why the legislature refused to increase minimium wage. Please, do not criticize those who work for low wages, because our economy and high standard of living depends on them.

You are lucky you can work 60 hour weeks, you must be single and young. When single parents are working those long hours, the children are neglected and this becomes a social problem that will get worse. Because the children being neglected, they are living in desparate poverty and insurity and shame. This might be good for our gross national product, but it is not good for our civilization. It is not the moral high ground we must achieve, if we are to win over the Muslims and not just have military power of them.

[Labrocca]

Instead failed liberalism has created generations of government slaves.??They aren’t obligated to work, they aren’t obligated to contribute to their own well-being and the net effect of the “Great Society” has been to produce generational subsistence level poverty amongst program beneficiaries.??The only thing they’re asked to do is vote Democrat every 4 years or their benefits may be cut.

I do believe we have a problem, but I think it is replacing liberal education with education for a technology society with unknown values.
We stopped transmitting our culture and left moral training the church.
We destroyed our national heroes and began praising efficiency- all of which is what happened to German education when the Prussians took control of Germany.??

Yes, our young no longer understand civic duty, and they are amoral at best.??They do not understand only high moral people can have liberty, and it seems everyone has forgotten the democratic principles and values, and wrongly thinks only religion gives us morality.??This is devastating to our civilization, but it was Eisenhower who got this change in education, not Johnson.??Every generation we get further away from the 1958 National Defense Education Act, the worse things get, because today if parents know anything of our past values, they learned that from their parents not from their education, and their education lead them to believe their parents and our past is out dated and old fashioned.

The national youth crisis started with public education, not bad parenting, but because these young didn't learn the meaning of being American, they can not teach that to their children.??Blaming Johnson and the poor for our problems, seems like dangerous media spin to me.


Great post and I gotta agree with Athena on a lot of this. Good googling.

[bobbylien]

I just like to look at the facts. America has more people in poverty than any other developed country. LBJ's "Great Society" programs reduced poverty rates by 50%. True, now most of the affects are gone now and his methods were only a temporary help and won't work over the long term. I don't think social programs are a lost cause. We need to make it cheaper for our kids to go to college and privatize the public school system. No kid who has gotten good grades throughout High School should be denied access to college based on his/her access to money. If we are going to have any affirmative action I would suggest that it be based on class and not race/gender. A rich black kid shouldn't be put in front of a poor white kid, thats wrong. I believe that we need to cut the current "hand out" style of the social programs and only give help to those who have earned it. Look at the mess after hurricane katrina. Programs shouldn't be started on the national level. Federal taxes should be lowered and state taxes raised. Social programs should be started by the states. This way they would be better able to adjust the programs to their states needs. The idea of the founding fathers was not that we would have one big national government with a president and senate deciding everything. States need more power. The federal governments job is to manage foreign relations and keep us safe not to ban gay marriage and flag burning. Let the states decide.

Ooh yeah, we need to get rid of ALL corporate welfare programs. Let companies compete without the government being involved. If a company cant compete, they lose. The government shouldn't have to bail them out.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

I just like to look at the facts. America has more people in poverty than any other developed country. LBJ's "Great Society" programs reduced poverty rates by 50%.


And just what facts would those be? (http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/census/cphl162.html)

Do your homework, don't pull stuff out of your butt.

Or you can look at it year by year from the 50's. (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html)

You.... are.... wrong.

[bobbylien]

Did you read the facts in your second link? The "Great Society" programs were enacted in 1964, after which poverty rates fell about 50% until Reagan cut funding for the programs. They were horribly thought out, but they did work. Notice how poverty rates started going back up after Reagan cut funding in 1981. Rates also started going up again when Nixon cut funding during their administrations.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

Oh you're so full of it.

You're talking varying percentages of 1-3% not 50%.??You can't even admit you were wrong.

Nixon's problem wasn't a cut in funding it was an attempt at price controls.

There was a recession in 1960 and President Kennedy's solution to it was to cut marginal tax rates, look it up.??When the tax rate changes took place the poverty rates came down.??Happens every single time it's tried.

The same was true of Reagan in the 1980's.??He inherited the most disasterous economy since the Depression from Jimmy Carter.??Unemployment was above 10%, interest rates were in the high teens (Think of buying a house or car at credit card rates.), and inflation was also at or near double digits.??Reagan's tax cuts dropped the poverty rate by the end of his Presidency. We were also back to full employment, interest rates dropped nearly 11 basis points to 7% and inflation was 2-3%.

