Posted on 05/08/2006 4:57:00 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy
How about tort reform where the democrat party's biggest contributors, the trial lawyers, make a killing and creating zilch wealth for the country by filing millions of frivilous lawsuits, against hospitals and doctors and raising the cost of health care for all Americans.
Most of my neighbors use Mexican yard crews. I'm not crazy about it but I'd be more nervous if they were using black inner-city yard crews. And so would my neighbors, they'd be mowing their own lawns.
Of course when you have a generation or two of welfare whites, they'll be just as bad.
It wouldn't be easy to salvage a criminal welfare class but it can be done - Britain's Victorian reforms salvaged slums as bad as the U.S. has ever had. And now they're p---ing it away with their own welfare state and illegitimacy, and their own disgruntled immigrants of color.
You make more people wealthy by allowing your economy the freedom to create more weatlhy people.
Every tax, every license, every fee, and every regulation not directly aimed at punishing DIRECT harm to someone elses property or Rights, is a drag on that wealth generation mechanism.
We need an Amendment giving us a "Seperation of Government and Economy".
Sure Dane, we all hate lawyers.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html
But the thread is about illegal immigration and welfare.
Because the welfare checks she was giving these scumbags were more than her own hard earned paycheck.
I was a single mother who worked for the Welfare Dept here (before it was called DHS). You are right, it used to peeve me off that with their free medical, food stamps, and cash they were taking home more money than me, and I worked there!
I always said they should be required to work for the money. Pick up trash in the parks, clean restrooms in county buildings, etc. Rotate em around where they only had to work one day a week but make em work!
"Here is a novel idea...why not lessen welfare benefits -for able bodied recipients- so they are below what minimum wage is? ...my ex-husband's greatest talking point was ..why should I work for minimum wage when I can get more from welfare?"
It's worse than you think. Take a pencil and paper and write down these monthly figures:
Your house payment or rent.
All groceries.
All medical costs not covered by insurance.
All medical insurance premium costs (both what you pay and what your employer pays).
Any legal costs.
Your outlay for Social Security (both figures...you and your employer).
Add your income tax percentages (you have to realize that they don't pay income taxes).
They get earned income credits.
And the final insult...give yourself a check for not working. Be sure that the check amount is based upon how many children (little investments)you have.
Add all of this up, multiply it by 12 and then divide by 52 and then by 40 (hours) and you will see that it is painfully apparent that minimum wage is not the problem. The problem is that in most cases they make more than you each month.
Why would they ever go to work and lose those benefits along with a permanent vacation...you are lucky if you only get 30 days a year.
We need to go back to the safety net we had back in the 50's...commodities...cheese, canned meat etc...
LBJ and his great society was the end of the need to work in America.
Well fine no one stopping you from keeping your head in the sand, if you don't believe that trial lawyers have anything to do with skyrocketing health care costs.
"head in the sand"
Now you're into a South Park episode.
Welfare has become a way of life for many; I would love to see statistics regarding how many 2nd and 3rd generations of families are receiving government checks - it has to be a very high percentage.
The safety net has become a lifestyle.
I'm in favor of developing and implementing a scannable social security card system containing embedded digital information and images which can be electronically compared via network to that of national databases which would help reduce fraud, and the linking of those card ID's to state DMV licenses and state voter registrations. By making the SSI cards scannable and verifiable online, many excuses felon employers and illegal employees now use to circumvent U.S. immigration code would be reduced or eliminated as well as helping eliminate claims of ignorance which complicate successful prosecutions. This system would also help reduce incidents of identity theft, thus providing consumers added security from those with malicious intent as well as adding valuable security in the information off shoring craze taking place where consumers' personal and financial information is being distributed among entities in countries not subject to U.S. courts' jurisdiction.
After such ID is implemented, I believe our government should set a firm date whereby all employers will have had to verify and swear out an affidavit to the legal status of all their employees and after that cut-off date, those still intent, charged with, and found guilty of the felony of hiring illegal aliens would be fined $50,000 for each violation of the perjured affidavit or a minimum sixty percent of their annual net revenue. After that date, the government should allow enforcement of our immigration code to the letter and insist on apprehensions by any and all appropriate law enforcement authorities and should tie local governments' receiving federal monies to enforcement compliance. I believe it has become necessary we implement a system of bounties for information leading to both the apprehension and successful conviction of those felons and for the detainment and deportation of illegal aliens. Those states' Attorneys General should be given non-discretional enforcement capabilities and be expected to implement enforcement within their respective states without hindrances from courts of law obstructing their enforcement duties.
