🚀 go-pugleaf

"Jeffrey C. Dege" <jdege@jdege.visi.com> wrote in message
news:slrnc1vvii.1r0.jdege@jdege.visi.com...
> You don't understand - other people have more!

I guess I was raised differently. I don't care what the other guy has. I
don't care if someone else makes more money that I do for the same job, so
long as I felt that I was able to negotiate the best deal that I could.
Instead of being jealous, I'd try to figure out how the other guy did it. I
don't have a problem if someone makes money off me, even if it's more money
than I make (and an employer *must* do this or they don't need me), just so
long as they deliver what I agreed to. I'm smart enough to decide what my
labor is worth, and if the employer isn't willing to offer that, then I go
somewhere else. Sometimes I do very well, sometimes I screw up.

> John Kerry now talks of "the economy of
> privilege."

He should know from personal experience.

As Edwards puts it, invoking the 35 million poor Americans, "You
> and I together have a moral responsibility to lift these families out of
> poverty."

Horseshit. If we have a moral responsibility, it's to give these folks the
opportunity to lift themselves up, if they decide to put forth the effort.

>Unless Democrats offer serious solutions to poverty, however,
> the poor only serve as props for their moral vanity.

First, provide affordable day care, which may involve requiring the
recipients to form a cooperative and watch each other's kids.

Second, make transportation available to school, work and day care. This may
involve mandatory car pooling or use of public transportation.

Third, require training in marketable skills as well as basic bookkeeping
and household economics. This will be unpaid training, but offered free.

Fourth, require whatever tests are needed to determine parentage, and
require the non-custodial parent to either pony up support money or
participate in the program, on pain of seizure of property or jail for
failure to fully participate. Tests should not be required if all parties
agree to parentage, but that agreement will be binding (meaning that if
there is a dispute later, the court will accept the agreement and the burden
and expense of proving otherwise will be up to the disputing parties). If
the parties use resources based on mutually-agreed parentage, they don't get
to deny it later.

Fifth, failure to completely participate means mandatory reduction or
elimination of current welfare, food stamp, or medical benefits. Allowances
must be made for emergencies, but the definition of "emergency" must be
narrow, such as death of a close member of the family or medical item.

> Poverty in America is primarily a cultural phenomenon, driven by a
shattered
> work ethic and sexual irresponsibility. Child poverty would be nearly
> obliterated if every household had one adult working full time and married
> parents.

Heretic! Burn him!

> The problem is not, as liberals argue, low wages. If you are only working
16
> hours a week, you will pretty much be poor unless you're a TV anchor.

In 1985, I was struggling working 18 hours a week and going to school full
time. I finally applied for food stamps. If I had not been working, or if I
had been working at least 20 hours a week, I would have qualified. Somehow I
was simultaneously working too many and too few hours. Of course, now that
they knew I had a job I couldn't just quit it. Also, and they actually
copied the rule page for me, it turns out the only non-exemptions to the
rule were white females with at least two children, asian males with at
least two children, or white males with at least four children. I thought
they were yanking my chain, but it really was in b&w.

>  If a single mother works full time at
> the minimum wage - factoring in such income supplements as the Earned
Income
> Tax Credit and food stamps - she will not be poor.

I don't get food stamps, but we do get WIC. It's a nice help, especially
when my kids were on formula. It doesn't pay for everything, but it makes
the food budget stretch enough that we were able to save enough for me to
take a risk and start my own business, which, if it survives, means we won't
need WIC anymore. Thanks to the Earned Income Credit, we'll get back a
little money. My wife's employer constantly has a problem withholding
enough, so without the EIC we'd have to pay a little bit.

The EIC is, no more or less, a wealth redistribution plan. Although it would
hurt me personally, I think it should be eliminated. Instead, make the
standard deduction equal to whatever the government has decided the poverty
level is. While it is the law, I'll take advantage of it, but I won't fight
to protect it.

> The other cause of child poverty is single parenthood. If single mothers
> married the fathers of their children, according to Rector, three-quarters
> of poor children would be lifted out of poverty.

Better still to marry them before they become the fathers.

> You can argue with the particulars of this program, but if you're not
> talking abut how to increase work and marriage among the poor, well then,
> you're not serious about addressing poverty. You're just some guy with
> pretty hair saying pretty words because you like the way they sound.

Hah! You haven't seen my hair :)