[FITZ]

Notice the welfare graph in the 90's ---the so-called decade of prosperity. We've only got markedly increasing welfare rates ---how can we be bringing in millions of more indigent people when we already have so many? When the Irish and Germans came, they had to work, there was no free health care or food stamp program for them to get on. There was also plenty of land to homestead ---that's gone now. So are all those jobs NAFTA took out of the country.

[garbanzo]

What about the new jobs created in various hi-tech industries. Whole new categories of jobs were created. I agree that the welfare state is bloated and needs to be cut back. But are you arguing that the government should only hand out stolen goods to proper citizens?

[Torie]

When the Irish and Germans came, they had to work, there was no free health care

Actually, when they came, there wasn't much of a science of health care at all. It was a non issue. Doctors weren't even licensed until around the turn of the century.