I also believe it is time we begin a local or statewide database on those who receive welfare benefits and other public funded assistances which is linked to the Employment Security Commission's database. That database ought reflect the AMOUNT of assistance received and the reason for the assistance and should be available for public scrutiny. Employers who need guest workers ought be required first to review such database for those who could fill that position before any applications for foreign workers are permitted. Upon making a written request for such welfare recipient as a worker by thoroughly disclosing the job description and a local Employment Security Commission review board determining such offer is compatible with the recipient's ability, the welfare recipient should be required to accept such offer without option. Should a welfare recipient be made a valid offer by a potential employer and refuse or fail to comply with basic employment expectations, that and all public assistance should immediately cease. If an employer exercises the application option for a foreign guest worker through the DHS or US Labor department, they ought be required to file an affidavit of support much similar to the Form I-134 sponsors of legal immigrants must swear out. Those affidavits ought be made enforcable without judiciary intervention or dismissal since they are similar to the same documents the judiciary allows and accepts as sworn testimony.
There again, local ESC offices could match employment opportunities with the welfare recipient database by computer and, dependant upon a hands on review, introduce workers and employers. Those failing to fill those openings should be removed from welfare rolls. Employer's requests for workers could then be matched to DHS or US Labor department applicants from foreign countries.
You could say it's a way to quit paying Americans for not doing the jobs Americans would do if they had to do them.
I have a simple solution for America's illegal alien labor attraction. We need to do away with the minimum wage protection for foreign workers, "guest workers".
Allow anyone from anywhere access into the US as long as they have an ID document from their country of origin. No penalty for entry, no demand for deportation as long as no publically funded benefits are sought or received.
If a "guest worker" can take a job Americans won't do, we ought require the employer to apply the current exchange rate of the employee's home country to the offered US labor rate.
For example, China's exchange rate to the US dollar is roughly 0.1209. If a job usually pays an American worker $18/hr, we should require employers to pay Chinese guest laborers only $2.18/hr for that job. Mexico's rate is roughly 0.0909. An $18/hr job ought justly net the Mexican guest worker $1.64/hr for the same labor. India's exchange rate is....well, you get the picture...
In addition to any criminal charges, allowing US citizens the ability to file significant civil litigation against employers for discriminatory practices would also help. If a Mexican guest worker is proven to have been paid $8/hr to shrub ditchbanks by a US employer, the employer ought be required to show he'd advertized an offer to Americans of $88/hr ($8 USD divided by 0.0909). If a Chinese guest worker is proven to have been paid $8/hr to wash dishes, the employer ought be required to show he'd posted an offer to Americans of $66/hr for the same job ($8 USD divided by 0.1209). Only if employers charged with discriminatory practices show they've offered/paid an American an adjusted net equivalent wage should they be abled to avoid prosecution.
Free markets ought be just that. Either they are free, or they aren't.
Those are called PWR's (Professional Welfare Recipients).
It's been a welfare problem for the last 40 years.
If we eliminated welfare, would force more Americans to accept low paying jobs. This would add more people to our already flooded low skill labor market that is flooded due to illegal immigration.
This might eventually result in a decrease in illegal immigration, but only because we would have lowered our low end standard of living to the point where fewer of them felt it was worth immigrating here illegally.
Dealing with corruption and abuse in the welfare system is difficult due to both good and bad aspects of human nature.
The people administering the program are often sympathetic and compassionate. Because of that they may overlook problems. There are also those who are greedy. As well as people who are lazy or simply depressed and disillusioned and can't seem take the steps to get their lives on a productive path.
The other part of human nature that lends helps continue the problems with the system is that there are those who seek to exploit others for their own interests and keeping them dissatisfied and dependent on the system is in their interests. Of course they claim the entire time that they are looking out for those people and it is everyone else that wishes to exploit them.
However illegal immigration is related to our welfare problems. If you reduce the number of illegal immigrants that are flooding the job market, and you have a tighter job market, the wages, benefits, and the quality work environment will on average increase. A tight job market has been shown to significantly decrease the number of people on welfare.
