Quote:First off, there are TONS of welfare citizens who just sit on their gov't check and do nothing. If you don't believe that, you're dreaming.

This is the belief that leads you to your conclusions. But it is a belief. You haven't backed that up with any real evidence.

Quote:What I will say though is that if they want a job, they'll find one soon enough though. I looked in today's Fayetteville Morning News...over 6 pages of "Help Wanted'' ads. There are jobs out there..people just need to jump up and take them.

The unemployment rate is 6.2 percent. That means 6.2 percent of the Americans who are looking for a job have not found one.

By no definition is that full employment.

Quote:I agree there needs to be a safety net for children and extremely poor families, and especially those who suffered in a natural disaster (aka a tornado, hurricane, etc.). Where I stand though is that this net is too damn big, soft, and people are not getting out of it.

Is the net too soft? Or are people unable to get out of it? Those are two very different concepts.

Before the welcare reform law President Clinton signed into law in 1996, a single parent with no particular skills to speak of could grab a near minimum wage job. But, in doing so, she would also have to forgo her health insurance and spend most of the money she had left on day care.

Is this the net being soft, or is this people simply being unable to get out of it?

Soft in context, maybe. But soft? Poverty is soft?

I'd argue the real answer is the later -- it was just damn hard to get out.

Welfare reform did help. It made money available to those who needed help for day care. It also allowed people to earn some money and stay on Medicaid, at least for a while. It blunted the disincentives to work.

The welfare rolls shrank a great deal. Part of this was due to the reforms I've just mentioned. Part of this was also the roaring Clinton economy, which made more jobs available, forcing wages up for the sort of no-skill jobs people on the welfare rolls are qualified to do.

The jobs aren't there any more, and the welfare rolls are growing again.

Quote:Don't you get even a LITTLE frustrated at having to spend money you earn so a guy can sit on his couch, eat chips and dip all day, not life a finger, and get your $$ for doing that?

No. You make poverty sound luxurious. It isn't.

Quote:I never said we should eliminate welfare. I do say we should limit it..put a time frame on it, so that people have to make something for themselves eventually.

Welfare reform included time limits -- no more than two years in a row, and five years in a lifetime.

I don't tend to see these time limits as as much of factor in getting people off the welare rolls.

Quote:Also... how DARE you tell me any of my views are un-Christian. That's going too low. I disagree with your views...but far-left radical, and socialist is my limit. Challenging my faith is WAY over the line, and you should be ashamed for saying a remark like that.

I apologize if you inferred that I was calling you unChristian.

But I'm not going to apologize for my interpretation of the lessons that Jesus taught us.

Would Jesus support a massive tax cut for the rich, greater taxes for the poor, and cuts in services that those of us who are not rich depend on?

I just don't believe he would. I don't.

Compassion for the poor is a heavy theme to the life of Jesus -- and throwing out our income tax to pay for a sales tax lacks that compassion on many levels. This is my belief.

I don't believe Jesus would support such a thing.

Quote:And, by the way... about taxes for the rich/poor....in the early Biblical times, the rich and the poor paid the EXACT same amount in taxes. Check it out

"The rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than the half shekel, when you give the contribution to the LORD to make atonement for yourselves." (Exodus 30:15)

This is not a commentary on what rich and poor owe Caesar. This is a commentary on what they owe the Lord.

11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

12 When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.

13 This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of the LORD.

14 Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the LORD.

15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.

16 And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.

I'm not a Bible scholar, but I know enough to know that a half-shekel isn't much money. A gerah is equal to about three American cents according to this source:

<a href='http://www.htmlbible.com/kjv30/nave/nave1985.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.htmlbible.com/kjv30/nave/nave1985.htm</a>

If so, we are talking about 30 cents from rich and poor.

Other sources put the value as "two days labor." Even that isn't a lot of money.

These are symbolic donations to the Lord. That appears to be a common Jewish interpretation of the verse. The money was used to maintain the temple, I believe -- and, notably, not for welfare or Israeli defense.

One could not run the U.S. military on two days labor per person -- to say nothing of 30 cents per person.

Quote:How about we go back to everyone paying the same amount of taxes, rich or poor, in Biblical times? You'd freak out then wouldn't you?

The first federal income tax came during the Lincoln administration. It was progressive. It levied 3 percent on all income over $800, thus exempting most Americans.

<a href='http://www.tax.org/Museum/1861-1865.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.tax.org/Museum/1861-1865.htm</a>

This was, roughly, the structure of the federal income tax when it returned in 1913.

If you want to take our national tax system back to 1,000 years before Christ, that's your right to lobby for it.

I'm satisfied with Abraham Lincoln's model.