You can't bring stuff like that up!! Its just not fair.

Entitlement programs=popular

War=unpopular

 

There in lies the problem. Too many people with this attitude.

Who benefits from the money, spent here, on entitlement programs? The poor, who end up relying on that hand out rather than learning to take part in our society?

I think that it's a damn shame that people would support wasting money. Wasting money on anything. It's even more of a shame that that opinion appears to be shared by a majority in this country.

I work too damn hard for my money. I don't support wasting tax money on anyone or anything. If I thought that the government was wasting money on one thing I sure as hell wouldn't support them wasting more money "on us".

What the hell is wrong with people? What's with the high school mentality? How could anyone support wasting money on anything?

So, Iraq was wrong and 360 billion has been wasted. The war on poverty is ok, it only costs us a trillion dollars a year for the past fourty plus years?

 

Well, we all know he can't just yank the troops out- there would be (even more) blood on our hands, because as sure as I'm typing, Iraq would fall into civil war...

However, who's to say that won't happen even with a gradual withdrawal? the fact is, Saddam- as bad as he was, was the stabilizing force in Iraq. Without him (or someone like him) there, and an insignificant military- as soon as we leave (if Civil War doesn't claim Iraq, and a new government arises from the ashes and blood) Turkey, Iran, or Syria will likely invade Iraq- and bloodshed then will be even more atrocious.

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So, the way I see it, we have three choices.

1. We can stay in Iraq permanently (See Germany, Korea, Japan, Italy, etc...), until the insurgents die off in the next 40 - 50 years, and their citizens learn to co-exist with us peacefully as is teh case in the nations I mentioned above.

2. We can pull out gradually, and hopefully Iraq is ready to handle most of it's own problems. If not let the civil war ensue (See Vietnam). Except, in this case the government we leave in place shoudl crush the unorganized, and poorly equipped/trained opposition- and give rise to a new democracy there.

3. We can pull out suddenly, and let Iraq collapse into civil war, and when the dust settles, see who we have to deal with next.

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Either way, some blood will be on our hands... But, the truth will remain that even though Obama inherited this mess- we know where this BS started. We, the American people, were misled- then our leaders took us to war with no exit strategy- unless that was the plan all along.


No other President has tried to abolish entitlement programs... Why do you expect (or not expect) Obama to do anything about it. No one else has.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like folks (chilling) on welfare either. But, I do think no one is immune to some tough luck. As long as folks use it only as long as they need it, then get off it once they have jobs, then I'm cool with it. when it comes to welfare & food stamps, I have a problem with system abusers, and payments to illegals...

I'm all for setting limitations on it, but I think abolishment of these programs is not only stupid, and unlikely, but unnecessary and a knee-jerk reaction.

 

If you dont give the money back to help the programs that need it , some low ball piece of politician sh&& that will grease his pockets with it.. Support groups that stand for something like kids who want to go to better schools, education... Why do you think China is so smart.... I stand in the grocery store every week behind a 500lb waoman with 10 fat kids and a handful of food stamps, the could give a care less about politics, much less know whats going on .. But take her check away and put her to work she will find out reality real quick... I would not want to support this either.. But to go to Iraq , blow up all the junk we blew up and then do something stupid like go back and try to rebuild it... I bet if Iraq bombed us they would nt be over here rebuilding what they blew up.. In my 42 years of life I have seen a bunch of bull crap, but there is a time to give up, These dang people do not want our help... If they do thay sure have a funny way of showing.. Who benifits from all this.. ????

 

How much should be spent on this losing war? Do we really have a say in this >>> I bet someone somewhere is greasing there pockets off of this war..

How long should the fight continue? What fighting, they do not want us there , they are mad because we are preventing them from killing each other.. We need to stop playing world police..

Should Obama continue funding a losing proposition? i dont think he is going to have a choice... VEEEEEEETOooooo

When will some one talk about an exit strategy? Maybe if Obama suggested it and it gets shot down a few times and the NAACP steps in then the boys will come home .. Everybody seems to be scarred of the NAACP>.

 

I think over the last week there have been some pretty stupid/ignorant post, maybe I even posted a few, but this is the winner!

Congratulations!!!

 

I agree I think you should drive to Washington DC and tell them what you think.. I am sure they will listen..

 

The unsavory prospects of war profiteering in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, and its alleged "reconstruction", were proclaimed in a January 21, 2004 press release by the Institute for Southern Studies: a "New Investigation Reveals 'Reconstruction Racket' in Iraq." The latest issue of the Institute's publication "Southern Exposure" provides an "in-depth report by Pratap Chatterjee and Herbert Docena ... one of the first on-the-ground accounts of how U.S. taxpayer money given to Bechtel, Halliburton and other companies is being spent."

An "investigative team spent three weeks in Iraq visiting project sites, analyzing contracts, and interviewing dozens of administrators, contract workers, and U.S. officials. Among the findings:

Despite over eight months of work and billions of dollars spent, key pieces of Iraq's infrastructure - power plants, telephone exchanges, and sewage and sanitation systems - have either not been repaired, or have been fixed so poorly that they don't function.
San Francisco-based Bechtel has been given tens of millions to repair Iraq's schools. Yet many haven't been touched, and several schools that Bechtel claims to have repaired are in shambles. One 'repaired' school was overflowing with unflushed sewage; a teacher at the school also reported that 'the American contractors took away our Japanese fans and replaced them with Syrian fans that don't work' - billing the U.S. government for the work.
Inflated overhead costs and a byzantine maze of sub-contracts have left little money for the everyday workers carrying out projects. In one contract for police operations, Iraqi guards received only 10% of the money allotted for their salaries; Indian cooks for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root reported making just three dollars a day.
"The [Southern Exposure] report also reveals further details of Halliburton's contracts: for example, that of Halliburton's $2.2 billion in contracts, only about 10% has gone to meeting community needs - the rest being spent on servicing U.S. troops and rebuilding oil pipelines. Halliburton has also spent over $40 million in the unsuccessful search for weapons of mass destruction.
"'A handful of well-connected corporations are making a killing off the devastation in Iraq' observes Chris Kromm, publisher of 'Southern Exposure'. 'The politics and process behind these deals have always been questionable. Now we have first-hand evidence that they're not even doing their jobs.'"

