[speechlesstx]

Hello again, Steve:

Yes, I do. Jobs would do that, but you guy's are BLOCKING Obama's jobs bill. I dunno how you don't know this, but working brings people out of poverty.

]The way to bring people out of dependancy is NOT to cut 'em loose and make 'em fend for themselves... That would by YOUR solution... You believe they're NOT hungry - they're MOOCHERS. You believe they're NOT homeless - they're MOOCHERS. Romney let us in on the secret.

Kristoff gave us a starting point to talk, but you just want to keep perpetuating tired old canards. I tried.

[paraclete]

It's not an old canard, Romney a recent candidate said it, of course he is now irrelevant, 47% are irrelevant to Republicans, that's the other 47%

[speechlesstx]

it's not an old canard, Romney a recent candidate said it, of course he is now irrelevant, 47% are irrelevant to Republicans, that's the other 47%

Um, this is the canard:

The way to bring people out of dependency is NOT to cut 'em loose and make 'em fend for themselves... That would by YOUR solution... You believe they're NOT hungry - they're MOOCHERS. You believe they're NOT homeless - they're MOOCHERS.

My name is not Romney and that's not what most of us believe.The discussion was about Kristof acknowledging something we've been saying for years. Are liberals willing to reach a solution together or do they just want to continue with myths, class warfare and perpetuating the problem?

[paraclete]

The problem is you can't let people starve just because they are disadvantaged. They may carry some of the blame for their condition and they may not. They are not moochers because they need help. I don't believe a person is homeless by choice even though their actions may have led them to that point. A homeless person is often someone who has a form of mental illness, in the same way the disadvantaged don't cope for a number of reasons but they are not moochers. Look we all know someone who can't get their shlt together, most families have them, mine has one and I know another. We want these people to be different, to get a job, to live differently, but sometimes you do have to cut them loose

[Wondergirl]

All the homeless who hung out at the public libraries where I worked were mentally ill and were not medicated. The root of this is back in US history when the mental institutions were emptied and patients were deinstitutionalized. There weren't enough controls to "force" footloose and fancy-free mental patients to take their meds. My uncle would have ended up homeless, but my family (mostly me) rode herd on him and got him back into a VA hospital every few years when he stopped taking his meds and then started sliding back downhill mentally. Not everyone has dedicated and loving family members and/or the resources to seek hospitalization.

[paraclete]

not everyone needs hospitalisation but they do need to be part of a family, we as a society and I speak of societies in many places have lost our values and we are interested only in what is good for us personally. We saw the worst of that with Romney's comment, he clearly had no interest in connecting with those who couldn't or wouldn't get him elected

[talaniman]

Profiting From a Child?s Illiteracy - NYTimes.com

So everybody thinks like apalachian hillbilly's? So because one backward family was scamming the system then the system doesn't work so throw it out? That's always the flaw in right wing thinking. Find one example and blame everybody. But the author also goes on to cite,

There's a danger in drawing too firm conclusions about an issue — fighting poverty — that is as complex as human beings themselves. I'm no expert on domestic poverty. But for me, a tentative lesson from the field is that while we need safety nets, the focus should be instead on creating opportunity — and, still more difficult, on creating an environment that leads people to seize opportunities.

At leasts he seems to acknowledge that some can be helped so help them, and some need a lot more help, so try to help them too. But you righties don't acknowledge at all the long term lack of opportunity, or the right help. But you are quick to point out it's a waste of time and money.

[speechlesstx]

the problem is you can't let people starve just because they are disadvantaged. they may carry some of the blame for their condition and they may not. They are not moochers because they need help. I don't believe a person is homeless by choice even though their actions may have led them to that point. a homeless person is often someone who has a form of mental illness, in the same way the disadvantaged don't cope for a number of reasons but they are not moochers. look we all know someone who can't get their shlt together, most families have them, mine has one and I know another. We want these people to be different, to get a job, to live differently, but sometimes you do have to cut them loose

And you are also somehow under the impression I want to let the moochers starve? That's the same canard as ex. Seriously dude, I'm talking about people gaming the system and policies that perpetuate the problem. You give people incentives not to work and too many won't. You give them incentives to be a single parent on welfare and what do you expect?

[speechlesstx]

Profiting From a Child?s Illiteracy - NYTimes.com

So everybody thinks like apalachian hillbilly's? So because one backward family was scamming the sytem then the system doesn't work so throw it out? Thats always the flaw in right wing thinking. Find one example and blame everybody.

Funny how you have libs have this inexplicable need to turn an example we present into us blaming everyone. No wonder we can't work together for solutions. Read the article, Tal, he gave more than just that example.

[talaniman]

This small window of facts pales in the face that most poor people work. It's a small example against a bigger picture. You don't talk solutions just symptoms of a bigger problem that needs to be addressed and hillybilly's don't bankrupt America.

[speechlesstx]

This small window of facts pales in the face that most poor people work. It's a small example against a bigger picture. You don't talk solutions just symptoms of a bigger problem that needs to be addressed and hillybilly's don't bankrupt America.

Tal, you think only Appalachian hill folk are the only ones gaming the system this way? Bwa ha ha ha!! DUDE, you're missing the bigger picture here not me.

Example 1 of the bigger picture:

Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I. a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.

Example 2: of the bigger picture:

Most wrenching of all are the parents who think it’s best if a child stays illiterate, because then the family may be able to claim a disability check each month.

