what is wrong with us?????

[Cpt Spaulding]

Our country is in trouble...divided against itself it will fall apart. ...The dual party system, our politicians prostituting themselves to big business, bad parenting, the drug war, welfare ETC...These are what we should be talking about, not about 2 men getting married. I wish the left and right wing agreed with me here, but they don't...The most important thing to them is making the other party look bad...Pointless childish behavior...The republicans and democrats are no different than gang bangers fighting over thier hood..(D.C) I know I am opening myself up to be attacked here....But that only goes to prove my point even more.....

[Smasharoo]

The sky is falling!!!! The sky is falling!!!

[Cpt Spaulding]

Funny....Kinda what I expected too...

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
welfare ETC...

[/ QUOTE ]I wasn't aware that this was a significant problem. Can you please provide evidence of this being a significant problem? Limbaugh won't seem to do it for me.

[Cpt Spaulding]

How is it a problem?? The system is set up to reward irresponsible behavior. I have no problem helping out people that need it...Many people on it don't need it and take advantage of it... I have seen it first hand when I used to hand out food stamps in Portland Oregon...People would drive up in brand new cars, females would have $40 manicures and couldn't sign the form because thier nails were still wet... The more babies a single mother has the more money she gets from the state...I know a guy who gets a government grant for college..one semester before he graduated with a computer programing degree he dropped out and is taking art classes now...He doesn't work doesn't want to..He's getting a free ride because he would rather smoke meth than work. The government facilitates it all... If this isn't enough to make you want to reform the system...I don't know what would....

[Smasharoo]

How is it a problem?? The system is set up to reward irresponsible behavior.


What's that, the state of corperate governance in the US?

You mean where corperations are rewarded with massive government giveaways for failing in the marketplace?

Oh, sorry, I see you were talking about the irresponsibility of people born into pverty. What's wrong with them, anyway? I was responsible enough to be born into moderate wealth, they should have been too.

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
How is it a problem?? The system is set up to reward irresponsible behavior.

[/ QUOTE ]Please provide empirical evidence of this. Your word doesn't count.

Life on welfare isn't comfortable. It's just enough money to eat, and that's about it. This all reeks of Reagan's "Welfare Queen" lie.

Reagan cited a Chicago "Welfare Queen" who had ripped off $150,000 from the government, using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards, and four fictional dead husbands. The country was outraged; Reagan dutifully promised to roll back welfare; and ever since, the "Welfare Queen" driving her "Welfare Cadillac" has become permanently lodged in American political folklore.

Unfortunately, like most great conservative anecdotes, it wasn't really true. The media searched for this welfare cheat in the hopes of interviewing her, and discovered that she didn't even exist.

There is no evidence that welfare cheating is a significant problem and there is no evidence anyone has ever gotten rich off of it.

A much much much more significant and real problem than welfare cheating could ever be is white collar crime- the cost of which is estimated in the billions a year.

For example:

[ QUOTE ]
THE SAVINGS AND LOAN SCANDAL

From 1980 to 1990, the savings and loan (S & L) scandal cost taxpayers over $500 billion, the largest single financial disaster in history. It will take about 40 years to recover from it. It started when the government decided to "deregulate" S & Ls, allowing them to do more than just home loans, allowing them to invest in speculative real estate transactions and high-risk commercial lending. In order to compete with the regular commercial banks, the S & Ls offered low-interest loans to just about anybody, and worse yet, restrictions were relaxed on who could own and operate an S & L. Given this green light, they made irresponsible loans to shady businesspeople and risky real estate developers. Sometimes kickbacks accompanied the loans. As most of the banks headed into bankruptcy, many executives, believing that FDIC would cover their customer's losses, "looted" the remaining funds to throw lavish Christmas parties, redecorate their homes, refurbish their offices, purchase airplane fleets, etc. The land bought by the banks was continuously "flipped", or regularly remortgaged, to drive up the assessed valuation, then sold in "reciprocal lending" to another S & L in an illegal industry profit-sharing scheme. The S & Ls also made loans to one another ("linked financing") that were never intended to be paid off.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Cpt Spaulding]

Hey I dont have a problem helping out the less fortunate. It is the system that is bad...Not the people who need it... I know I said that too...

[GWB]

[ QUOTE ]
Our country is in trouble...divided against itself it will fall apart.

[/ QUOTE ]

For the first time in 16 years we have a clear choice, with a majority of all voters selecting a President, and a turnout to prove that it was a decision of all the people.

After 4 years of a US Senate run by a 50 or 51 seat bare majority, we now have a clear majority of 55.

The people have spoken, we are not "divided", we are "decided".

[Cpt Spaulding]

You are right...There was a majority vote...That doesn't mean the 56 million that voted against bush are happy, not one bit..In fact they are terrible losers and there have been riots and one guy killed himself at ground zero over it...We are divided just one side has a few million more than the other...