@maporsche,
maporsche wrote:
Yes. They believed a politician who told them lies. So did many millions of progressives/Democrats in 2016...you've stated this yourself many many many times. Why the special scorn on this small (population wise) group of people all of the sudden as if the lies they believed are somehow unique to them?
Two reasons:
First, because that region is desperate to 'turn back the clock' and return into a time in which their incredibly destructive businesses were profitable. That isn't going to happen and they know it but don't want to admit it because it's easier to believe lies than take personal responsibility and change one's life for the better.
Second, these people are - despite your insistence to the opposite - heavily reliant on welfare and disability fraud to survive and essentially suck at the teat of the rest of us rather than improve their lives. I can't respect that.
Quote:But sure man, you've got firmly held opinions. You just sometimes don't seem to understand that life isn't always as simple as you want it to be. Or that people may not have the same drive as you. Or the same abilities. Or the same many things.
I understand that perfectly well, thanks. Life is quite complicated and often there are no good answers. It's simply immaterial to the conversation we're having.
Quote:Nope, not going to let you off on this welfare thing. The welfare/disability portion of the national budget is SOOOOO small relative to what the USA spends. Even if 90% of the disability claims are false, it's such a minor problem in our country that 1-2 less military jets (out of thousands) would recoup the costs. Do I wish it were 0% fraud? Of course I do. But the cost to police this fraud is more than the fraud itself costs.
Disability and SSI fraud run at about $10 billion a year for our country, and specifically directly from the SS program. That's not peanuts but it isn't the end of the world, financially.
But - the overall point isn't that the welfare/disability fraud costs a lot, it's that engaging in it is highly destructive to the lives of the people involved. It creates nothing but perverse incentives for the people of the region: they can't go get a job, even if they could do the job, because doing so would end their disability payments. They get their kids labelled as Disabled, so they can collect benefits on them, and then have to work to keep their perfectly fine kids from excelling in school as they'd lose their income for doing so.
I personally would rather see a WPA-style program where we offer employment to people rather than give them money for nothing. Only the tiniest percentage of those on disability actually can do NOTHING productive. Most simply cannot engage in physical activity. Well, we can FIND work for the rest of them, instead of having them sit around and get paid for nothing.
Quote:Are you surprised that in areas with lower employment that there are fewer residents and therefore, in part, the residents who are disabled (and less likely to move for new jobs in new cities) end up making a higher percentage of the small population in some of these counties? Or are you surprised that when people are struggling that they look for help in ways that are less than legal? I'm not surprised one bit. I'd wager that almost all crime is committed by people who don't see better opportunities within their grasp.
I'm not surprised by any of it at all. I simply don't excuse it the way you do, or look the other way, or pretend that these people really are trying to improve their lives, they just can't for some reason and god doggit, if we'd just listen to them better, that would change things. Sorry, but that's bullshit. It's not a lack of understanding of the issues or a lack of listening to the people of the region, it's a failure on their part to accept the hard choices that need to be made to move forward.
Cycloptichorn
