Congress in Fantasy Land....

[Derek]

The median income in the US is higher then in either France or the UK. The sales tax in France is 20%, in the UK it is 17.5%. They make less and pay more.

Today anyone under 65 that is illiterate has only themselves and their parents to blame. Women smoke, take drugs, and drink alcohol during pregnancy and wonder why their kids have learning disabilities. Even if they don't have learning disabilities because of those things, they suffer from parents who have better things to do then raise their children. No every kid isn't suited for college, but very few people should be illiterate.

Plenty of able bodied people in this country decide they don't want to work. They would rather be in poverty (or at least our version of poverty). They choose that life. I know people like that. My wife provides services to people like that every day. They have no money to get to their doctor appointment. The county provides them with fuel vouchers. They do have money for cigarettes. They have money for soda pop and beer. They seem to all be well fed. Not healthy, but well fed. The major difference between us is that I have a house, car, and a job and I don't play the lottery. The rest is just as available to them. The poor in this country have free healthcare. They need only show up at an emergency room. They have a card so groceries can be provided to them. They have vouchers for heat in the winter, air conditioners in the summer. Most even have cable.

The underclass in this country was created by politicians thinking they were doing these people a favor. They weren't.

HERE HERE!!!! Well said!!!

I think you need to print this out and frame it!!!

[Eric]

Eric...you are truly naive in your hopefulness about college for everyone and an attendant living wage....It just will not happen..and if it did, there would not be enough jobs.
The education battle is being lost in the first years of elementary school as it has been for decades...forget college.

...More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level - far below the level needed to earn a living wage.
...Nearly half of America's adults are poor readers, or "functionally illiterate." They can't carry out simply tasks like balancing check books, reading drug labels or writing essays for a job.
...50 percent of American adults are unable to read an eighth grade level book.
...Approximately 50 percent of the nation's unemployed youth age 16-21 are functionally illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs.
...More than 75% of those on welfare, 85% of unwed mothers and 68% of those arrested are illiterate. About three in five of America's prison inmates are illiterate.

Sure...they can get college diplomas, but they will be the kinds we give a running back, a piece of paper signifying that you went to college but not signifying marketable skills.

Most of our jobs, anyway, do not require a college education...even though we now often make such an education mandatory, where in the past we did not. For example, a surveyor in Florida used to learn on the job, working his way up from a rodman to a party chief to a registered surveyor once he passed the knowledge test. Today, in Florida, you must have a college diploma to be a surveyor. A rodman is now a deadend low paying job with little future of advancement...

We just do not have enough jobs that pay well enough to satisfy the US need....

Our labor market is bifurcated with the two ends moving away from each other in opposite directions as they have for several decades. We have a number of high wage/high skill jobs that require education or high tech skills (and intellectual ability) and we have a much larger number of jobs in the service sector that pay from minimum wage to barely enough to raise a family. The middle of the labor market, manufacturing jobs with their family wages, has been gutted by globalization and the shifting of work to overseas work forces. Construction jobs, with the loss of union impact, pay 40% less in wage (adjusted for CPI) than they did 30 years ago.

And now, white collar jobs are disappearing at scary rates as IT, service sector and other jobs are being outsourced as technology allows.

We have always, in America, been proud of our immigrant past and the ideal that anyone can become successful with hard work and determination. And I understand that your post was made in that spirit.

True. It is true that capitalism itself determines winners and losers, but it also sorts out those who try and those who don't. I've been able to manage. I did well in school and was able to attend college. My grandparents were a plumber, a mechanic, and stay-at-home mothers with one of my two parents attending a college out of high school. Sure, I'm a white, straight, male with middle-class parents, but I don't see the specific advantages other than the fact that my family promoted the idea that I had to take my education seriously. Which I didn't and was still able to do well in school taking mostly advanced classes (that should tell you enough about our public education system).

And not everybody has to attend college! You can attend a trade school or specialize in another sector just the same. College isn't made for everybody. I'm just saying that it's accessible as ever. Just because you're poor doesn't mean that college is out of reach. We need to shift from the mindset that it's society's fault if somebody fails when they have a child before they're married, decided to test pot, or just slacked off in school because it was cool. Yes, I agree too that the war is lost in the earlier stages of education. The background environment is detrimental to learning in inner cities which is the cause of most of our poverty. I've heard stories about how poor families in Flint and Detroit that just want an education are nudged into their school systems that just don't produce results. I'm just saying that if the government promoted competition, we would see better results.