What people don't talk about is poverty in America is not poverty in the rest of the world. To be poor in America usually still means you have a TV, car, clothes on your back, food on your table and many other things beyond subsistence level existence.

The poverty rate in 1966 was 14.7%, it's 12.7% today.??You tell me, is a 2% change worth another $10 TRILLION over 20 years.

Statistics say no.??You won't be changing anything.??The poor will still be poor.

[bobbylien]

The poverty rate in 1966 was 14.7%, it's 12.7% today. You tell me, is a 2% change worth another $10 TRILLION over 20 years.

Statistics say no. You won't be changing anything. The poor will still be poor.

Actually, don't start in 1966.. start in 1964 when the programs started.
During the time Johnson was in office unemployment went down from 19.5% to 12.1 when Johnson left office and Nixon started cutting funding for the programs. Its not his fault that funding for his programs were cut, thats why you can't compare our current rate with the great society.

I don't think his style of social programs are the answer. We need to make sure that those wanting to work hard and improve their lives are able to. So long as people are able to get out of poverty if they want to. Poverty rates aren't a big deal.

You are the one who is unwilling to admit you are wrong. You responded to one sentence of my response. You didn't read where I said that his programs are worthless over the long time and a huge waste of money. I'm not defending his programs, I am simply saying that they did work.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

The overwhelming majority of the "Great Society" programs were enacted by the 89th (1965-67) and 90th (1967-69) Congresses.

That's why I used a baseline of 1966 as my measuring stick. You can't measure the start of the programs from Johnson's "Great Society" speech of 1964 at the University of Michigan. A speech doesn't make a program, Congressional action does.

So we're looking at a baseline year poverty rate of 14.7% and that is at 12.7% today.??That's not a success.

The swings have gone to a low of 11.1% (Oh, BTW that was in 1973 when Nixon was President, so much for your budget cut statement.), to 15.2% in 1983.??Despite a $10 trillion dollars since the "Great Soceity"'s inception on programs tied to that era's legislation we have never swung the poverty rate down more than 3 percentage points and despite cries of "cuts" poverty rates never went up more than one half a point from the baseline year.

All in all this shows one thing.??Poverty rates have generally not swung any more than 3.5% in a 10 year period since.

If you ever see a political poll or opinion poll you'll notice that standard deviation is what number???3.5%.

The war on poverty and Greaty Society have accomplished nothing.??Its success isn't even outside standard deviation numbers.

[Athena]

[Great post and I gotta agree with Athena on a lot of this.??Good googling.
[/quote]

Thank you, but that wasn't googling. It is my committed life's work. It begins with my grandmother being one of those teachers who defended democracy in the classroom, as a first through third grade teacher. I was in high school when the 1958 Act was implemented and I remember my teachers walking in a daze. It was frightening because obviously something big had happened but we didn't know what. Finally a teacher explained the nation had changed the purpose of education and now they were educating for a technological society with unknown values, and he asked us to think about how things would be managed when machines did so much our work, people did very little of it.

I knew education had changed, and when the National Youth Crisis was announced, I began researching what it meant to defend democracy in the classroom, and what is democracy all about anyway. And I researched Germany because we were imitating Germany. I do my researh by buying books written when history was made, because I do not trust anything said since 1958. Because my source of information is so different from others say, I rarely get agreement, but until the day I die, I will do my best to get this information out.

[Athena]

I just like to look at the facts. America has more people in poverty than any other developed country. LBJ's "Great Society" programs reduced poverty rates by 50%. True, now most of the affects are gone now and his methods were only a temporary help and won't work over the long term. I don't think social programs are a lost cause. We need to make it cheaper for our kids to go to college and privatize the public school system. No kid who has gotten good grades throughout High School should be denied access to college based on his/her access to money. If we are going to have any affirmative action I would suggest that it be based on class and not race/gender. A rich black kid shouldn't be put in front of a poor white kid, thats wrong. I believe that we need to cut the current "hand out" style of the social programs and only give help to those who have earned it. Look at the mess after hurricane katrina. Programs shouldn't be started on the national level. Federal taxes should be lowered and state taxes raised. Social programs should be started by the states. This way they would be better able to adjust the programs to their states needs. The idea of the founding fathers was not that we would have one big national government with a president and senate deciding everything. States need more power. The federal governments job is to manage foreign relations and keep us safe not to ban gay marriage and flag burning. Let the states decide.

