Quote:Since Donald Trump became president, the Dow Jones industrial average has climbed to 25,000 and fewer Americans are unemployed.

Another interesting fact: The number of people collecting food stamps has declined by more than two million.

Data released by the Department of Agriculture show that the number of participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, dropped to 42,182,443 for fiscal 2017 – a decline of 2,036,920 from the fiscal 2016 total of 44,219,363.


USDA figures since show that the program has gone from costing taxpayers about $250 million for about 2.8 million recipients in 1969, under President Richard Nixon, to a peak of costing nearly $80 billion for nearly 48 million recipients in 2013, under President Barack Obama.

The numbers have declined since then, in part because of the booming economy and because some states have restored work requirements needed to qualify for SNAP, Fox News reported. In many cases the work requirements had been waived because of the recession of 2007-09.

The 2017 figure of 42.1 million people assisted is the lowest figure since 2010, when the program assisted 40.3 million people at a cost to taxpayers of $68.2 billion.

President Trump has signaled that he wants to tighten eligibility rules for SNAP and have states contribute matching funds for the program – as ways of continuing to reduce the number of recipients, Governing.com reported.

Keep reading here...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...me/375600/

(01-05-2018 09:24 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...me/375600/

No need for that. All you have to do is to implement work requirements, and the welfare rolls drop like a rock and kids get pulled up out of poverty. This has worked in the past, and is currently working again.

(01-05-2018 09:24 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...me/375600/

I'll tell you exactly freaking why "reformicons" aren't pushing for UBI.

UBI it would just raise the baseline cost of poverty. This merely increases the supply of money and/or decreases the net wealth in the economy by increasing inflation, taxation and bureaucracy.

People in favor of UBI have never taken economics.

sounds like another real-life play-by-play analysis from the 'burg is now being backed up with real data....

nothing makes me happier when I pull up to a fully rented, sect 8 empty parking lot in the morn'.....

There should be work requirements or at least requirements to be actively searching for work to receive benefits if you are able bodied. I don’t actually understand the sound argument against that. I do think we should help those that either can’t help themselves or are trying to help themselves, but if they aren’t trying then that’s on them.

(01-05-2018 11:00 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  There should be work requirements or at least requirements to be actively searching for work to receive benefits if you are able bodied. I don’t actually understand the sound argument against that. I do think we should help those that either can’t help themselves or are trying to help themselves, but if they aren’t trying then that’s on them.

You wont find a conservative who disagrees with that. What we disagree with is the sheer number of people who claim to be invalids.

(01-05-2018 10:25 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 09:24 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...me/375600/

I'll tell you exactly freaking why "reformicons" aren't pushing for UBI.

UBI it would just raise the baseline cost of poverty. This merely increases the supply of money and/or decreases the net wealth in the economy by increasing inflation, taxation and bureaucracy.

People in favor of UBI have never taken economics.

So Milton Friedman doesn't understand economics?

(01-05-2018 11:36 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 10:25 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 09:24 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...me/375600/

I'll tell you exactly freaking why "reformicons" aren't pushing for UBI.

UBI it would just raise the baseline cost of poverty. This merely increases the supply of money and/or decreases the net wealth in the economy by increasing inflation, taxation and bureaucracy.

People in favor of UBI have never taken economics.

So Milton Friedman doesn't understand economics?

Why not just pay everyone $100,000 a year and we'd all be rich?

(01-05-2018 11:57 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 11:36 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 10:25 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 09:24 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...me/375600/

I'll tell you exactly freaking why "reformicons" aren't pushing for UBI.

UBI it would just raise the baseline cost of poverty. This merely increases the supply of money and/or decreases the net wealth in the economy by increasing inflation, taxation and bureaucracy.

People in favor of UBI have never taken economics.

So Milton Friedman doesn't understand economics?

Why not just pay everyone $100,000 a year and we'd all be rich?

Work requirements are pretty standard in industrialized countries but none do as screwed up job of it as the United States.

