Paraquat wrote on 08/01/12 at 15:36:56:srinath wrote on 08/01/12 at 15:20:02:Obama will give $$$ to the poor. They will likely spend it on neccesities and booze drugs (no definite proof there but I know a few welfare recipients who are drunk all the time).
Welfare is a big hot button for me.
One of my friends lost his job two years ago. They were paying him more than he was taking home (net pay). There was no incentive.
Another friend recently, HA, thinking about it now it's been over a year. He sold his car when he lost his job. He's still unemployed but manages to pay his mortgage in Norwalk (ritzy town here in CT), bought a Mitsubishi Evolution, and just recently bought a boat.
The thing that probably bothers me the most is that you shouldn't be able to buy cigs or beer on your WIC card. And they should be serialized and registered because I've seen people selling them for 75 cents on the dollar.
--Steve
The thing though is, the federal welfare to work programs like clinton did, basically cut down on the federal govt welfare rolls by shoving them onto the states.
The real welfare to work program is something like what Ron Paul suggested.
Cut off all jobs for illegals. Heck roll back the 17th amendment.
Then lets see who picks fruits, plucks chicken and who makes burgers for the $8 they pay illegals. No one. There fore the wages will creep up to what is a living wage. Closer to 15-20. Then all the people on welfare will get to work. In fact cutting off welfare then would make sense.
Rich businessmen dont care for this. None of the candidates ever came close to getting anywhere near this. It is cheaper for the rich to hire illegals, pay them $8/hr and we (the not rich) pay taxes to fund welfare rolls.
The mortgage deal though is not a welfare item, its an expansion of unemployment benefits. I dont know of the rest, however in 2005 when I was unemployed for 10 months, I easily bought and sold a dozen bikes. Most of them averaging 2-400 @ purchase and 1000-1500 @ sale. If you hunt through every backyard and every rat hole some cool nuts bound to turn up. Maybe his boat is that way. Or, I recently bought a piece of land for 4g. Tax value was 24g for that, and through the last 4-5 years these were selling @ a few g over tax value. When stuff dont sell and people have to sell, you can make some killer deals.
Anyway welfare does need to be pared back. However I want to say the illegals have taken up jobs that could go to that rung of society.
Weird, being an immigrant you wont think I'd be so against illegal immigration ... suffice to say I have never been illegal in the US or in Canada the other country I lived in. And for everyone who sneaks across the border claiming "family unification" there is 10 people that legal immigrants like to be unified with.
Yea welfare is a problem, however with illegals taking up 30 million jobs, BTW have you seen any of them pay taxes ? I know for a fact most of the construction, mechanics, flea market vendors, taco truck guys and other day laborers do not.
IMHO, Obama isn't that wrong on welfare, but he's wrong on immigration.
Romney is wrong on welfare and maybe not on Immigration. Of late there are a lot of Hispanic republicans that are getting a lot of attention. I am hoping that it is because he needs as much as he can get and not because he really intends to throw the doors open to illegals.
BTW all the legal mexicans I know dont even socialize with their illegal brethen. I know these 3 guys, brothers, luis, thomas and servero. Well servero got deported, the other 2 still around, and for years I have met these 2 only @ various gatherings @ luis and servero's place. I find out they have a 4th brother, who doesn't even live that far away from servero, who I have never met. And he's the only one with legal papers.
I'll bet if we hand legal status to all the illegals that instant, we will need to bring in 30 million more illegals to do the jobs they were doing.
Cool.
Srinath.