State of the Union 2014

[GoIrish41]

To G141’s point… I’m all for having to earn your county checks somehow. My wife has a good friend who has one of her friends tag along sometimes. This friend of a friend is 35, three kids from three different guys and has never once held a job. Never once. She advertises it for crying out loud. One night my wife’s friends were over, I checked the mail and surprise, me fifth jury summons in as many years. I voiced my frustration and this chick stated that she has never once had jury duty and didn’t even know what it was. It hit me…. If you collect a check off of tax dollars you should be 1A on the selection list for things like this.

Anyway. End rant now before I really get going.

What kind of sorted company is your wife keeping? ... Oh, never mind, she married you so I guess I should have expected as much.

 

[Cackalacky]

To G141’s point… I’m all for having to earn your county checks somehow. My wife has a good friend who has one of her friends tag along sometimes. This friend of a friend is 35, three kids from three different guys and has never once held a job. Never once. She advertises it for crying out loud. One night my wife’s friends were over, I checked the mail and surprise, me fifth jury summons in as many years. I voiced my frustration and this chick stated that she has never once had jury duty and didn’t even know what it was. It hit me…. If you collect a check off of tax dollars you should be 1A on the selection list for things like this.

Anyway. End rant now before I really get going.

I don't think i would want that chick deciding anything in a court of law for or against me lol.

She should be 1A in the roadside trash picking up team.

 

[Catholics_Rule]

Last year they had 2 responses. This year I think it is Darth Vader and Monty Burns.

LMAO!

 

[ACamp1900]

What kind of sorted company is your wife keeping? ... Oh, never mind, she married you so I guess I should have expected as much.

Ha, nicely played... Honestly though, in my neck of the woods, if you have more than two friends, it's hard not to have a two to three degrees of seperation to at least a few complete wastes of air/trianwrecks... sad, but the truth.

btw, this chick has tagged along with my wife's friend a couple times... so far as I can tell she spots the drinks, and she has very expensive tastes... never held a job.

(acamp kicks a puppy)

 

[ACamp1900]

I don't think i would want that chick deciding anything in a court of law for or against me lol.

She should be 1A in the roadside trash picking up team.

If it's your life that hangs in the balance... you'd rather want her than me...

 

[GoIrish41]

Ha, nicely played... Honestly though, in my neck of the woods, if you have more than two friends, it's hard not to have a two to three degrees of seperation to at least a few complete wastes of air/trianwrecks... sad, but the truth.

Sadly, that is probably pretty true no matter where you live.

 

[ulukinatme]

It is a shame that anyone would look at children as a tax break. What does that say about where we are as a nation. It is really disheartening to hear. I love my daughter to death and will do the same with my son that will be here in roughly a month. My wife and I didn't have children to get something more from the government.

I agree. Makes me sad when I see what my sister-in-law is doing and what her husband isn't doing. She's got her tubes tied now, which is a good thing, because if he had his way she'd continue popping out babies.

Bottom line, there should not be an incentive to have kids if you can not afford them. The fact that people have the ability to bear children does not give them the right to be a burden on society. Children are a gift, and a responsibility. So tired of the lack of personal accountability.

Amen.

On the welfare state discussion:

To me it's the fraud... that aspect is completely and inexcusably out of control. If the gov. can’t implement a program without allowing wide spread fraud/theft of American tax dollars, then the program should clearly not be implemented in its current form. Example: working for a major grocery chain for five or so years I’d say nearly a quarter of our customers were openly defrauding the system (Swiping three, four, even five different EBT cards from multiple states for one bulk order would be a very obvious example) yet the stores demanded no one turn them in, because ‘it’s all our money now’, also quite typical, it’s those families that drive the nicest cars and have the nicest clothes.

You should enjoy this one. Aside from getting a ridiculous amount of money for food from the government, my sister-in-law has been known to take friends grocery shopping with her EBT. She'll pick up the bill, the friend pays her in cash something like 80% of what her total bill would have cost, and then the sister-in-law spends that money on smokes and alcohol. Typically she can pull this off because she'll stock the freezer ahead of time and eat out of that...but her husband has also been known to throw out hundreds of dollars in food because he feels it's all "junk" that they shouldn't be eating. Talk about a waste, and all that food was paid for by you and me! When that happens she goes begging to her mother for food. They've also been known to return gifts, typically clothes for their children, for extra cigarette/beer cash.

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

Ha, nicely played... Honestly though, in my neck of the woods, if you have more than two friends, it's hard not to have a two to three degrees of seperation to at least a few complete wastes of air/trianwrecks... sad, but the truth.

True.

What I still can't understand is how that small number of people are fucking up the U.S. Seriously, can't put my head around it.

And I'm pretty confident I've been around the areas that have seriously fucked up people from arch criminals to bums who gave up on life...

 

[Catholics_Rule]

Will read the cliff notes tomorrow.... yawn... so tired of the dems, and growing tired of the pubs.

#less government
#less special interests
#fair/flat tax
#don't trust either
#retiring somewhere other than the US

You and I are ALOT alike.

