Richard Branson: America, give out free cash

WildRose · 2018-07-05T05:31:15.825Z

Jezcoe:

WildRose:

Jezcoe:

WildRose:

StarLord:

lol - I almost posted this a couple of hours ago, but then decided to see what cons head would blow up first. Well worth the wait!

Bad news cons… This is where the world is heading whether you like it or not.

Just think of the poor coal miners and their hungry babies.

Those coal miners aren’t looking for a handout, they want to go back to work digging coal.

Too bad for them, fewer and fewer people are buying their product.

Well no kidding. Obama nearly succeeded in his promise to kill the industry through regulation. Fortunately a lot of that is being undone but it won’t result in plants that had to be refit to meet the new regulations.

We will likely though see some that were simply shut down coming back online.

Natural Gas did more to kill the use of coal than anything.

Coal is really really dirty and moving away from socializing the environmental costs… as in those who burn coal have gotten a free ride for decades… is simply balancing the equation.

That is completely untrue. Those coal plants were profitable and had decades of use left in them when Obama’s regulations forced them to shut down or convert to NG.

Converting coal fired plants to NG or replacing them with NG fired plants is an enormously expensive proposition and they didn’t make those choices until they were forced to do so for a reason.

WildRose · 2018-07-05T05:39:32.016Z

altair1013:

WildRose:

You mean like the war on poverty has paid for itself and increased economic growth?

The war on poverty failed because people in poverty have decided not to participate. If someone decides to drop out of school, do drugs, engage in criminal activity, fail to take advantage of career training, basically doing absolutely nothing to prepare for life. The results will be poverty or prison. Some people have no intention of working. That is the simple truth.

No, it has failed simply because so many have participated and for a great many they are comfortable with what is provided. In any given population there will be somewhere around 10-25% that will never do anything more than what is required to have the basics and since the gov’t is providing them food, water, housing, healthcare and a cash stipend they are “comfortable” where they are.

The whole system needs to be revamped, subsidizing poverty only gives us more of it.

Make welfare solely a hand up with work, education, job training etc and keep it limited to two years max, not just two years at a time, but max.

We aren’t “helping families” by teaching them to be dependent on the gov’t or by encouraging sloth and laziness by paying them for it.

WildRose · 2018-07-05T05:42:21.363Z

tnt:

You could apply the same argument to the tax cuts - there is a certain sector of tax cut recipients who are involved with drugs, and other illegal activities. guys like Bernie Maddoff. Now suddenly they are gonna be responsible and not use their gains to further their criminal activities?

It’s their money to start with.

WildRose · 2018-07-05T05:45:02.140Z

highroller:

So let me get this straight: Tax cuts that are paid to wealth/high earners by borrowing money (deficit spending) are good, but universal basic income is bad because we don’t know how to pay for it?

It just seems to me that this argument is always one sided without critical thought. Maybe I’m just missing a critical point of information.

No, 'Tax cuts" simply mean you get to keep more of what you earn. “Tax Credits” for the most part go to people who aren’t paying income tax to start with, or exceed whatever those in the lower brackets pay after their deductions are counted.

The latter is a direct cost to taxpayers.

The money belongs to those who earn it, not the gov’t.

WildRose · 2018-07-05T05:49:16.287Z

Janet_Miller:

Actually, “welfare”, strictly Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, has a work requirement, with the only exemption being for those with infants under age one in the house. Many people on welfare are employed, in general, underemployed.

I’m not sure where the idea that welfare is just “handed out for not doing anything” originates. Anecdote I live in Massachusetts and I think a former friend of mine had a handout mentality at least 20 years before the recession started in '08.

This woman actually got mad when she went to apply for Food Stamps and wasn’t given a book of coupons to use that day.

That’s right. You actually must submit proof of income (or non income, like ___________ either lost her job or is on unpaid leave), info like your apartment lease and bank statements, meaning it probably takes several weeks to even get an approval or denial letter.

To top it off, the Food Stamps office was practically in the T station, and she called me up to ask could I give her a ride home. Um, no. I’m meeting someone and you got yourself there, you can get yourself home.

But seriously. Where does this idea originate that it’s either 1) work, or 2) welfare? These programs have an income limit for participating, and it isn’t $0.00.

Obama killed the work requirement for welfare, I’m not sure if republicans have gotten it put back in yet.

The only welfare program that required work was TANF which is only a small part of the total package of welfare programs available.

reflechissez · 2018-07-05T05:53:56.562Z

Sigh.

FactCheck.org – 9 Aug 12

Does Obama's Plan 'Gut Welfare Reform'? - FactCheck.org

A Mitt Romney TV ad claims the Obama administration has adopted “a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements.” The plan does neither of those things. Work requirements are not simply being “dropped.” States may now change the...

Est. reading time: 10 minutes

WildRose · 2018-07-05T06:21:06.391Z

Learn something for a change.

reflechissez:

Sigh.