P.S., I realize you mentioned something about the spirit of my post, but I can't help but be a little insulted by your, well, insult. I never said that everybody is going to make it. Just that most in our society can if they're willing to put in the effort and separate themselves from the people who don't. I don't think the government has done the best job they can with "leveling the playing field" the right way (a.k.a., the education sector).

[billybud]

Spence...median income and living well aren't synonomous.

Sure, we make more money........but we work much longer hours away from home and family, have much, much less time off for vacationa, our infants die more often , we have more violent crime, have a higher percentage of our population in the criminal justice system, a larger portion of our population crowded into urban metropolitan areas, poorer health care...etc.



Eric...Insult?

Please do not bew insulted, that was not my intent. I did call your statement naive...and I will continue to portray it as such, for that is my opinion. I do not mean, in any way, to insult in this discourse..I just state my opinion frankly.

The best minds in the country have been trying to alter the situation of the "have nots" since I was a young guy and inspired by JFK and, later, by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and his War on Poverty. Snapping your fingers and saying "Aha, I have the answer. People could succeed in America if they chose to do so and worked hard'" is a little simplistic.

The recent Gallop Well-Being Index (March 2009) "measures the comprehensive well-being of individuals across the full spectrum of their lives and activities, both nationally and locally, revealing surprising variations among regions and demographic groups". West Virginia comes in dead last in well-being. Not because the people don't want to work hard, but because of a myriad of other factors.

No state has a higher percentage of children who are uninsured for health, no state has a lower median family income (2006), few states have the rates of sexually related diseases, ratio of smokers, obesity, low birth weight babies...is it because West Virginians, as a whole, don't want to better their lives, don't have the will power...Or, just maybe, there are other factors that make it more difficult for the population to do so.

I am just submitting that the problem is complex, and that those who are more successful in life have always credited their own efforts....and have less understanding for the reasons why others aren't as successful. God knows, I plead guilty to that.

My views have changed over time as life has changed me. My family is bright. Dad was a Michigan grad and very smart and worked in weapon design in the defense industry (at Eglin AFB) after an Air Force career, my mother was a writer. My brother and sister have done very well..my sister is a neonatal nursing expert who teaches neonatal nursing and my brother an engineer who built refineries around the world. I also had a brother who was not successful in life..who did not finish high school, who could not hold a job. He was the closest to me. I believed that he was solely responsible for his lack of success in life and that, since all of us were doing well, he should as well. I have had a lot of years to think about that since his suicide. I now believe that not all of us have the same tools to work with. And it is often the tools that make the workman.

[Eric]

Perhaps I read too much into it, Billybud

I am sorry to hear about your brother. It's always a shame.

I think my opinion that hard work along with education isn't naive. It's simple, but I think the process is more simple than you seem to think. Simplistic or not, government pencil pushers haven't fixed the issue nor will they ever. The mindset in places like rural Appalachia and inner-cities alike is often destructive as poverty breeds maleducation (did I make that word up?). State-run education just isn't getting the job done. And when you have a poorer state like West Virginia, I believe they're a socially conservative state but they send Democrats to Congress to bring home the pork. That's like the worst combination

But this goes back to the original argument. Who are disenfranchising themselves other than themselves and the big government that supports their habits? Lyndon Johnson is precisely part of the problem which is why I find it ironic that you reference his works . I don't know what the Great Society has done to make things more great for America.

[Spence]

Spence...median income and living well aren't synonomous.

Sure, we make more money........but we work much longer hours away from home and family, have much, much less time off for vacationa, our infants die more often , we have more violent crime, have a higher percentage of our population in the criminal justice system, a larger portion of our population crowded into urban metropolitan areas, poorer health care...etc.

True, but median income along with sales tax rate gives you a pretty good look at how the real poverty numbers compare.

I do believe that not everyone starts with the same tools. Success doesn't have to be determined by how much money you have in the bank. And not all people who do not make it have themselves to blame. Most however do.

I don't know if I have told this before, but my maternal grandfather died when my mom was five. He left my grandmother with six kids, none older then seven. My mom was five. Two of the boys went to college (it took one the better part of fifteen years to get through. One of the girls went and became an engineer. They had no outside help and they weren't exceptional people. They all made it to different degrees. They raised families and did have to except monetary help outside of each other. They did volunteer with youth projects and community projects. They had mentoring help from the same sort of people. That is successful to me.


We, the collective we, do not live within our means anymore. We want everything and we want it now. If we work more then everyone else, maybe it is because of that.

[donovan]

I think an overview of these posts are most enlightening. The posters here have a common interest in football, but our lives are very different...and in fact....we know very little about each other.