Example 3 of the bigger picture:

About four decades ago, most of the children S.S.I. covered had severe physical handicaps or mental retardation that made it difficult for parents to hold jobs — about 1 percent of all poor children. But now 55 percent of the disabilities it covers are fuzzier intellectual disabilities short of mental retardation, where the diagnosis is less clear-cut. More than 1.2 million children across America — a full 8 percent of all low-income children — are now enrolled in S.S.I. as disabled, at an annual cost of more than $9 billion.

That is a burden on taxpayers, of course, but it can be even worse for children whose families have a huge stake in their failing in school. Those kids may never recover: a 2009 study found that nearly two-thirds of these children make the transition at age 18 into S.S.I. for the adult disabled. They may never hold a job in their entire lives and are condemned to a life of poverty on the dole — and that’s the outcome of a program intended to fight poverty.

Example 4 of the bigger picture:

Our political system has created a particularly robust safety net for the elderly, focused on Social Security and Medicare — because the elderly vote. This safety net has brought down the poverty rate among the elderly from about 35 percent in 1959 to under 9 percent today.

BECAUSE kids don’t have a political voice, they have been neglected — and have replaced the elderly as the most impoverished age group in our country. Today, 22 percent of children live below the poverty line.

Of American families living in poverty today, 8 out of 10 have air-conditioning, and a majority have a washing machine and dryer. Nearly all have microwave ovens. What they don’t have is hope. You see it here in the town of Jackson, in the teenage girls hanging out by the bridge over the north fork of the Kentucky River, seeking to trade their bodies for prescription painkillers or methamphetamines.

Personally I don't give a rat's a$$ how many people game the system, one is too many and your solution is to make excuses. We need to stop using our children as pawns in this game and change the culture so they have that hope and can succeed and break the cycle of government dependence.

[NeedKarma]

So what program is the solution to this issue?

[talaniman]

And your solution is to eliminate all the programs? To make people get married? Can't you see that the dependence you speak of and cite is the lack of hope, guidance, support, and it's the lack of money that drives most of today's problems. NOT well intentioned programs that could stand to be more efficient.

[speechlesstx]

And your solution is to eliminate all the programs? To make people get married? Can't you see that the dependence you speak of and cite is the lack of hope, guidance, support, and it's the lack of money that drives most of today's problems. NOT well intentioned programs that could stand to be more efficient.

Good grief Tal, could you drop this worn out straw man that we want end all programs and just cut everyone off? I am not believing I referenced a well-known liberal as a starting point to talk and you and ex just can't keep your knees from jerking.

My solution is the same as Kristof's and what another liberal columnist Leonard Pitts used to say, do "what works." Kristof used what Save the Children does as an example:

Save the Children trains community members to make home visits to at-risk moms like Ms. Hurley, and help nurture the skills they need in the world’s toughest job: parenting. These visits begin in pregnancy and continue until the child is 3 years old.

It's not a matter of efficiency, it's an attitude problem and a system that ENCOURAGES government dependence. There is no hope when parents intentionally use their children as pawns for a government handout. I was willing to talk about it, but you're hellbent on making excuses, promoting that victimhood mentality and spreading myths.

[Wondergirl]

It's not a matter of efficiency, it's an attitude problem and a system that ENCOURAGES government dependence.

Then let's stop the young teen girls (or even younger ones) from getting pregnant and ending up as single moms on some government program.

[NeedKarma]

My solution is the same as Kristof's and what another liberal columnist Leonard Pitts used to say, do "what works."

Well that's really no solution, just pithy words.

Remember those dependent people are a mix of conservatives and liberals so it really isn't on political issue on their side. Perhaps the issue resides in why people's attitudes towards parenting has gone downhill so much. I for one do not believe it's the world's toughest job at all when you 're committed to it.

[talaniman]

What part of love, support, and guidance do you have a problem with? If cheating and stealing is the only way to feed yourself, or family, that's what you will do, if you don't know better.

Its like when YOU said Obama was eliminating work requirements for public assistance and it was actually the states request to allow for more flexible help before the requirements could be implemented.

Now you say its government that encourages this desperate behavior by some that leads to dependence. I say it doesn't. If there is no intervention in this way of thinking, it will not change. Charity can only do so much as they are limited, and government is the option of last resort, but if you make it the problem then you destroy the ONLY option for some.

[tomder55]

Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct. The whole, or almost the whole public revenue, is in most countries employed in maintaining unproductive hands…Such people, as they themselves produce nothing, are all maintained by the produce of other men's labour. When multiplied, therefore, to an unnecessary number, they may in a particular year consume so great a share of this produce, as not to leave a sufficiency for maintaining the productive labourers, who should reproduce it next year… Those unproductive hands, who should be maintained by a part only of the spare revenue of the people, may consume so great a share of their whole revenue, and thereby oblige so great a number to encroach upon their capitals, upon the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour, that all the frugality and good conduct of individuals may not be able to compensate the waste and degradation of produce occasioned by this violent and forced encroachment.

Adam Smith 'The Wealth of Nations, Book II, Chapter III, para 30 '

[speechlesstx]

What part of love, support, and guidance do you have a problem with? If cheating and stealing is the only way to feed yourself, or family, thats what you will do, if you don't know better.

Its like when YOU said Obama was eliminating work requirements for public assistance and it was actually the states request to allow for more flexible help before the requirements could be implemented.

Now you say its government that encourages this desperate behavior by some that leads to dependence. I say it doesn't. If there is no intervention in this way of thinking, it will not change. Charity can only do so much as they are limited, and government is the option of last resort, but if you make it the problem then you destroy the ONLY option for some.

Blah, blah, blah. You are a broken record.

[NeedKarma]

Adam Smith 'The Wealth of Nations, Book II, Chapter III, para 30

The problem has been pointed out and defined ad nauseum but possible solutions aren't very forthcoming.