So why is the Democratic Party pushing to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, which will do even more to put them on par with Americans in the job market, and driver down the standard of living for poorer Americans even farther?
Why are the major labor unions who claim to represent the interests of workers nearly silent on the issue of illegal immigration? Their may make some comments on how illegal immigration is bad to their members, but they throw their political clout and their money behind the same politicians who are pushing for amnesty for the illegal immigrants.
Workers in a tight labor market don't need a union. Happy workers don't need a union. Twelve million or more new legal residents low skilled workers is a huge opportunity for the labor unions which are seeing their power wane.
Giving illegal aliens isn't supported by the majority of Americans. It isn't even supported by the majority of Hispanic voters.
The far left which has taken control of the Democratic Party gains little by improving the quality of life significantly for the poor. Helping them become self sufficient weakens their power. Even if the huge numbers of illegal aliens can't vote for a very long time even after becoming legal, their presence will strengthen the unions, and they will likely add more voters to those who are already dependent on the government.
I think it is perpetuating as I have seen, unfortunately with a friend of mine. A prime example of this type of abuse. She was of the type most of you would want to support - to a point. Her husband died when her two youngest were 4 and 6. From the time I met her (1994) until 2 months ago, she has not worked, other than 4 hrs. a day as a bank teller, and that only occasionally.
She loves to spend money and the money she made from her social security check (which could have partially defrayed college expenses for the kids had she used her free time to train for a good career) was squandered on very lavish lifestyle. Her husband's insurance paid for a $200,000 house free and clear (back in 94 in the SW, that was pretty good.
Now that she has lost the "wages" from her 19 yr. old son, she has completely cut off his support. Her daughter is 16 this summer, so she will now lose her own personal "paycheck" and in 3 years she will lose that of her daughter. So, as of two months ago, she has finally found the time to train for a lucrative job in the cosmetics industry. She will have her certification and will make about $25/hr. about the same month/week that her own personal "paycheck" stops coming. After 12 years of laziness! Her late husband was a car salesman, and for 2 years of his life, before his death, he made the max amount for ss. So her benefits were very high. Back in 97 I think her net was $4500/mo. which does not sound too great in today's $, but if you think back to then, and with a house payment not necessary.... With a master's degree and 60-70 hour work weeks, I could never have dreamed to live her life style. I used to think, well, she's my friend and I don't want to begrudge her the help, but I wonder how many more of these "social security parasites" there are and what their impact is, because that high level support can go on for almost 2 decades.
I bow to your wisdom....
I am truly concerned for our children and grandchildren. I'm afraid that LBJ's "(not so) Great Society will still be draining the blood from our nation's workers and pumping it into the sloths.
I agree bordergal,
We do have some folks who are deserving, and for whatever reason find themselves in need of help. And I think a country as wealthy as ours should have a way to help these people.
I live in the Appalachians, and I can tell you the independent mountaineer spirit is almost extinct here. It has been replaced with the entitlement, "get over on the govt.," "get everything you can for nothing" mentality.
We must have had a lack of calcium around here too. Everybody now has a "bad back," and draws a disability check. In some communities two, three generations of bad back cases draw checks. They all start getting bad backs really young, just at the age they should be productive family supporters.
It's really funny too, cause they can do all kinds of construction work on the side for cash (so they can continue to draw their bad back check), but they are unable to work, therefore have to draw a check.
What's really disgusting is that most of these types go to church every Sunday, Wednesday, etc., and believe you go to hell for drinking a beer, but it is okay, perfectly acceptable, to lie and steal (which is what they do to get that govt. check).
Meanwhile, I see elderly people who worked and paid taxes all their lives, and who now are struggling to buy their medications and keep a roof over their heads.
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In the neighborhood in Brooklyn I grew up in people sometimes needed help. They got the help and got off. Watch the movie Cinderella Man. Jimmy Braddock went on welfare. He used it for a short time and got off. Today we just don't have the structure to take care of the Braddock familles. I'm not interested in giving away money. I am interested in helping people who need it. If we can't help honest people in America then I guess I am wrong and we're not a great country. I'm not willing to tell honest down and out people to go to hell.
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