Here is what concerns me. I sit in the lap of luxury while there are those in this country go to be hungry. Some, certainly children, it is all beyond their control. We know that diligent work has the possibility of rewards, but no guarantee. Christ said that the poor will always be with you....we can see that...but it does not mean we accept it or that we can not do something about it.

Education has failed us. We went to the moon with graduates that got out of college at 23. We know have students in their thirties. High School use to prepare most..yes, most for all the jobs out there. Trade schools taught trades and the students could apply their trade and make a average wage.

Politicians represented their constituency. Now we can not even count the votes and when the tally is in, the politician do what they want anyway. I can think of 5 examples in Washington in the last two years.

Nobody can afford medical attention without some kind of help we disguise as insurance.

We have lost our individual focus, our center. We have turned all of our responsibilities to others and can not even get them back.

We have patterned our social order after the BCS....Everyone is in the arena...but only a few get the rewards. Or maybe the BCS patterned their program after our social order.

We can not treat people equally if we want to treat them the same.

[billybud]

I don't know what the Great Society has done to make things more great for America.

That is because you are young. Those whose experience starts after 1964 may not see the world in the same way as us old guys do, mainly because they did not know it before.

The Great Society has been slammed by conservatives as a failure..and Nixon dismantled some of it starting in 1969..but...it lives on today, 45 years later..and we are better for it.

To really get an idea of the broad scope and lasting impact of Johnson's short lived (63-69) public policy push...Eric, please read the following piece.
While some it is propaganda, the nuts and bolts of the impact of Johnson are about right.

Few, who did not live through the times, remember how vast Johnson's impact has been.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/featur ... ifano.html

[WoVeU]

The median income in the US is higher then in either France or the UK. The sales tax in France is 20%, in the UK it is 17.5%. They make less and pay more.

Today anyone under 65 that is illiterate has only themselves and their parents to blame. Women smoke, take drugs, and drink alcohol during pregnancy and wonder why their kids have learning disabilities. Even if they don't have learning disabilities because of those things, they suffer from parents who have better things to do then raise their children. No every kid isn't suited for college, but very few people should be illiterate.

Plenty of able bodied people in this country decide they don't want to work. They would rather be in poverty (or at least our version of poverty). They choose that life. I know people like that. My wife provides services to people like that every day. They have no money to get to their doctor appointment. The county provides them with fuel vouchers. They do have money for cigarettes. They have money for soda pop and beer. They seem to all be well fed. Not healthy, but well fed. The major difference between us is that I have a house, car, and a job and I don't play the lottery. The rest is just as available to them. The poor in this country have free healthcare. They need only show up at an emergency room. They have a card so groceries can be provided to them. They have vouchers for heat in the winter, air conditioners in the summer. Most even have cable.

The underclass in this country was created by politicians thinking they were doing these people a favor. They weren't.

HERE HERE!!!! Well said!!!

I think you need to print this out and frame it!!!

Yes sir! That was spot-on! Newspaper should report so simply!

[WoVeU]

The recent Gallop Well-Being Index (March 2009) "measures the comprehensive well-being of individuals across the full spectrum of their lives and activities, both nationally and locally, revealing surprising variations among regions and demographic groups". West Virginia comes in dead last in well-being. Not because the people don't want to work hard, but because of a myriad of other factors.

No state has a higher percentage of children who are uninsured for health, no state has a lower median family income (2006), few states have the rates of sexually related diseases, ratio of smokers, obesity, low birth weight babies...is it because West Virginians, as a whole, don't want to better their lives, don't have the will power...Or, just maybe, there are other factors that make it more difficult for the population to do so.

I am just submitting that the problem is complex, and that those who are more successful in life have always credited their own efforts....and have less understanding for the reasons why others aren't as successful. God knows, I plead guilty to that.

Well I've seen it first hand! It sis rather sickening and very disheartening! But BB, I can tell you for most of those folks it is that simple! I've gotten in straight from the "Horse's Mouth." Almost all of them, especially poor white trash...some family, some friends, others just people you come across or hear in bars! They figure they got the game figured out in one way or the other. In WV most are dope heads, street, prescription, or both! Some don't want a real job because they don't want to be clean. Others point to the income lost for taking anything round an entry level job. Others say no job is worth giving up the freebies!

Of all the "impoverished" 60-70% aren't goaling for more. Others dream for more and talk but do zero about it. I've tried to encourage, ready to help, and will always teach...but 90% of those folks won't step up. Then there is another 5% who will take some opportunities to advance, but they generally run out of steam to quick and think the pay-off should be quicker. Then after all these comes the 5% who gt screwed...deserving, ready, and willing (most without freebie checks) and they can not catch a good break!

The big pot puts the little pot in a bad place!

