A large percentage of that Welfare goes to a particular Senator’s district
Roger Wicker
- Thread starter SwampDawg
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Senators don't have "districts"
3 truths about all this:
1. The bill is over 4000 pages. Not a single one of us has read it all and understands it all. Don't even waste your time saying otherwise. Therefore...
2. The only knowledge we have of this bill is from our respective biased news sources. They will pick and choose the items that support their views and ignore anything that doesn't.
3. Both parties do indeed suck.
1. The bill is over 4000 pages. Not a single one of us has read it all and understands it all. Don't even waste your time saying otherwise. Therefore...
2. The only knowledge we have of this bill is from our respective biased news sources. They will pick and choose the items that support their views and ignore anything that doesn't.
3. Both parties do indeed suck.
I’m talking about us being a net drain on the federal government taking way more than we pay in. Federal government pays for a lot of what we take for granted, roads being one. I’ve never seen anyone so up in arms about getting federal money that they wouldn’t use the roads to prove they are truly independent, but feed a few poor folks and whoa what are we thinking here folks? Can’t have a bunch of mooches. I’m suggesting that if you live in MS anywhere, except maybe off the grid using no resources but what you find on your land, you are taking federal welfare.
Our system is a joke. We need to get away from two parties but that want happen. There is to much money to be made when you have a bad guy. Democrats suck, Republicans suck, Fox News suck, CNN sucks, daily wire sucks, and so fourth. There is to much money to be made for them to help the common man.
I imagine most people would support taxes (and loans in our children's names) to pay for highways and food for the poor to keep them from starving. It's the money for giving drugs to dogs and studying parrot breeding habits that touches the nerve.
i do get your point, and I'm all for spending money here in the USA. I'm not for sending all of this money overseas, a large portion of which gets funneled back to these politicians in the form of kickbacks. also, how's the populace gonna feel when we're full blown socialist, like Venezuela? i suspect they won't like it. but, it will be too late, then. there's a saying. you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.
$500M to set up more abortion clinics in areas needing population control to aid endangered species. Yet Dems saying we need open borders because Americans aren't reproducing enough.
Exactly. My guess is with term limits their influence would increase. I also expect politicians would become even more corrupt. They would have to make hay while the sun shines.
Our form of government is the worst that has ever been tried, except for all the others. What we REALLY need to do is to quit listening to the people from all over the political spectrum who keep telling us how bad things are here. There is a reason we have an uncontrolled immigration problem and not an uncontrolled emigration problem.
We are already full blown socialist, and have been for decades. What we aren't is full blown despotic socialist.
We are full blown socialist country now? Please explain…. But not in your opinion. Please explain using the actual definition of so socialism.
Where would Mississippi, and Mississippi State, be without all those federal dollars pouring in? I get that Republicans are angry. They tend to fall for bumper-sticker-ready slogans and posturing, especially when someone on their team expresses anger about something going on in government or universities. A lot of them like anger. Democrats don't really care about spending, well some grumble about defense spending, and now support big business and Wall Street for throwing a bit of change at Black Lives Matter and other social causes they like. They like appearing virtuous in public. They really think they're more moral than most Americans, especially educated white progressive women. Republicans point out potential problems with legislation and spending. Dems just move on to the next spending program if problems arise. They dont' care and don't look back. We had a federal surplus on Sept 10, 2001, and a national debt of around $5 trillion and declining. Ask yourself why we're never getting back to that any time soon and maybe put a large amount of blame on the party you support. Leaders respond to donations and activism. Biden has no clue about some of the woke things he says. The woke activists get his attention. The rich donors make sure Republicans cut their taxes when they're in power. Republicans like tax cuts, restrictions on abortion, easy access to guns and unfunny memes and insults of their political opponents. Dems have a much broader array of things they support and for some reason Republicans seem surprised when Dems do things they say they'll do (student loan relief). Neither is really serious about reducing spending.
We're not socialist. Europe isn't socialist. We have a market-based economy that's regulated and generates incredible wealth that government captures to a significant degree to fund various social welfare programs.
I'm not an open borders guy. Some immigration is needed. But, why haven't Republicans come up with some immigration plan? Of course Democrats are more likely to support increased immigration. Why haven't Republicans done something about that? Why do Republican voters give them a pass and just blame Democrats for being Democrats? Republican voters, to me, expect too little from their elected leaders. "Let's Go Brandon" t-shirts don't reduce immigration or government spending. FYI, the business community like immigration because it keeps wages down. The business community tells Republicans what to do more than the average Republican voter does.
When Hispanic immigrants start voting Republican, Democrats will build a wall faster than you can fart Yankee Doodle Dandy
We are socialist. You can have a market based economy and still have socialism, and we do. What do you think Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Welfare and on and on and on are? You said it yourself, social welfare programs. That is socialism. What we argue about is the degree of socialism now, not socialism itself. That ship sailed long ago. If you had to pin me down.....it sailed when the 16th amendment was ratified.
