Free Republic

"..........Certainly the last six years have been dreadfuleconomically — from older workers whose factory and other blue-collar jobs have vanished to young people struggling to find that first job that will let them launch their career. But it would be a tragedy if we were to build an infrastructure that sees expansion of entitlement programs as the future. If we do, we will have an even more difficult time moving beyond our current economic troubles to once again envision a bright economic future with financial independence, not dependency, as the goal. Abraham Lincoln celebrated the dignity of work as an...

In remarks this week, former President Bill Clinton denounced GOP attempts to "cash-in" on people's "misery" under Democratic policies and programs for "political gain." "Republicans want voters to focus on the lack of economic growth and the huge number of people who can't get jobs since Democrats took control of the federal government," Clinton complained. "They want voters to overlook the flip side of this coin. Expansion of benefit programs have made work unnecessary for a growing segment of the population. The increased amount of leisure time our policies have made possible doesn't show up in the statistics Republicans like...

On October 27, the New Mexico Center for Law and Poverty, the Southwest Organizing Project, and a number of food stamp recipients filed suit to halt work requirements for food stamp recipients which are set to go into effect in November. The Associated Press reports the changes would require "some childless adults [to] work in order to receive food stamps." Other recipients would have to "search for a job or participate in community service or job training."

Since January 1 of this year, James Barnes has had pretty decent health care. He gets insulin for his diabetes and the needles to inject it, blood pressure medication, access to a psychiatrist and counselor and optometrist, and frequent visits to the doctor, all for free. Barnes lives in Maryland, one of the dozens of states that expanded Medicaid to people with incomes at or below 138 percent of the poverty level as part of the Affordable Care Act. For Barnes and thousands like him, that expansion has meant access to services like physical therapy, mental-health treatment, x-rays, dialysis, hospice...

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) released his annual Wastebook this past week. It contains a laundry list of doozies. The U.S. government’s gold-plating operations included $190,000 to study compost digested by worms, $297 million for the purchase of an unused mega blimp, and $1 million on a Virginia bus stop where only 15 people can huddle under a half-baked roof. These questionable (read: absurd) expenditures only represent the tip of the iceberg. Just consider the following: the Speaker of the House currently receives an annual salary of $223,500, and will receive a payment of roughly that amount, depending on the years...

We live in dangerous and stressful times. The margin for error in our fight for the survival of America is very small. The number of people willing to surrender their genuine freedoms for a little faux security is growing. We are a strong and resilient people but even the strongest die eventually. We who pull the American wagon and recognize that nothing worth anything is free, especially our precious liberty, can only go on just so long. The whiney and the greedy are not our friends regardless of who they are or claim to be. It is, therefore, an unfortunate...

The ends justify the means, and the rule of law is sacrificed in the name of social justice Throughout most of the 19th and 20th centuries Socialism had a fairly precise definition, a somewhat clear program, and a generally agreed-upon goal. The definition of Socialism was some variant of Karl Marx’s well known statement, “From each according to the ability to each according to their need.” Socialism’s program was the nationalization of all means of production, exchange, and distribution. Socialism’s goal was the use of all three in a comprehensive plan to bring about some chimera of social justice. There...

There seems to be on the right an insistence that low information voters are destroying the country. This is promulgated by conservative media figures, particularly Rush Limbaugh who appears to have coined the phrase. There is plenty of reason to believe a lot of Americans are completely checked out of day to day political events. The number of people who can’t name the Vice President, Speaker of the House or any member of the Supreme Court is appalling. Equally as appalling is the inability of many Americans to name their Congressman, one Senator from their state or their state’s Governor....

With the midterm elections approaching, Texas senator Ted Cruz penned an editorial in USA Today this week detailing what he’d like a potential Republican-controlled Congress to prioritize in 2015. As you might expect, the list is full of Tea Party staples: repealing Obamacare, cutting taxes, and slashing funding for federal programs. What makes Cruz’s list of Congressional priorities interesting is that it essentially previews what a Cruz 2016 presidential campaign agenda might look like–and it’s not pretty. As Ted Cruz’s multiple trips to Iowa have suggested, Texas’ junior senator is all-but-confirmed to be running for president in 2016. Though his...

When Deng Xiaoping took over China in the late 1970’s, China was a very poor country. One of the first things that Deng did was to allow individuals to acquire and maintain property. This capitalistic approach started one of the greatest economic transformations in world history. More people in China have been lifted from poverty in a shorter span of time than ever before in human history. Half a billion Chinese citizens have risen out of poverty due to China’s economic swing to capitalist policies!China still has its problems, but while the US is moving more and more towards a...

