Scrapping Welfare

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Here’s how welfare works in Canada.

Hardworking people like myself give as high as 30-35% of my money to the government on pain of penalty or even prison.

Then some slacker unemployed women make it their business to get pregnant multiple times and have babies out of wedlock because they get free money from the money the government took from me.

Yes, there are those in real need. And then, there are these types of people.
 
QContinuum said:
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ProdglArchitect:
I’m no big sports fan, but how many jobs does that stadium provide yearly? How much revenue does it generate each year? How likely is it to spur on further development in the surrounding areas? Does it provide a service to the community when not being used as a stadium? What other events can they hold there to bring in tourists? What sort of tax revenue can we expect to see from it’s use?
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All these things were studied. What wasn’t studied were tons of costs not factored in - like the park in front of it that needed to be maintained by taxpayers even though it’s private.

There is the increased crime around the stadium. The streets, utilities, and the light rail station that had to be added and likewise maintained.

But regardless, the principle of the matter is that we taxpayers should not be on the hook to pay 1.5 B for a PRIVATE stadium, when our schools, roads, and bridges need more funding.

Finally, to answer your question, so far, no the costs not been outweighed by the return. We’re nowhere close to breaking even.
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Apart form the crime, I guarantee you that all of these costs were considered. It’s standard practice when approaching any large-scale construction like this.

As for breaking even, these types of projects generally have a ten-fifteen year schedule for recouping costs.

I’m not saying the stadium was a great idea, and I’m also not saying I disagree that that money could have been spent better elsewhere. I’m just trying to point out that these sorts of developments are never entered into without significant research on how it will impact the surrounding community.
guanophore said:
Actually I think the opposite is true. Public support SHOULD be a “crutch”. There should be an expectation that it is temporary, and that the recipient will return to become a productive member of society, who can support others while they are on “crutches”. What we need is reform to prevent it from becoming a way of life.
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Perhaps crutch was a bad word choice. I agree that it should be available on a temporary basis. My issue is also with people who use it as a way of life.
 
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I pretty much agree with you. I’m a staunch advocate of state and local government control. The benefit of the federal government, however, is that it has a lot more money to spend
 
Yes, but they like to dangle that money over the states and use it to bend them to their will.

If it wasn’t for federal funding, I feel confident many states would ignore roe v. wade and abortion would be much more severely limited. It’s the old golden rule; he with the gold makes the rules.

I’d rather there be less money and the states be free to enact the will of their residents rather than having to bow to the feds because they need cash.
 
Seems to me “welfare” is a general term. I have always used it to describe situations were someone gets back from the government more than what they paid in. The “Earned Income Tax Credit” is a good example. Someone pays their taxes, lets says its $5,000, then gets a “refund” (aka EITC) of $7,500. That would be welfare in the amount of $2500.

Social Security may or may not be “welfare”. If someone pays in, and receives back what they paid in (plus some reasonable interest), then its not welfare. If someone pays in and receives back more than what they paid in (plus reasonable interest), then yes, they are receiving welfare.
 
If someone is able-bodied, then yes, they should so something. I do remember a senator from Illinois who said in reference to requiring a person to work a few hours a week helping to maintain the building where they were getting free housing, that it was akin to Nazi Germany.

Point being: Welfare in its various forms, is more than just a way to help people who cannot help themselves, its also a vote-buying tool for certain politicians, which is why its so hard to reform.
 
semper_catholicus said:
Yeah. Welfare just keeps people poor usually. It’s basically socialist.
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No, the lack of opportunity does. Like when the city factories close in the 70s and 80s and Appalachian coal is no longer ordered in the quantities it was when those factories were open.

When you outsource an American job, it’s religious fantasy to pretend that “innovation” will somehow replace those jobs. An American cannot compete on a wage-basis with a Cambodian. If a machine makes the American worker thus more productive, they’ll just build one in Cambodia, or wherever.
 
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You also need to consider the cost of living is different in rural MS vs urban Chicago or San Francisco. The idea of me (in Texas) paying to help keep someone housed in San Francisco, when they could live much more inexpensively somewhere else seems a bit wrong.

If we always raise taxes in order to help certain states that don’t keep their financial affairs in order, then we are just enabling poor leadership in that state.
 
You also need to take into account that some municipalities, states, etc., sometimes cause the lack of opportunity by their tax laws. For example, if you require a living wage (or lets just say $15 per hour) for flipping burgers, then the burger flipper needs to drive more than $15 of value per hour…if not, the burger joint might either go out of business, leave or buy a burger flipping machine that operates at a lower cost than the employee.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
All of these factors are considered in depth before going to the city to get permission to build something like a stadium, or really any other public facility. I’ve been involved in those discussions before. Unless the politico’s are just completely corrupt, they’re not going to undertake a project like that unless there is substantial evidence that it will benefit the community.
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I think these studies are often highly manipulative.

