EddieW - I was out of place about the spelling. I've made many errors and would make many more if not for the spell checker.
My point with the level of corporate welfare (good handouts and bad handouts) is that many people complain only about the welfare for the poor while seeming to give other handouts a free pass. I feel that with welfare for the poor there are also deserving and very needy folks. (mentally or physically can't make it without help) Nobody is for handouts to the able bodied who are just lazy.
In the big picture welfare is a minor peice of our economic problems. Two very costly wars that we not only did not tax extra for but taxes were cut. This did not happen with previous wars. (1.2 trillion is significant.)
It is a fact that we are at historic lows for income tax levels. I don't feel its working this way. I'm also for a "fair tax" but what someone came up with and labeled the "fair tax" isn't clearly fair to me.
Loren
I want to be fair, so please let me know where I'm wrong here. My understanding of corporate welfare is that it's a tax break givin to corporations. Where I live, the county or city will tell a company that if they move their business here, they will let them oporate for so many years without paying certain taxes, or reducing their tax burdon for a period of time.
On a bigger scale, the Federal Government does the same thing. Some of their tax breaks are on research, others are on new hires, or expanding their operations. Each company is different, but the goal is to encourage the business to grow and hire more people and of course, pay more in taxes down the line. Or, to stay in the country and continue to due business here.
I hear some people complain about the corporate welfare that big oil gets, but they never mention that the oil companies pay a MASSIVE tax to the governement. Off the top of my head, I think it's something like 30 cents a gallon goes to the federal governement and their net profit is around 3 cents a gallon.
Welfare to the poor is something that I support, but it has to be responsible. Sadly, it has become a political tool. The history of it is that it doesn't work over the long term. The more money that is spent on the poor, the more dependent the become on that money and the less likely they are to advance their standing or personal wealth. This is exactly what that metaphore about the college professor was about!!!!!
Clinton did a lot for welfare reform, but not nearly enough. Bush didn't do too much that I'm aware of either way. I think he increased the spending quite a bit, but nothing to fix any of the issues. Corruption, waste and abuse it rampant.
I think there has to be an incentive to get people off of welfare. If you are physicaly and mentally capable of working, they you get it for a short period of time and then it starts to decrease. I think that it's three years now that a person can collect. Who is going to look for a job for the first 2 and a half years?
On top of that, agencies that promote it, also make money off of keeping it going. ACORN is probably the biggest, and they receive tax payer money to help the poor, but without any hing of success.
Show me where welfare for the poor works, and I'll suport it. But I'm still going to be for getting rid of the rest of it.
As for jobs, there is always a job for somebody who wants to work. It might not be what you want to do, and it might not pay what you want to earn, or think you are worth, and it might not be where you want to live, but if you had to survive on what you earned, you would do what it takes. Sadly, with welfare, it has to opposite effect.
I can't argue with you where we are in tax levels. That gets confusing because of how the doller if valued over time, and what the actual revenues are compared to how they project everything and then adjust it months after the fact.
I believe that with the amount that comes in today, there is plenty of money to run the government, keep our military sounds, and pay off the debt. What there isn't enough of is the growing size of government and the growing dependency for handouts.
Social Security could be fixed and so can Medicare. Both are said to be the big problems, but the problem isn't in the lack of funds, it's in the waste that's done with those funds, and the regulations put on them by government. Start addressing each issue and then moving on to the next. Illegal immigrants are a huge expense on medicare. Emergancy room visits also cost a fortune when it's not a serious situation.
Instead of fixing anything, they just create more problems and add to it. Obamacare does not address a single issue that was wrong with our medical system, and instead, it makes it worse and adds new problems. It doesn't lower the cost, it does not increase coverage and it does not improve the service that you get.
Eddie