For several years now, I have been honored to be a member of a group known as the Philadelphia Society. The Society of leading conservative intellectuals was formed in 1964 in the wake of the Goldwater defeat. While I would never self-identify as an intellectual, I fall back on what the Sisters of St. Joseph used to tell us in grade school: “There’s two kinds of knowledge: knowing something and knowing where to find it.” You can gain a lot of insights at Society meetings. Here are just a few highlights from the Society’s regional meeting in Grand Rapids last...

Any man eager to acquire more than one wife faces seven years behind bars to deter him. But where’s there’s a will, guys, there’s a way. Just get married in one of 48 countries which allow a chap to collect spouses like stamps and then bring your harem home. That’s because bigamy is illegal in the UK, but polygamy isn’t if weddings took place where it’s recognised. Afghanistan, say, or Iran, Iraq, Libya, and the Yemen. You can even bag an extra wife or three in less disagreeable haunts like the Maldives, Morocco or Malaysia. Your wives will also be...

When the North Carolina State Assembly set out to pass a resolution in 2007 expressing the body’s regret for its participation in the institution of slavery, conservatives objected on the grounds that black North Carolinians would use it to advance the cause of reparations. Republican Assemblyman Thom Tillis, who is now challenging Democrat Kay Hagan for her U.S. Senate seat, sought to allay those conservatives' concerns by flipping the argument. Reparations already exist in the form of welfare programs, he noted, and Republicans would be better positioned to oppose them if they purchased some goodwill with conservative Democrats by acknowledging...

Dependency: A Brazilian economist has shown a near-exact correlation between last Sunday's presidential election voting choices and each state's welfare ratios. Sure enough, handouts are the lifeblood of the left. Virtually every state that went for Rousseff has at least 25% of the population dependent on Brazil's Bolsa Familia welfare program of cash for single mothers, given for keeping children vaccinated and in school. States with less than 25% of the population on Bolsa Familia overwhelmingly went for Neves and his policies of growth. And whether it's best for a country that aspires to become a global economic powerhouse to...

Sweden's new Social Democrat prime minister Stefan Loefven unveiled what he called a "feminist" government including Green Party ministers for the first time in the Nordic country. ... Sweden is in a serious situation -- unemployment has become entrenched at high levels, school results have collapsed and the welfare system has major shortcomings ...

Taxpayers are apparently buying welfare recipients booze and cigarettes for the road — at times a very exotic road. A Watchdog.org analysis of a Colorado Department of Human Services welfare ATM withdrawals database shows that $3.8 million was withdrawn by Colorado welfare recipients outside the state in the past two years. There were withdrawals at out-of-state liquor stores and tobacco outlets, as well as vacation destinations like Hawaii, Las Vegas and even the Virgin Islands. ... Colorado welfare withdrawals at liquor stores and casinos despite federal and state law banning such actions and welfare recipients taking out money at the...

While many will be giddy because the BLS reported that job creation came in at 248,000, well above analysts expectations-- and because unemployment ticked down to 5.9 percent-- make no mistake: this is still a bad job market.ThatÂ’s because another 315,000 people left the labor force last month. When adding in the numbers of people who entered the civilian population (217,000) job creation is hardly keeping up with population growth.The job gains, in fact, are not much better than in previous years. When one accounts for part-time work, discouraged workers and those who have dropped out of the labor force...

We’ve got a problem in the Twin Cities that is based in our large and still growing population of Somali immigrants. Somalis have been immigrating to Minnesota for more than twenty years now. They have taken advantage of all the services that our state and local institutions offer. They have been welcomed with open arms, in Minnesota’s characteristic style. Yet Minnesota’s Somali community — a/k/a “Minnesotans” — is the most fertile ground in the United States for the recruitment of terrorists by foreign terrorist organizations in Africa and the Middle East. We are concerned that they may choose to return...

It's about a 4 per cent increase between the benefit increase and the increased expense deduction. Heard about this increase and searched 'Bing News' and Google News' and found nothing. Finally found this Pa. state welfare site that mentions it.

When I was growing up, my mother made me write and send Thank You notes to each and every person who ever gave me a gift—Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, graduation gifts, you name it. It’s a habit I carried into adulthood. When my wife and I were married, we had Thank You cards in the mail within a week of the occasion. We have been blessed with a 17-year-old son. Ever since he’s been old enough to grasp a pen, he has been sending out Thank You cards for every gift received on every occasion. It’s only right and proper....