Put me in charge!!!

[JDonhardt]

Government existing, at all, is the problem. There is no solution to this problem.

 

[cadan]

These problems cannot be addressed by central planning.
if you make it so food stamps can't apply to pop, beer, steak, pomegranates, or any kind of "luxury food" a clever person on welfare will simply trade. They will offer a friend with a proposition," I'll get your groceries, you just give me the cash." next stop liquor store, and on food stamps at that.

Trying to legislate common sense? A bit totalitiarianistic isn't it?

Exactly right. To prevent "abuse" gov't would have to proceed to so fully control a person's life that they could not make any exchanges with others. The government programs should instead be completely abolished.

 

[cadan]

Never happen. Talk to someone around 60ish about getting rid of Soc. Sec. Their view is that they've put into for 50 plus years and they want something out of it. Can't say I blame them.

Done that. It was not long at all until he conceded that (1) he was defrauded by government because their savings were squandered by our rulers and no real savings exists (2) for them to be paid what they were "promised" involved wrongdoing by forcibly seizing money from others (e.g. those who are younger, like me) to pay of them. (3) at this point in time the issue is simply whether the younger should be forced to bear the losses of the older generation has already experienced.

Oh, there's plenty of blame for those in their mid 60s. They've been voting to give themselves my money for nearly fifty years. They (collectively) are far from noble nor hardly entitled to anything for simply gifting themselves the product of their grandchildren's labor.

Voting is an extremely poor way to express one's opinion. In our pluralistic voting system there are two dominant parties, and by its nature voting outside the two party system will simply not yield a winning candidate. Given the multitude of topics a legislature or executive official is appointed to handle, how can we say that they should have voted otherwise when all other topics also bear an influence on how they ought to have voted as well? Our present system is such that government has the power to give to some, while diminishing the appearance of the magnitude of what it takes from others to accomplish this (e.g. inflation & gov't debt) . Is not inevitable that politicians will highlight the benefits, and give less attention to the costs? In my opinion the political system itself is the problem, not the way in which people vote.

 

[Paco Bedejo]

Voting is an extremely poor way to express one's opinion. In our pluralistic voting system there are two dominant parties, and by its nature voting outside the two party system will simply not yield a winning candidate. Given the multitude of topics a legislature or executive official is appointed to handle, how can we say that they should have voted otherwise when all other topics also bear an influence on how they ought to have voted as well? Our present system is such that government has the power to give to some, while diminishing the appearance of the magnitude of what it takes from others to accomplish this (e.g. inflation & gov't debt) . Is not inevitable that politicians will highlight the benefits, and give less attention to the costs? In my opinion the political system itself is the problem, not the way in which people vote.

The fault still rests upon those who had the power to change what happened...whether they paid enough attention to notice the problem or not. If my house burns down because I'm unaware of the idiocy of storing kerosene in the oven, is the fire not my fault? The Boomers™, as a group, didn't pay attention to what was going on, failed to understand the lunacy of borrowing money from their grandchildren, & have nearly broken our nation. Voting is just one of the ways they could have changed the course of history. It's a bull cop out to say that our political system is at fault when an entire generation conspires to gift itself the product of their children's & grandchildren's labor.

More than 1/8 (15.3%) of my labor is redirected into SS & Medicare. From my $15/hr job, my contribution for just this year will be at least $4773.60, not counting my overtime hours. At the age of 33, I've already contributed at least $60,000 into a program which I've known since high school will be completely gone well before I reach the ever-rising retirement age.

I say let those who F'd it up take the F'ing, rather than passing the responsibility off onto latter generations.