Money outflow may actually increases while revenue and jobs are concentrated rather than increased. New restaurants near the stadium do well but at the expense of neighborhood restaurants dispersed through the city. It simply redirects disposable income, it doesn’t create more of it and doesn’t cause a net increase in tourism or industry. It’s often only the franchise owner that is a clear winner.


Sports stadiums do not generate significant local economic growth, Stanford expert says


 
KMC said:
You also need to consider the cost of living is different in rural MS vs urban Chicago or San Francisco. The idea of me (in Texas) paying to help keep someone housed in San Francisco, when they could live much more inexpensively somewhere else seems a bit wrong.

If we always raise taxes in order to help certain states that don’t keep their financial affairs in order, then we are just enabling poor leadership in that state.
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When funding needs to increase, your taxes go up. I’ve lived in Texas - it’s not just your property taxes and the high sales tax that support your state. It’s also Federal funding. When it falls short nationwide from a Federally funded program, Federal taxes can go up.

(I’ve lived in HI too - and the rural South. And California - which in some ways is worse that HI.)

I’m a bit surprised that you’re suggesting the poor can pack up and move. Having been moved multiple times, and having driven across country twice and knowing what it costs just in fuel alone to drive a car from the east coast to the Pacific Northwest, and from CA to NC, I doubt many can afford to just move to somewhere cheaper. Even moving across the state takes money. Not millions, sure, but it takes money.
 
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KMC said:
You also need to take into account that some municipalities, states, etc., sometimes cause the lack of opportunity by their tax laws. For example, if you require a living wage (or lets just say $15 per hour) for flipping burgers, then the burger flipper needs to drive more than $15 of value per hour…if not, the burger joint might either go out of business, leave or buy a burger flipping machine that operates at a lower cost than the employee.
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I don’t have it on me, but in my school days we looked at an economic study that looked at the elasticity of employment when minimum wages changed.

The distribution was pretty telling - it was spike-shaped, like a chi-squared distribution, with probably 90-95% of the values being on “0” or near “0” as a measure of percent change.

There’s change when minimum wages jumps. But it’s very negligible.
 
JanSobieskiIII said:
except that’s not the case. We produce more food with fewer people and people who previously farmed are now engaged in other activities.
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Many of those “other activities” are service work or drawing a check of some sort.
Innovation works, it’s offshoring our jobs and importing cheap labor that’s the problem.
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Importing cheap labor isn’t a huge a concern because unless you’re doing something illegal, you still have to pay them American wages. But you’re spot-on about offshoring.
 
In theory I support it, but in practice I’m concerned that our “able-bodied” statistics are completely out of line with reality.

I know when I was on welfare, I was counted as the class that was able to work and not working. I can tell you that was far from the truth, it’s just there really wasn’t an appropriate category for me in the statistics. You were either long-term disabled or able to work.

There were also a lot of practical problems that weren’t addressed. One big one was my lack of ability to get to a job made it very hard to find one when I did get healthy enough to apply. The buses only really served the expensive neighborhoods well, so I was only available for work monday-friday 9-6 or so because that was when the buses ran, and for most entry level jobs that was unacceptable.
 
I get your point about moving, however, using San Francisco as an example, if we increase the amount of federal assistance to help people in San Francisco, aren’t we letting the city of San Francisco and the state of California off the hook? Its their policies that have created a bit of a mess to the point teachers cannot afford to live in that city.

Seems to me, if we as a nation have to make up for poor decision making at the local level, then shouldn’t we get a say in who leads at the local level?
 
Vonsalza said:
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KMC:
You also need to take into account that some municipalities, states, etc., sometimes cause the lack of opportunity by their tax laws. For example, if you require a living wage (or lets just say $15 per hour) for flipping burgers, then the burger flipper needs to drive more than $15 of value per hour…if not, the burger joint might either go out of business, leave or buy a burger flipping machine that operates at a lower cost than the employee.
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I don’t have it on me, but in my school days we looked at an economic study that looked at the elasticity of employment when minimum wages changed.

The distribution was pretty telling - it was spike-shaped, like a chi-squared distribution, with probably 90-95% of the values being on “0” or near “0” as a measure of percent change.

There’s change when minimum wages jumps. But it’s very negligible.
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Seattle and Spokane are feeling the pinch at the moment, though.
 
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