What do you think Social Security, Medicare, the federal highway program, and Medicaid are, to name a few? We have a capitalist economy with a socialist government. it's been that way for a long time.
Those are social welfare programs. We aren't socialist. We don't have communal ownership of the means of production. Having social welfare programs doesn't make a country socialist. Learn the definition of the word. It doesn't mean "stuff I don't like and want to discredit." Socialism was tried elsewhere and didn't work out so well.
I agree with you by definition, but you would come across differently if you weren't trying to be so argumentative. I think the posters above really mean communism or more extreme socialist policies, rather than the textbook definition of socialism. Yes, we tax and the government regulates, so technically we have a hint of the meaning of socialism in some aspects, but that's not generally how it's accepted. The government does not control businesses.
Just make the point rather than trying to argue about the meaning of socialism. Just like earlier in this thread, somebody accidently called Bennie Thompson a senator, and of course people jump on that rather than his point. It's like grammar smack.
What's been lost here is
Social welfare programs are by definition socialism. You need to learn the real definition of the word. What we are arguing about is the degree of socialism. We are not a despotic planned economy socialist country. There is a big difference between communism and socialism.
What's your model of a non-socialist country that doesn't collect income taxes? Really, the 16th amendment. Wow. I can't believe anyone enjoys life, has kids, goes to work, does largely what they want with that 16th amendment terrorizing us and making us socialist. How did we ever survive as a nation? I want to go back to that super-awesome time before Woodrow took over. Too many Americans dwell in the realm of extremes. Obama raised my taxes a bit. I went on enjoying life. Trump lowered them. I went on enjoying life without embracing some extremist position on where the country was headed or what it had become.
Yes, they are confusing socialism and communism. I posted that in my previous answer above before reading your post. That people don't know the difference between the two is a pet peeve of mine.
Socialism is not the same as communism. I don't want to go back to the time before the 16th either.
I suspect that we are philosophically more aligned than you would think. Food for thought. Pre-Constantine, the church had requirements to meet the needs of the poor and needy and did. Constantine got converted and started forcing that function into government. Pretty good deal if you can force Christian principles into a pluralistic population and get people without those same beliefs and principles to foot part of the bill. The US adopted European influenced social services and now, to a large extent, conservative "Christians" rail against them. But they are Biblically based. There's quite a bit of dissonance.
I believe that the power that Constantine gave to Christianity, for the first time ever, began to attract people who were more interested in power than following Christ. Fast forward to our country, 70's/80's rise of the Moral Majority and Religious Right and we have a bunch of people who use Christianity as a way to attract enough people so that they can get into and maintain power. They keep saying Christianish things, while making power grabs and I've just gotten sick of the nationalism, us v them, as if we aren't all just humans with different opinions about how to make things better. It's a racket and I'm not participating in it any longer.
The basis of this whole argument is that we are using two different definitions of socialism. That we have socialist policies means that we are socialist. What we aren't is communist. Those two are not and never have been synonymous. We also aren't despotic. By strict definition if you are using public funds for social welfare programs then you are socialist.
The term that really fits us is Social Democracy, except we aren't a democracy, we are a republic.
That's another whole argument.
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But the United States isn’t “full blown socialist” like you said either. Almost every European country is much much more socialist than the United States.
Let it go. You don't get to invent your own definition of words and ideologies.
I’m willing to wager that no one on Earth has read all 4000 pages. Yet.
but everyone that voted knows exactly which pages are important to them.
I bet no one read all of the tax cut bill that Trump and the Republicans pushed through several years ago. Where was everyone with that bill? And I’m not disagreeing with the tax cuts, I’m just making the point that no matter the politics they have huge bills now with lots of pages of little pet projects and loopholes. It’s the world we live in now.
Europe isn't socialist. A couple of countries tried it and it didn't work. Canada isn't socialist. Having national healthcare doesn't make a country socialist. It's possible, as current and recent reality shows, to have market-based economies that produce sufficient wealth to provide social welfare programs. America and Canada spend about the same percentage of g.d.p. on social welfare programs. It's a system that works and provides stability and order although there is a tendency for governments to spend too much (we do, especially on wars that don't work out well). FYI, there is no libertarian paradise. The biggest chunk of our welfare state goes to the elderly. Try telling them to do without and see what happens. We also pay farmers not to farm. And yes we do have lazy people ripping off the system and people like Favre taking advantage of the system.
Yep, but the way I see it being a little socialist is about like being a little pregnant. We have almost every socialist policy that the Europeans do, we just don't spend as much money % wise on them as they do. The only real difference is the qualification line.
Agreed. European countries aren’t socialist either they again….have social programs.
Sweden and Norway have a great balance of highly competitive capitalism mixed with social programs.
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