Ooh yeah, we need to get rid of ALL corporate welfare programs. Let companies compete without the government being involved. If a company cant compete, they lose. The government shouldn't have to bail them out.


This is an excellent post!

We need a thread on the consolidation of federal government power.

We need a forum for Political and Economic Forces. A lot can be said in History, but I fear many people think history has nothing important to do with today, so they are ignoring that forum.

In the 1960's I was going to be a social worker. My generation was the women's lib transition generation. We post ponded our careers until rainsing our families. When it was time for me to return to college, I studies Public Policy and Administration at the U of O. It was perhaps the most depressing time of my life. How we run bureaucracies and do welfare programs was radically changed from the beginning of the war of poverty, and instead of becoming a bureacratic, I became a rebel. I wish everyone understood the change in bureaucracy, and I will explain if anyone is interested. The US is becoming a tyranny with more power than any tyranny in the history of humanity, and this is about organization for power that is crushing inidividual liberty and power. But it is not the subject of this thread, except to say the way handle things since Johnson has changed.

[Athena]

I just like to look at the facts. America has more people in poverty than any other developed country. LBJ's "Great Society" programs reduced poverty rates by 50%.


And just what facts would those be? (http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/census/cphl162.html)

Do your homework, don't pull stuff out of your butt.

Or you can look at it year by year from the 50's. (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html)

You.... are.... wrong.


It sure is fun to be rude and crude sometimes, but it is also like puking in someone's dinner plate.??Many people read these forums, and if rude and crude language is tolerated, many of these people will be offended and will not return.??Besides, it is a cheap shot.??It voids the effort of real intellectual responses, and if this tolerated, the forums will be reduced to personal slams and attacks, and people will be turn off. ??

[Athena]

Did you read the facts in your second link? The "Great Society" programs were enacted in 1964, after which poverty rates fell about 50% until Reagan cut funding for the programs. They were horribly thought out, but they did work. Notice how poverty rates started going back up after Reagan cut funding in 1981. Rates also started going up again when Nixon cut funding during their administrations.


Whoo baby, you are talking some pretty sentitive information! I did some research on this at the U of O Knight Library in the Government Document Department.

When Reagan took office, research on poverty disappeared from the Abstracts (yearly books recording government research). In the place of research on poverty, was research on welfare fraud. This change in research was so complete, it was obviously research done for a desired purpose, which makes it invalid. However, people don't know all this stuff, right? That research was used to scapegoat the poor for the recession, just as Germany scapegoated the Jews for Germany's economic problems. Then just as Germany did, we took money out of domestic spending and pour it into military spending. People who are blaming Bush, need to understand the bigger picture. Since Eisenhower the Texas backed presidents have had an agenda. It is New World Order as the Germans were organized after the Prussians took control of Germany.

Sorry for being so complex, but all this falls back on the Prussians who lived for military might, as the people of the US lived for a love of God.
The same thing is being done to the US that the Prussians did to Germany when they took control of Germany. It is about bureacratic order and education. It is about having the military might to domenate the world for the nation's economic interest. It is the vision of Prussian general at the beginning of the industrial age.

To the subject of the thread, military spending is more important than domestic spending. Forget spending on education. We need cheap labor to compete for world markets, and we need this to support the military technology of million dollar bombs. It used to take a year to mobilize for war. Today we can unleash more destroy force in 4 hours, than all the destructive force of WWI and WWII put together. This is now our national pride and our only national progress.

[wonder cow]

America has more people in poverty than any other developed country

This is problematic statistic, especially considering that China reports somewhere around 4 % poverty rate. Which is obviously ridiculous. Where would you rather be poor, in China or the US?

And Mexico reports about 10%. Yet millions of Americans are not immigrating to Mexico.

And what about Russia?

The standard for poverty is the poverty line, based on income, and the minimal amount of income it takes to survive in each country. I would be very surprised if benefits such as public housing, food stamps, etc are considered in this statistic within the US. And I doubt that desperately poor people in Mexico, China, and Russia don't have satellite television, cell phones, and automobiles. And although this is not the average case among the very poor in the US, as a former social worker I can tell you that it is not uncommon.

[Athena]

Yes, it is problematic to say the US has the highest rate of poverty, because the issue is so complex. In less developed countries, I don't think the life style requires having an address, car and telephone to compete for a job. I think is possibly more compassion and willingness to help each other, as this is more important to their shared survival than in the US today, where affluence is dramatically changed human relationships, and made competition the norm over cooperation and compassion.

