Your attempt to emote on me doesn't change the fact that the man flat stated, "we won" which pretty much negates the idea of his "crossing the aisle". He believed that there was no need to work with them.
Perhaps we have a different definition of what “working with” means. The goal is determined by the winner. The means of how to accomplish that goal is where “working with” enters the picture. The Repubs refused to participate. Their goal was to obstruct, nothing more.
Again, nobody here has said we shouldn't help people, you are just trying to build a straw man to argue.
Again, the GOP agreed, thus added a plan for actual jobs to the safety net.
Helping people is an immediate need. As others have said it’s fine to plan and work on the economy picking up in a year but people have to eat during that year. What progress would be made if jobs were available next year if people lost everything this year that they worked over a decade to obtain? Losing one’s home involves losing the down payment it took them years to save. The immediate problem is stopping the losses and things like extending UI greatly helps.
This is another straw man, you quote a portion of my post about green energy research and talk about medical care in a fashion that ignores what I have stated about it. We are in a unique position to create unique solutions far better than the failing social program models of Europe.
I agree but the various people in government have always been in the position to create unique solutions and nothing was ever done. Now that health care is moving towards a government system it will motivate people to seek out alternative solutions. There is a timetable in place. There were no consequences prior to that. Things were left to just drift along which perfectly suited those who didn’t want any change. Why would one look for alternative solutions when they’re happy with the status quo? That was the Repub position. Any and all Dem suggestions were objected to because the Repubs didn’t want any change, at least not changes that would result in everyone having medical coverage. As long as medical coverage is treated like anything else acquired through capitalistic means, a situation where people strive and some succeed and some do not, there will be unnecessary death and suffering.
Look at the legal system. Everyone is entitled to representation. Imagine if lawyers were not appointed for those who could not afford one. If the government believes everyone has the right to professional assistance in order to avoid being wrongly imprisoned surely one has a right to medical care to avoid unnecessary suffering and premature death.
No the problem in Greece is the entitlement programs went out of control. People were retiring at 45 and expecting a lifetime of benefits, it isn't sustainable. They are rioting because the government cannot continue to pay for such enormous "entitlements" and they don't want to lose them. It is, in fact, a direct example of how the "guaranteed wage" you promoted in the other thread would fail.
It would depend on the amount of the guaranteed wage. There’s no way a 45 year old who has been working 20 or 25 years and grown accustomed to a middle class lifestyle is going to be content living on a government, guaranteed wage. If a person earned, say, $50,000/yr they would not be content to live on $20,000/yr. at 45 years of age.
People are driven to acquire more. A new car. A vacation. New furnishings. They would not be capable of obtaining those things on $20,000/yr. Would you stay at home and do nothing if you were given just enough to survive? Healthy, happy people want more. They want to acquire things, do things. Look at wealthy people. They are busy doing things whether it’s former movie stars directing movies or others volunteering their time in foreign countries. Ensuring people have a decent standard of living does not mean they’re going to be content and do nothing.
It's silly to say that. During the 90s things changed. Taxes were raised in the beginning of it, and congress worked to actually attempt to balance a budget. Unfortunately they did it by making social security into an IOU program and spending that money in the general funds. And were unsuccessful, we still borrowed each and every year. Yeah, even those years where they had a budget surplus. There is a difference between reality and budget, if you spend more than budgeted and have to borrow, you really haven't balanced anything, you've increased the debt.
The focus has to be on how the money is spent. Rather than start new programs ensure the poor and ill are taken care of first. It’s nonsense to say the government shouldn’t have a program to look after the poor because the government can’t manage money. It’s time to change the government. When the government, be it local, State or Federal, decides to erect a statue or build a road or change the street lights and sidewalks on Main Street the first thing the people should do is question if the poor have been looked after.
Entitlement programs can be changed. If everyone receives a pension and some people are earning $20,000/yr including their pension and others are earning $200,000 including the government pension tax back the amount of the pension from the latter. Some countries already do that. Again, the poor and ill can be looked after. It’s not a case of no money. It’s case of the money not being used properly.
Rubbish, he has no care at all and his focus only turned to job creation when he could benefit from it.
People here have listed Obama’s accomplishments in other threads. It’s rather humorous to hear people say Obama is leading the country to socialism and in the next breath say he hasn’t done anything. In any case his priority is to get programs in place to help the poor. Regardless of what is done to increase jobs many of the lost jobs are not coming back. All one has to do is look around to see what needs to be done. Do we have a shortage of cars or appliances or food or houses (except for the poor) or anything else? In order to have a job there has to be something that requires doing. To put people to work in McDonalds so one can get their burger one minute sooner is a waste of human potential. Furthermore, if a community can support an additional McDonalds employee that means the community can support that individual whether they work or not.
Society is changing. It is not necessary for everyone to work or, put another way, there are not enough jobs for everyone. So, what do we do? Goods and services are still readily available so no one is missing those people not working. So, what do we do concerning those folks? Society has to adjust to the situation where people who don’t have a job are still able to live relatively decently. Food, shelter, clothing, etc. There are plenty of those things available even with those people not working. Houses are being left to rot, others immediately destroyed because someone can’t afford them. It’s insane.
I don't argue against "top of the list", only in implementation through centralization. We have and should use our unique position to find the most effective solution to implement rather than continuing to promote centralized programs that would ensure wait periods like they have in Canada, or failure like they have in Greece...
Ideally, yes. However, people have been conditioned to believe one either works or does without. The capitalist mentality has taken root so deeply that people can’t understand major changes have taken place. The work ethic was not based on making money. It was based on survival. That is not the case anymore. Everyone does not have to work so what do we do?
As a rosy-eyed Liberal even I know people can’t count on the good will of their neighbors, at all times, so the government (society) has to be there. Lack of a job does not mean a person is lazy. It means there’s no job to be done.
An analogy may be two people living 100 years ago. With six kids the mother is cooking and cleaning and washing clothes and doing other chores all day. The father is plowing and planting and tending the animals from dawn to dusk. Very few mothers and fathers are doing that today. It doesn’t mean they’re lazy. It means those jobs no longer require doing.
The problem is how do we adjust to the new society. If a person is jobless because there isn’t any job for them to do they still require food and shelter and medical care, etc. Either they’re provided or the money necessary to acquire them is provided. A person’s fate can’t be dependent on whether or not they work when jobs are not available and/or nothing requires being done.
Jobs are a temporary solution, at best, as there will be fewer and fewer jobs that require being done by human beings. The purpose of a job has changed from something that required doing to nothing more than a way to make money regardless of its benefit. That’s fine as long as a person’s survival does not depend on it.