Most of those beacons pointed about by the Bernie fans require ongoing skills training or showing up at the job services office so many hours per week to apply for jobs and the government makes that training available instead of offering to subsidize your loan to get that training.

We not only have a crap system of getting benefit recipients work ready and except in big layoffs suck at retraining workers we also have seen the vocational rehabilitation system gutted so people with disabilities have less access to training that would help them become employable.

We could drive unemployment down and disability down with an investment.
Approval rates for disability have been dropping since ACA and the Medicaid expansion.

(01-05-2018 12:05 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 11:57 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 11:36 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 10:25 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 09:24 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...me/375600/

I'll tell you exactly freaking why "reformicons" aren't pushing for UBI.

UBI it would just raise the baseline cost of poverty. This merely increases the supply of money and/or decreases the net wealth in the economy by increasing inflation, taxation and bureaucracy.

People in favor of UBI have never taken economics.

So Milton Friedman doesn't understand economics?

Why not just pay everyone $100,000 a year and we'd all be rich?

It's not printing money. It's fixing waste. We are already spending this money with little to no effect on poverty.

(01-05-2018 01:18 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 12:05 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 11:57 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 11:36 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 10:25 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  I'll tell you exactly freaking why "reformicons" aren't pushing for UBI.

UBI it would just raise the baseline cost of poverty. This merely increases the supply of money and/or decreases the net wealth in the economy by increasing inflation, taxation and bureaucracy.

People in favor of UBI have never taken economics.

So Milton Friedman doesn't understand economics?

Why not just pay everyone $100,000 a year and we'd all be rich?

It's not printing money. It's fixing waste. We are already spending this money with little to no effect on poverty.

how does that create incentive in a capitalist society?

jfc man....you need to move to VZ and be done with it....

(01-05-2018 01:18 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  It's not printing money. It's fixing waste. We are already spending this money with little to no effect on poverty.

If everyone gets a UBI of let's say $35,000, then $35,000 becomes the new poverty level. It doesn't fix anything.

(01-05-2018 01:23 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 01:18 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 12:05 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 11:57 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 11:36 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  So Milton Friedman doesn't understand economics?

Why not just pay everyone $100,000 a year and we'd all be rich?

It's not printing money. It's fixing waste. We are already spending this money with little to no effect on poverty.

how does that create incentive in a capitalist society?

jfc man....you need to move to VZ and be done with it....

The first argument that UBI or NIT has going for it is elimination of many layers of Federal, state, county, and municipal government in place to verify eligibility and continuing eligibility as well as eliminating the inefficiency of wildly varying eligibility rules across programs.

The second is that a person who knows they won't land on the streets is more likely to take the plunge and create a business. The US tends to be toward the bottom of OECD nations in small business creation and success.

What I find interesting is that the small samples so far seem to indicate the amount to be effective with a UBI scheme may be lower than once believed.
https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-t...overnment/

I cannot see the US adopting a straight UBI or NIT, the Negative Income Tax of the Earned Income Credit which is tied to work is probably the more politically palatable.

We are going to get some new EIC data thanks to the new tax bill which beefs it up (seriously significant poverty program that got virtually no coverage) though it's still tied to having dependent kids.

Just place that lazy S bro-in-law to work. He has anger problems he says, so do most workers that have to work to eat. We don't like going to work either and that made/makes us angry...especially with traffic but that's still no excuse. He can pick up garbage all by his lonesome if he can't stand people.

I call him "el useless" to my wife and I'm surprised she doesn't disagree perhaps it's because she's worked for everything we have.

While I despise people that abuse this system....I understand that the amount of money is tiny compared to our national budget. The problem is that it is a "in your face" abuse. It is my fervent hope that at some point we have a national conversation on not only this type of abuse...but also governmental waste, foolish spending and redundant government programs. The military budget must also be involved in that discussion in a pretty large way.

Bottom line....We piss away and misappropriate enormous sums of money in this country that could be used to solve a lot of our current problems. Neither gang however has the BALLS to actually cut the budget. The MAIN problem? LACK OF LEADERSHIP!!! We have none currently. What we have is a gang turf war.