[Mayberry]

This is a very interesting thread with good points made from both ends. It's a little much to take in at once, so please bear with me if I jumble the information a little. From my viewpoint, being from an area with folks of lower than average incomes, some social programs do a lot more harm than good. This area (south Texas) has more than it's fair share of illegal immigrants, causing low wages to be the norm. Labor unions have never taken hold down here, because these immigrants don't want to ruffle any feathers, they're just happy to have a job. And they don't just have agricultural or janitor jobs either. Virtually all trades are affected. We have $10 an hour diesel mechanics, $8 an hour carpenters, etc... This being the case, there is a lot of welfare given out around here. I've seen the same folks with Lone Star cards (foodstamps) for years. They don't WANT to make any more money or they will no longer qualify for assistance. The same scenario is repeated thousands of times over. Folks become dependent on public assistance, get used to it, and then have no incentive to get off of it. You then have a large segment of the population that becomes lazy and lethargic.
Sure, some aspire to better things, but a lot do not. Don't get me wrong, everyone needs a helping hand once in a while, but I believe there should be a time limit on some social programs. This in it's self would do more to lower poverty levels than the program would. Programs should be a temporary crutch to help one get back on their feet. Then the person is motivated to work towards something better, if for no other reason than knowing the assistance is going to end. All of this will lead to a better educated and skilled workforce, and such a workforce will demand higher wages, reversing the trend of poverty. Of course there will remain a small percentage of people that are beyond help or are incapable of working, and help should be available to these folks, but the numbers would be MUCH smaller, and therefore a lighter burden on taxpayers. Now as far as those illegals go.....

[Athena]

This is a very interesting thread with good points made from both ends. It's a little much to take in at once, so please bear with me if I jumble the information a little. From my viewpoint, being from an area with folks of lower than average incomes, some social programs do a lot more harm than good. This area (south Texas) has more than it's fair share of illegal immigrants, causing low wages to be the norm. Labor unions have never taken hold down here, because these immigrants don't want to ruffle any feathers, they're just happy to have a job. And they don't just have agricultural or janitor jobs either. Virtually all trades are affected. We have $10 an hour diesel mechanics, $8 an hour carpenters, etc... This being the case, there is a lot of welfare given out around here. I've seen the same folks with Lone Star cards (foodstamps) for years. They don't WANT to make any more money or they will no longer qualify for assistance. The same scenario is repeated thousands of times over. Folks become dependent on public assistance, get used to it, and then have no incentive to get off of it. You then have a large segment of the population that becomes lazy and lethargic.
Sure, some aspire to better things, but a lot do not. Don't get me wrong, everyone needs a helping hand once in a while, but I believe there should be a time limit on some social programs. This in it's self would do more to lower poverty levels than the program would. Programs should be a temporary crutch to help one get back on their feet. Then the person is motivated to work towards something better, if for no other reason than knowing the assistance is going to end. All of this will lead to a better educated and skilled workforce, and such a workforce will demand higher wages, reversing the trend of poverty. Of course there will remain a small percentage of people that are beyond help or are incapable of working, and help should be available to these folks, but the numbers would be MUCH smaller, and therefore a lighter burden on taxpayers. Now as far as those illegals go.....


Are you saying if people did not get public assistance, the mechanic would get $48 an hour, the carpenter $28 an hour, and so on, and everyone would then have a middle class life style? Sounds great, but might the people who have to pay the higher wages, find something wrong with this plan?

Welfare subsidizes the industry that can not afford to pay higher wages, and everyone but the poor benefits from the low wage laboror. This why the Republicans will not raise minium wage, and do encourage immigration. Pay attention to interest rates. When employers start having trouble finding workers, and the workers can demand higher wages or benefits, economic adjustments are made that do not favor the wage earner. The stock market doesn't like it when wages start going up.

American industry isn't going over seas to be nice. The industry goes over seas to get cheap labor and our working class people must compete with the third world countries for jobs. How do you think restrictions on public assistance would equal good paying industrial jobs for all who want them? I don't follow that logic.