Does Obama's Plan 'Gut Welfare Reform'? - FactCheck.org

… .What is it that the administration’s July guidance suddenly seeks to change? At the core of the 1996 law are “participation rate requirements” that ensure that 30 to 40 percent of able-bodied TANF recipients must engage in any of 12 different “work activities” for 20 to 30 hours per week. The administration would exempt states from this requirement and encourage them to operate under alternative performance measures. For example, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has said that to bypass federal workfare requirements, a state would have to “move at least 20 percent more people from welfare to work compared to the state’s past performance.”…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-obama-has-gutted-welfore-reform/2012/09/06/885b0092-f835-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f2f3e18921ed

But Obama was not satisfied with rolling back the work requirement just for the food stamp program. On July 12, 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an “information memorandum” inviting states to apply for waivers to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

Buried in that memo was a single paragraph functionally gutting the federal welfare system’s overall work requirement.

The old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program also had nominal work requirements. But thanks to pages and pages of loopholes in the statute, any governor could use those loopholes to evade the work requirement.

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act changed all that by vastly simplifying what did, and did not, qualify as “work” for welfare’s work requirement.

It also set strict new work-participation rates for states that, if not met, would lead to reduced federal funding. It was these strict new welfare-to-work requirements that the Left always hated. …

So they put the definition of “work activities” for determining welfare eligibility in a separate section of the bill, Section 407, and explicitly said that Section 407 could not be waived.

But that is exactly what the Obama welfare memo did. It claimed that Section 1115 of the welfare reform law, a section granting the HHS secretary the power to grant waivers for state “demonstration projects,” also empowered waiving Section 407.

Notably absent from Section 1115’s list of sections of the welfare reform law that the HHS secretary may waive is Section 407.

Once Section 407 was killed, states were free to redefine “work” under the welfare law. In the past, states have successfully labeled such activities as “personal journaling,” “motivational reading” and “weightless promotion” as “work,” thus allowing them to receive full federal funding without actually getting anyone off welfare and into a job. If the Obama welfare memo stands, the 1996 welfare reform law will have been repealed by executive fiat. …

Washington Examiner – 25 Sep 13

Day 8: Obama edict repealed 1996 welfare reform's work requirement

Part eight of the Washington Examiner's 10-part series "With the Stroke of a Pen: How Obama abuses executive power to make the law of the land."

reflechissez · 2018-07-05T06:28:24.380Z

An opinion piece in the Post written by a fellow at the Heritage Foundation AND the Examiner! That’s quite a find.

WildRose · 2018-07-05T06:29:21.406Z

reflechissez:

An opinion piece in the Post written by a fellow at the Heritage Foundation AND the Examiner! That’s quite a find.

The facts are the facts so of course you have to attack the source since you don’t like the facts.

Like I said, learn something for a change.

reflechissez · 2018-07-05T06:30:31.516Z

My facts are better than your “facts.” As you’ve been told, stop getting such ■■■■■■ sources.

WildRose · 2018-07-05T06:32:42.904Z

Your “facts” are crap, the Obama administration did exactly what I said it did and you know it, now go troll someone else.

reflechissez · 2018-07-05T06:34:14.969Z

Funny fella.

JimmyC · 2018-07-05T07:01:25.039Z

Facts??? From an opinion piece by the Heritage Foundation and an Examiner article that is part of a series titled “With the Stroke of a Pen: How Obama abuses executive power to make the law of the land”???

reflechissez · 2018-07-05T07:09:26.691Z

No kidding. His sources are notoriously terrible.

Janet_Miller · 2018-07-05T12:42:04.440Z

The Food Stamp program had a welfare requirement?

I’m confused.

I thought TANF was the only welfare program that had that, & more needy families actually get Food Stamps than TANF.

highroller · 2018-07-05T12:49:27.387Z

So tax your future children for your benefit today. Well done.

altair1013 · 2018-07-06T15:11:58.588Z

WildRose:

No, 'Tax cuts" simply mean you get to keep more of what you earn. “Tax Credits” for the most part go to people who aren’t paying income tax to start with, or exceed whatever those in the lower brackets pay after their deductions are counted.

The latter is a direct cost to taxpayers.

The money belongs to those who earn it, not the gov’t.

We already give away free money. It’s called welfare. I’m surprised that Sir Richard has no heard of it.

highroller · 2018-07-06T16:36:20.896Z

There’s a five year lifetime limit on that.

Cratic3947 · 2018-07-06T16:49:25.394Z

Kind of like dems who want open borders and lock their doors…

dantes · 2018-07-06T16:53:58.896Z

Sort of. “Welfare” is not terribly specific. Sort of a catch all term. As a society, we’ve shied away from handing out cash. TANF still does but in the welfare reforms of the 90s it got scaled way back from its predecessor program. Most “welfare” isn’t cash. It’s housing subsidies, food stamps, etc.

The idea being that we already shell out a lot of money for the needy but in programs where we’ve decided what they should spend it on. As a conservative, maybe you’d agree that the individual actually knows how to spend the money more wisely for their individual situation. So why not just take all our welfare spending and turn it into cash and see what happens? There are some compelling reasons to get behind it.