 

[Catholics_Rule]

Will read the cliff notes tomorrow.... yawn... so tired of the dems, and growing tired of the pubs.

#less government
#less special interests
#fair/flat tax
#don't trust either
#retiring somewhere other than the US

You and I are ALOT alike.

@joeldelorge

 

[ulukinatme]

You and I are ALOT alike.

Dshans, do you approve?

Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at Everything

 

[Catholics_Rule]

Dshans, do you approve?

Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at Everything

Lol

 

[T Town Tommy]

And now the same government that can't control welfare abuse is leading the way with our healthcare. Can't wait to read all the abuses that come from that. Grandma doesn't get that surgery while single mom with 8 kids gets a boob job somehow. It's coming.

 

[Cackalacky]

If it's your life that hangs in the balance... you'd rather want her than me...

Well...blimey... I work....I take care of my kids....

 

[ACamp1900]

Well...blimey... I work....I take care of my kids....

What about people like Bob, who are clearly bat shit crazy liberal, but insist they are independent??

 

[ACamp1900]

Someone go through this thing and rep T Town for me... I mean, if he rooted for, say, Auburn or something like that... I might actually like him.

 

[Cackalacky]

What about people like Bob, who are clearly bat shit crazy liberal, but insist they are independent??

 

[Cackalacky]

Someone go through this thing and rep T Town for me... I mean, if he rooted for, say, Auburn or something like that... I might actually like him.

My reps are mine and not for you to use. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and give him your own reps...hippie.

 

[RDU Irish]

food stamp data - almost 10% increase in recipients since 2011. SNAP Monthly Data


Medicaid - 2010 data - 63 million people on it? That is under age 65 (they would be on Medicare folks) on free government healthcare run by the states. Total Medicaid Enrollment, FY2010 | The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation


Now census bureau has 268 million under age 65 - one in four people on Medicaid. Add in the 40 million old fogeys on Medicare and you have 1 person on government healthcare for every 2.85 off of it in 2010.
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf

 

[Irish YJ]

My wife is a school teacher and one of the big issues she and public schools are dealing with are mothers having 3-6 children and the mother putting the children up in the foster care system. Well guess what? Those children are being raised by the grandmother and are getting cut a check $800-$1000 a kid a month.

There are a million scams. I know people that used to work for dfcs and other government orgs. Sad on one extent, mad on another.

 

[Guest]

What polling are you looking at?

I think everyone wants lower taxes. But if you ask in a poll do you want cuts to Medicare, SS, etc, or close tax loopholes for the privliedge Americans want to close tax loopholes.

I think everyone would say they want less government regulation. If you ask though if companies can dump toxic chemicals in the local lake or river I think most Americans would disaprove of that.

Gallup - Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents
Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents

Actually I was wrong, the trend has been happening over a couple of years. I have seen another poll from another source saying the same thing, but cannot find the link again.

From the article:

Implications

Americans are increasingly declaring independence from the political parties. It is not uncommon for the percentage of independents to rise in a non-election year, as 2013 was. Still, the general trend in recent years, including the 2012 election year, has been toward greater percentages of Americans identifying with neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party, although most still admit to leaning toward one of the parties.

The rise in political independence is likely an outgrowth of Americans' record or near-record negative views of the two major U.S. parties, of Congress, and their low level of trust in government more generally.

The increased independence adds a greater level of unpredictability to this year's congressional midterm elections. Because U.S. voters are less anchored to the parties than ever before, it's not clear what kind of appeals may be most effective to winning votes. But with Americans increasingly eschewing party labels for themselves, candidates who are less closely aligned to their party or its prevailing doctrine may benefit.

 

[RDU Irish]

As for the SOTU - Our president is now an insurance salesman. Not to insult insurance salesmen but I really think that freaking Aflac duck has more credibility than Obama up there begging everyone to apply for insurance. If this isn't a new low for the SOTU address, even the office of the president, I would like to know what is. You could tell from his smirk he didn't buy half the bull he was pushing too.

MyRA? c'mon man. I know you are desperate for SOMEONE to buy government bonds for our $17 trillion and growing debt, but to pick on poor folks offering half a percent returns as a good deal to help them get ahead?

I still don't understand why the MyRA isn't just a direct savings account with the treasury. I can appreciate wanting to fool the electorate into subsidizing government debt but the way to do it is go after the $10 Trillion in bank deposits. Offer decent liquidity and a similar return to bank savings accounts and watch the suckers take all that paper off of Yellen's hands (and China, and Japan and Social Security and Medicare - you know all the previous buyers that are now sellers, or at least not renewing when the paper matures).