[Mayberry]

In no way did I mean to suggest that a diesel mechanic would make $48 an hour, but surely his skill demands more than $10. Maybe $15. It doesn't take a lot of money to significantly raise your standard of living. And people making even a little more money is better for everyone else because there is more disposable income pumped into the economy.
Welfare subsidizes the industry that can not afford to pay higher wages No industry should be subsidized in any way. If they can't stand on their own then they should fail.
This why the Republicans will not raise minium wageNor should they, I didn't mean to imply that either. I don't expect unskilled workers to make $10 an hour, nor should they ever. The stock market doesn't like it when wages start going up. That's unfortunate, that people's very livelihoods are trifled with in the name of turning a buck. One more example of how those that are in power seek to control those that are "beneath" them. I don't have a problem with stock markets per se, but when they become the entire focus of all economic policy, something is wrong. How do you think restrictions on public assistance would equal good paying industrial jobs for all who want them? Every week in the local paper, there are hundreds of decent paying jobs advertised. Many ads run for several weeks. That being the case, there is ample opportunity for those on welfare to gain employment if they so desired (at least locally). Many choose NOT to work. Why go to work for $8.50 an hour when I'm getting that much in food stamps, section 8 housing, etc...? Putting time limits on benefits will motivate those individuals to go to work. They may not get rich, but they will be supporting themselves, gaining skills, and becoming more marketable employees, therefore eventually earning higher wages. I'll use myself as an example. While in high school I worked for a few cents more than minimum wage at a local boat dealer. Then I joined the Navy and went to Gas Turbine schools. My wages went up (not much being in the Clinton era...). When I got out and got a job, my wages went up slightly again. I continued to gain experience and knowledge and landed a job at a power plant making $70k a year. I was motivated by poverty to attain something better, and I did. It can be done.

[Labrocca]

Great posts...I think that wages must increase with the cost of living but often they don't. The mechanic probably gets 10 cent raises every year. Min wage should fluctuate and be tied with other economic indicators.

[underdawg]

Aren't there enough prisons, and poorhouses, and orphanages? Some of us are pretty bitter towards the poor. I mean, I believe in evolution, but Republicans live it. Talk about survival of the fittest. No compassion there.

With the cost of living being so high today compared to the minimum wage, a normal person can not afford to pay rent, buy food, pay bills and have transportation to and from work. If you add a family to support on top of that you are speaking about families who live out of cars.

For those of you who have worked minimum waged jobs you will know that they are definitely not the same as higher paying jobs. They are physically harder, mentally degrading, and usually more dangerous. One person on here suggested that they could take on two or more jobs to provide more money. For one thing working at a job that pays well above the minimum wage will not tire you out as much if you work 80 hours a week at it compared to working 80 hours a week at a job that pays minimum wage. More than likely if you work at a job that pays well over minimum wage you have reliable transportation. A lot of the working poor take public transportation and that can add an additional 2 to 3 hours on top of your work day. A if you get injured at a minimum wage job then you are just out of luck. Most likely you can't afford health insurance. What little money, if any is used up in one fell swoop. You are now massively in debt, can't work, can't pay your bills. You are now homeless. If you do get better. Who hires the homeless? Once you become homeless, the road back is nealy impossible.

I do not believe that the government should just give people welfare. When my dad left my mom with four kids and no means of support, my mom took a minimum wage job. She had no skills. I had to baby sit the rest of them when I got home from school. During the summer my brothers and I worked on local farms to make extra money. It still wasn't enough and my mom had recieved food stamps. It was a degrading feeling to see my mom pay for food at the grocery.

These days the relationship between minimum wage and the cost of living is a lot different compared to it was when I was a kid. Maybe the government shouldn't be a welfare state, but they can certainly do things to help.

1. If the president wants tax cuts to the rich to improve the economy, then he should also penalize the companies that outsourse jobs and reward only the ones that keep the jobs here in this country.
2. Any citizen that serves this country's armed services should recieve free college tuition period.
3. Children are this countries most valuable resourse and our kids education is so lacking compared to so many other countries in the world. Education is the key to escaping from poverty and we are failing them. We should put as much effort into upgrading our education system as we put towards fighting terrorism.
4. Health care in this country is outrageous. Most poor people can not afford to have it and only go to the doctor when they are in major pain. By this time the poor are put into great debt because of something that may have been prevented had they gone to the doctor earlier. people will say that they don't want to have a health system like Canada, but they wonder why health care is so expensive now. I don't think we should have an all free health care sysytem like canada, but we should provide everyone with free"preventative" health care. At least a free complete physical check up. Make them pay for everything else. If things can be caught early , it will save us all money in the long run.
5. The government should encourage more companies to have on the job training for all those who want to learn. The government should also give tax breaks to the companies that send the poor to college with a contract that they will work for them once school is over.

