For Stacy Smith - Government Spending still climbs

by Phantom Stranger 13 Replies latest social current

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  SanFranciscoJim

  But spending has risen on domestic programs such as transportation and agriculture, as well. Total federal spending -- including non-discretionary entitlement programs such as Social Security Medicare and Medicaid -- reached $2.16 trillion in 2003, a 7.3 percent boost, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

  Seems to me, he hasn't simply forgotten about social programs either. Maybe if you read an entire article you post, you would see that.

  How easily one can convince themselves that they are right and we are wrong! Yes, Medicare and Medicaid spending are up. There was no choice, considering the astronomical increases in medical care and pharmaceuticals. How much of this is actually reaching the elderly, disabled, and needy, though? Most of it is being used to fatten the pockets of the megacorporate medical conglomerates. For example, if this money were going where needed, why are so many of our elderly and disabled having their prescriptions filled in Canada?

  I don't see long lines of soup kitchens. Everytime I go grocery shopping, food stamps are brought out by someone, so they're getting them from somewhere. I can't get them, though, I work for a living.

  When was the last time you were at a soup kitchen? Believe me, I've seen many, and the lines are just as long as ever, if not longer. In San Francisco, for example, you cannot walk a single city block in most of the downtown area without someone approaching you begging for spare change. Astronomical housing costs out there have thrown many people out into the streets. Here in Pennsylvania, unemployment and layoffs have devastated the economy. The city I live in has only one homeless shelter, and it is filled to capacity. Families are living in condemned, boarded-up, rat-infested tenements, or their cars. They catch and eat wild pigeons to sustain them when the food stamps run out.

  As far as you working, well good for you. It's nice to know that you are not draining this country's welfare resources by leeching off the public and not working when you can. But.....what about those who are unable to work? The sick? The disabled? Those who were laid off and cannot find other work? Those who have been out of work for so long that they have simply stopped looking? I would never, ever brag about having a job, in this economy or any. It is being judgemental towards those who are victims of circumstance. If I were to develop an attitude like that, I might just start advocating the reestablishment of debtors prisons and asylums.

  You talk about statistics. As far as I am concerned, to heck with statistics. They can be manipulated by the right wing or the left wing for their own agendas. I see the realities of life all around me, and I see a lot of people suffering far worse than they did just a few years ago.
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  DakotaRed

  SF, I have always managed to support myself, even in tight and unemployed times. Yes, I've drawn unemployment for a short time, but always made it as short as possible. In fact, I haven't drawn it in well over 20 years now. At the time, my area was the 3rd largest unemployment in the nation.

  I don't have my job by pure luck, I have it because I sought it and do it to the best of my ability. People cry about unemployment, but can still justify illegal aliens doing the menial work? Have we become so over-impressed with ourselves that we can't get our hands dirty? Or, is welfare just easier for some?

  Do I believe Washington needs to decrease spending? Yes. Even with the war on, there is much bloat in government that could be eleminated. We could start with pork barrel spending by many democrats and republicans too. Want to bet, though, that if they ever did, some advocacy group will be crying they are being starved?

  Democrats seem to want it both ways. Blast Bush if he decreases spending and blast him if he increases it.
• 

  SixofNine

  And if he steps up and acts, he is just a power grabbing warmonger.

  LOL Dakota *shakes head*. Hey, how about kicking it up a notch when discussing things that could affect your grandchildrens life?
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  SanFranciscoJim

  People cry about unemployment, but can still justify illegal aliens doing the menial work? Have we become so over-impressed with ourselves that we can't get our hands dirty? Or, is welfare just easier for some?

  As a former intake counselor for the Department of Welfare (10 years ago), I believe I am reasonably qualified to answer that question. This country has gotten caught up in its own image of "the American dream". We are told that in order to be a success, we need to get a college degree and jump in head-first into the white-collar job market, choosing a career that is supposed to last us a lifetime. We have been told that menial labor is primarily for unskilled immigrants, legal or illegal. They're probably right. Here's why:

  I have a friend here is Pennsylvania who lost his job as a computer operator more than a year ago. He has looked without success for a job in his field for over a year now, but has not had success. Last month, his unemployment ran out. In desperation, he began looking for a job - any job - that would give him enough money to pay for rent and give him medical coverage. He applied for secretarial positions, and even applied to flip burgers at McDonald's. In each of these instances, he was turned away because he was told that his previous experience made him "overqualified". They were afraid that if a job came along in his field of expertise, he would quit his job and leave. In the mean time, he lost his apartment, and is now living in the homeless shelter here. He now receives welfare. He suffers from diabetes, and this was the only way he could get medical coverage.

  This country has made it too easy for people to collect welfare, and made it too difficult for people to get out of the system. Along with welfare come a plethora of other benefits such as subsidized housing and free medical coverage. If a person got a minimum wage job, they would be worse off than if they remained on the welfare rolls. Our welfare system needs to be revamped to encourage people to reenter the job market. The private sector needs to rethink its policies about "overqualification", especially with so many white collar layoffs.

  Our government is over-spending its welfare money on fattening the pockets of the medical supercorporations. Medicare fraud is rampant. Here in Pennsylvania, the governor has imposed a hiring freeze on new welfare counselors. I'd gladly re-enter that job market, but there is no funding available for new welfare workers. The caseworkers are overloaded with new clients and not able to give them proper guidance, thus keeping the welfare recipients trapped in their cycle of poverty.

  Who is responsible for this spiraling trend? I believe the fault lies equally with the Republicans and the Democrats. The Democrats have been too liberal in offering welfare benefits to the public. This spreads federal and state resources too thin, thus making it more difficult for those who really need it to be able to take advantage of the system for whom it was originally intended. This includes the sick, the elderly, and the handicapped. On the other hand, the Republicans are feeding too much money into the welfare system without putting caps on how the money is spent. Instead of providing direct benefits to those in need, most of the money funneled into the system is actually laundered through the system and ends up in the hands of giant medical corporations. This is despicable.

  Our country needs to take a hard look at how we have painted ourselves into a corner. We have given blue collar labor a stigma. This opened the door for an unprecedented influx of labor-ready immigrants to take the jobs that most Americans consider stigmatized. In the mean time, high-tech and white collar layoffs continue to rise, because our country has taken virtually no action to keep those jobs in this country. Manufacturers, high tech corporations, and others are moving their operations en masse to countries such as Mexico, Malaysia, and India where skilled workers can do the same job at a fraction of the price. This country has done nothing to impose strict import tarriffs on these goods to discourage this.

  Do I believe Washington needs to decrease spending? Yes. Even with the war on, there is much bloat in government that could be eleminated. We could start with pork barrel spending by many democrats and republicans too. Want to bet, though, that if they ever did, some advocacy group will be crying they are being starved?

  I couldn't agree more. The problem here is that our country allows lobbyists to chase our members of congress like the paparazzi chase celebrities. The only difference here is that instead of stalking their victims, lobbyists are allowed to wine and dine them. If our politicians, Republican and Democrat, would start to realize that this is a legalized form of bribery, and discontinue the practice out of conscience for their constituents, then and only then might we see some improvement.

  I'm glad to see that, even we don't see eye to eye on all the issues, we can find some common ground. Not all "left-wingers" are so radical in their political stance that they won't take time to listen to the other guy's side of the story. I just wish it didn't take an incident like 9/11 to unify this country, the right and the left, into acting like the United States. I'm saddened that our politicians forgot so quickly, and have resumed the finger-pointing and accusations, instead of addressing our nation's continuously deteriorating problems.