And then you have the fact you can open an IRA with most mutual fund companies for maybe $100 - $250 upfront with a $25/month commitment. Consider $25/month for 40 years at current government short bond rates of 1% would add up to $14,750 while a 6% average return in a fairly conservative balanced fund would add up to $49,790. So Obama can't even put this plan together in a way that actually solves anything. Poor people hurt themselves by refusing to take any risk (when they really can't afford NOT to take risk) and the government doesn't raise enough funds to do make a dent in the borrowing needs, stuck managing a bunch of small accounts... smh

 

[RDU Irish]

Gallup - Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents
Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents

Actually I was wrong, the trend has been happening over a couple of years. I have seen another poll from another source saying the same thing, but cannot find the link again.

From the article:

Implications

Americans are increasingly declaring independence from the political parties. It is not uncommon for the percentage of independents to rise in a non-election year, as 2013 was. Still, the general trend in recent years, including the 2012 election year, has been toward greater percentages of Americans identifying with neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party, although most still admit to leaning toward one of the parties.

The rise in political independence is likely an outgrowth of Americans' record or near-record negative views of the two major U.S. parties, of Congress, and their low level of trust in government more generally.

The increased independence adds a greater level of unpredictability to this year's congressional midterm elections. Because U.S. voters are less anchored to the parties than ever before, it's not clear what kind of appeals may be most effective to winning votes. But with Americans increasingly eschewing party labels for themselves, candidates who are less closely aligned to their party or its prevailing doctrine may benefit.

Which is why I think we are way over due for a viable third party candidate to make a run. If Ross Perot or Steve Forbes ran today like they did back when, how would they fare? I would personally love it if Rand Paul said, "F the Republican primaries, I'm running for President on my own" - I know that won't happen since he has been playing the party game so long.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

I just don't think people should continue to to attack welfare when there are company's making millions if not billions of dollars that are receiving more money then the guy who can't feed his family

From each according to his ability to each according to his needs?

 

[Catholics_Rule]

Which is why I think we are way over due for a viable third party candidate to make a run. If Ross Perot or Steve Forbes ran today like they did back when, how would they fare? I would personally love it if Rand Paul said, "F the Republican primaries, I'm running for President on my own" - I know that won't happen since he has been playing the party game so long.

Steve Forbes all the way. I agree, The two political parties are useless today.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

.

ongoing wars: We will have troops in Iraq for years to come, and just sent thousands more to Afghanistan a few years ago. When are they all coming home? I didn't know a date was set. Nonetheless, I haven't seen any anti-war groups or liberals call Obama a war mongerer when he sent thousands more into Afghanistan. But Bush was Hitler.

immigration reform: Republicans want a secure border AND illegal immigration in that order. Dems want it the other way around. If it were THAT important to Dems, they should've done it in 2009 or 2010, could have, and would have had ZERO pushback. Please...

social programs: more people in poverty than ever before and programs getting more broke by the day. Nice work.

Wal Mart: Easy. If you feel victimized at Wal Mart, don't friggin work there. You nor anyone else has the right to tell Wal Mart what to pay people.

universal health care: Sorry, pal. Like education, this doesn't need more time or money. This is a failure. It only works if the young people sign up, and they're not, and it isn't close.

gay marriage: many conservatives support civil unions but refuse to redefine marriage and what it is. again, state issue. feds should stay out of it.

unemployment benefits: if this "recovery" is as strong as Dems say,this wouldn't even be a topic. Enough said.

Stimulus: $897 billion joke. Reagan inherited an economic mess and a stimulus didn't bring us out of it. Again, smaller gov, lower taxes, less regulation brought economic growth and we did so well. Why can't Obama and his advisers learn from the 1980's???

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Found some great quotes from the president's speech the other night:

Let us resolve that we will stop spreading dependency and start spreading opportunity; that we will stop spreading bondage and start spreading freedom.

Tonight America is stronger because of the values that we hold dear. We believe faith and freedom must be our guiding stars, for they show us truth, they make us brave, give us hope, and leave us wiser than we were.

Tonight we can take pride in 25 straight months of economic growth, the strongest in 34 years; a 3-year inflation average of 3.9 percent, the lowest in 17 years; and 7.3 million new jobs in 2 years, with more of our citizens working than ever before.

Just kidding. These were from Reagan's 1985 SOTU.

 

[chicago51]

Working families had a net tax increase under Reagan, look it up. Not saying it was a bad thing as it did save Social Security. Throughout Reagan's tenure taxes were cut both and raised multiple times. Reagan didn't just cut taxes.

I do admire that Reagan didn't give preferential treatment to high income capital gain earners and that he wasn't a pawn for the gun lobby.

Reagan inherited good unemployment numbers but unemployment hit 10.3 percent during Reagans third year. Now the economy did bounce back to a low to just under 6 percent when he left office.

I do think it is important to keep in mind that in the 80s we didn't have NAFTA, CAFTA, GAT, and the all of today's technological advances that increased productivity. All of which have killed American jobs. Made things cost less but killed jobs. I also never understood with NAFTA why we can't buy our prescription drugs from Canada, makes no sense to me. It is supposed to be free trade right? It has nothing to do with the rest of this post but I never understood that.

 

[Goldedommer44]

So Polish lowering taxes would help the unemployed how?

 

[connor_in]