Quoted from the Washington Post

 

I didn't need to wittom, to understand your point.. I will read it when I get thru the page. The war on poverty is much more expensive than the war in Iraq... Correct?

 

wow... reading most of that article it is really disheartning to see so many of you think it is ok for this "war on poverty" to continue as is. Especially when giving food stamps and welfare checks do very little to help. It is a band aide. How about spend the money for a cure? like even government sponsored jobs that make a product for profit.... oh wait... the naacp or the aclu would say that your infringing on there "rights" if you make them work for what they recieve. Sick stuff.

 

Much more.

The "war on poverty" has been fought since 1964, but people responded to my thread talking about Iraq. Why? Because we've been bombarded for the past five years with negitive reports about Iraq. We rarely hear anything good from the media about what's happening in Iraq. We occationally hear from soldiers who have been doing all the work there, tell us of the sucesses that they've had over the years.

It's not up to me to decide that Iraq was a waste. I tend to believe that all the hard work and sacrifice that our military men and women have done on our behalf, will some day come to fruition. I could be wrong. I'd guess that it'll be far less than fourty four years before we can accurately lable it a success or failure.

People don't even know what the war on poerty is. It might not seem relevant to people in this country but we should all look at how an Obama adminstration is going to perceive the war on poverty. Based on rhetoric used in the campaign, there appears to be the potential to increase spending on the war on poverty rather than seek an exit stragety or use different tactics.

The article that I linked in the opening of this thread says that there has been more than a trillion dollars a year spent on tax payer funded programs for the poor. There has been over 600 billion spent a year on the programs that are within the scope of the war on poverty. There has been too much money spent for a war that can't be won. For all the "dissent" that we hear about Iraq, people don't seem to know, or care about how much is being spent on what was perhaps good intentions, but is ultimately a failed stragety.

I guess we'll just continue to talk about Iraq and ignore a trillion a year that's being spent on a failed stragety right here in our own front yard.

I'm still waiting to hear about some "change".

 

With all of the problems in the world today, the Obama adminstration will fail faster than you are wishing if they take on every issue now without creating an order of importance.

 

In the world? I though we weren't going to be the worlds police any longer? I thought that Obama was going to make things right in OUR country?

The issue that needs to be taken on now is the economy. Remember, Clinton beat HW Bush because "it's the economy, stupid"?

Six hundred billion, yearly, to fight poverty. A combined trillion dollars, yearly, to "support" the poor. That's not wasteful?

 

Whoa buddy. Your 'thread' had four questions I addressed after your second request for response. You were too cryptic about what you were after.

As to the article, you are free to believe whatever you want,
I take issue when you tout it as the 'truth'.

The author took FEDERAL defense spending and put it on one side of the scale.

He then took (entitlement programs, social security, state and local taxes,medicare,private charity contributions, unfunded medical care, the Public school system) put it on the other side of the scale.
and made the call.

The 'Public School System' ? He threw in the friggin public school system and you still didn't blink?
Wittom, what in hell is the matter with you?

Defense Spending is greater than Welfare spending, period.
You are smarter than to buy into this tripe.

 

I thought that I was being creative, not cryptic. I posted a link to the article that i was referencing. I also quoted a passage from that article. The title and subject were in bold. I thought that people would have seen that. Apparently I was wrong because people seem to have hit the reply button before they finished reading. I'm sorry that it seemed cryptic.

I picked an article that is one of thousands on the internet. It was merely something to get a discussion going. I don't believe that I'd said that the article was true or faulse. I just used the numbers that the author used.

What I saw was the author trying to put a trillion dollars in perspective. He said that it's twice our spending on national defense. He then mentioned that his figures, on the other side of the scale, do not measure total spending on these programs but only the expenditures benefiting those in the lowest fifth of the income distribution

What I saw was mention of the cost of educating the children of low-income families. It's unfair to deny an education based on income, but it seems to me that it would be a valid figure when calculating what the "war on poverty" has cost the taxpayers.

Defense spending, in theory, is to protect me, and all of us. Welfare spending is to.... protect me and all of us from the unwashed masses? Is it to help people become productive members of our society? If that's it, when?

It's not fair to point out a failure of our government with this war on poverty? Perhaps someone can find justification for half a trillion in spending on the war on poverty. So then, are we supposed to feel better that it's only a half a trillion dollars a year being spent on a failed stragety?

Just like you and people like you are concerned about the ramifications from Iraq, I'm concerned about the ramifications of all this spending that our government is doing and has been doing. It seems likely that an Obama adminstration will spend even more money. I'm concerned that our money will be spent on more programs like the war on poverty. It's bad enough that our government thinks it's ok to spend billions/trillions bailing out entities who failed, with our money. Why are we ok that the government want's to give every individual who has failed, a peice of our pie as well?

A "change" that I would like to see is government doing a better job of reaching the people who really need our help and eliminating the allowance for people to take advantage of us. Significant cuts to spending on failed programs would be a good start.