[Spence]

We can not treat people equally if we want to treat them the same.

That may be the most enlightened quote I have ever read. I my opinion, I want to do what I do to help society. I do not want to be forced. I work with kids. I have for over thirty years. I try to make a difference. I do it mostly in sports, not always, but it is the best way to reach kids. Here are my findings; kids aren't the problem. They are mostly the same. Sure some are smarter, some are bigger, and some are faster. All want the same things. To be loved, to be a part of a family. Nothing else really matters. The games are a means to an end. All kids are basically the same , but they aren't the same. They aren't equal. They are not better or worse. Doing your best seeing where you wind up is what matters. Life is about playing, not watching.

[Eric]

I think we could use a quote from the world's number one naive simpleton (just kidding ) Henry David Thoreau. Read along if you have the time:

"There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me—some of its virus mingled with my blood. No—in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A man is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy is not love for one's fellow-man in the broadest sense. Howard was no doubt an exceedingly kind and worthy man in his way, and has his reward; but, comparatively speaking, what are a hundred Howards to us, if their philanthropy do not help us in our best estate, when we are most worthy to be helped? I never heard of a philanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely proposed to do any good to me, or the like of me.

Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. We make curious mistakes sometimes. Often the poor man is not so cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune. If you give him money, he will perhaps buy more rags with it. I was wont to pity the clumsy Irish laborers who cut ice on the pond, in such mean and ragged clothes, while I shivered in my more tidy and somewhat more fashionable garments, till, one bitter cold day, one who had slipped into the water came to my house to warm him, and I saw him strip off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings ere he got down to the skin, though they were dirty and ragged enough, it is true, and that he could afford to refuse the extra garments which I offered him, he had so many intra ones. This ducking was the very thing he needed. Then I began to pity myself, and I saw that it would be a greater charity to bestow on me a flannel shirt than a whole slop-shop on him. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. It is the pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to buy a Sunday's liberty for the rest. Some show their kindness to the poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed themselves there? You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it. Society recovers only a tenth part of the property then. Is this owing to the generosity of him in whose possession it is found, or to the remissness of the officers of justice?

Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it. A robust poor man, one sunny day here in Concord, praised a fellow-townsman to me, because, as he said, he was kind to the poor; meaning himself. The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a reverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence, after enumerating her scientific, literary, and political worthies, Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of her Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him, he elevated to a place far above all the rest, as the greatest of the great. They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry. Every one must feel the falsehood and cant of this. The last were not England's best men and women; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists."

[Eric]

You know, if there was one socialized program that I could sympathize with, it would be a single-payer system. I hate the fact that some people in our system today have to pay so much for health care if they are without insurance. That does bug me. However, there are just too many unforseen problems and I would never want to give up my health to a centralized authority. With the government's foot in the door, a single-payer system is the next step. Obama has "admitted" it, if you want to use that word. If you do things that would help cut the cost other than artificially manipulating the market (a.k.a., public option) such as lowering taxes, working with state law to break up health cartels, tort reform, and changing laws regarding prexisting conditions, you could lower cost and cover more people without too much government interference.

I think the funny thing is that we expect to lower insurance costs by hammering the insurance market. The real issue here is the cost of medical procedures themselves and nobody seems to be really talking about that. I doubt that Obama wants to ruffle the feathers of his lawyer buddies

[Spence]

tort reform is an issue, but not the only issue as Republicans like to make it out to be. There are real issues with insurance and the layers (under-writers) that need examined as well. The single payer is what the big push will be on. While I believe we should pay as we go for GP visits and the minor stuff, I think what they have in mind as single payer is not the way to go either.

[Eric]

I heard Obama in a town hall the other day say that Medicare is a great program then saying that it's going broke in the next sentence. This doesn't have entirely to do with insurance costs. There's a reason why costs are increasing. There's a lack of competition and the cost of running tests and procedures are increasing. You're not going to solve the insurance issue without finding out why the prices are increasing. It's too simplistic to say that insurance companies are "hosing" the consumer, just because they can. In a free market, they can't afford to do that. So there's some outside force affecting the market.

[Eric]

tort reform is an issue, but not the only issue as Republicans like to make it out to be. There are real issues with insurance and the layers (under-writers) that need examined as well. The single payer is what the big push will be on. While I believe we should pay as we go for GP visits and the minor stuff, I think what they have in mind as single payer is not the way to go either.

Right, I know, which is why I listed three other things holding the market back.

It was funny, I was reading something at the Cato Institute (love that place ) that said about $6,000 per household is being misused either by abuse or fraud in the Medicaid and Medicare programs......!