Just giving big tax breaks to the rich without asking anything in return is just stupid and not fair to the rest of society.

[Anti-Racism]

Government just doesn't seem to work so good. The war on poverty is not won after 40 years; the war on drugs is a failure after 30; the war on Islam has gone nowhere at five years.

[firefox]

Islam? I thought it was drugged up, poor terrorists that hate America! :P

BTW, isn't it ironic how the "War on Poverty" has been such a self-fulfilling prophesy? We're all getting poorer as a result isn't it great?! :D Oh yes taxing the crap out of everyone is helping sooo much. Even the very poorest people are getting poorer through inflation (a tax remember) and the lack of jobs because employers are taxed in the "normal" way to the point they can't hire extra workers to expand their business.

[Mayberry]

Talk about survival of the fittest. No compassion there.
Survival of the fittest is a good thing. As far as compassion goes, have all you want, just don't ask me to pay for it. With the cost of living being so high today compared to the minimum wage, a normal person can not afford to pay rent, buy food, pay bills and have transportation to and from work. For the umpteenth time, minimum wage is not intended to be a living wage. It is a starting wage. A foot in the door. For those of you who have worked minimum waged jobs you will know that they are definitely not the same as higher paying jobs. I've worked way harder on a $20 an hour job than I ever did at minimum wage. Low paying jobs don't usually require much brain power, or give you any responsibility either.I do not believe that the government should just give people welfare. When my dad left my mom with four kids and no means of support, my mom took a minimum wage job. Your dad should have been paying child support. These days the relationship between minimum wage and the cost of living is a lot different compared to it was when I was a kid. Maybe the government shouldn't be a welfare state, but they can certainly do things to help.
The government has no business supporting anyone with taxpayer money. You're right, we should not have a welfare state. The relationship between minimum wage and the cost of living is a non-issue.1. If the president wants tax cuts to the rich to improve the economy, then he should also penalize the companies that outsourse jobs and reward only the ones that keep the jobs here in this country.
Tax cuts create jobs. I do agree companies that keep jobs here should be rewarded.Just giving big tax breaks to the rich without asking anything in return is just stupid and not fair to the rest of society. I'm not rich, but last time I looked, I've paid significantly less in taxes in the last few years.

[underdawg]

I think that would be a very good experiment. For one month you work 80 hours a week at a minimum wage job and then the next month you work 80 hours a week at the job that pays 20 per hour. But the rules would be that you wouldn't be able to rely on the fruits of your labor from your previous jobs, so you would probably have to take public transportation to and from work. You would have to live in a place that you could afford on minimum wage. And only the food you could afford on minimum wage. At the end of the experiment, tell me honestly which job made you feel more tired, worried, stressed, and depressed.

[Mayberry]

Perhaps you missed the part where I said I have worked minimum wage jobs. Been there, done that. Gained experience, moved up to an $8 an hour job. Then to a $10.50 job. Then a $17.50 job. That job went up to $23.89 after 5 years. Then I quit. 1000 hours a year (at least) overtime and too much stress. Now I'm back to $15 an hour, 40 hours a week and loving it. I also build/ repair boats after work at my leisure for beer money. The point is, I did exactly what I've been saying. Started out on the bottom, worked my way up from there. After 14 years in the workforce, I've got a pretty good life. Nice home, Mama's driving a Tahoe, I have to stop and think about how many boats I have (4 right now). I wouldn't change anything. Those low wage jobs taught me a lot. I am a good mechanic, electrician, I can weld, spray paint, build/ repair boats, fabricate things, I'm a decent carpenter..... the list goes on. And I'm still learning.[attachment=32]

[firefox]

Minimum wages are very bad for three major reasons:

1. It makes all your goods/services more expensive than they usually would be!
2. If you're running a business (as I am), mandatory wages higher than market equilibrium means that I can't afford to hire as many people, leading to #3 below*
3. If you're disabled, unskilled, or of some underprivelaged minority group, you'll have a much harder time finding work. Min wage laws are inherently discriminatory and were actually CREATED for that purpose in order to lock women out of the workforce and keep them in the home (see West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 US 379 [1937]).

*Technically, my asset protection business (http://www.mpassetprotection.com) doesn't rely on wages at all, but rather on commissions (25% for direct sales). If you work hard and smart, you can earn up to $400/wk, and that beats the pants off of min wage, doesn't it? :D