Can You Imagine if millions of people stopped taking food-stamps, unemployment benefits and medicaid?

Question

and instead started paying taxes?

It's called reducing unemployment... the deficit reduction plan for non-sociopaths. 

...there is a whole industry built around the promotion of deficit panic. Lavishly funded corporate groups keep hyping the danger of government debt and the urgency of deficit reduction now now now — except that these same groups are suddenly warning against too much deficit reduction. No wonder the public is confused. 

Meanwhile, there is almost no organized pressure to deal with the terrible thing that is actually happening right now — namely, mass unemployment. Yes, we’ve made progress over the past year. But long-term unemployment remains at levels not seen since the Great Depression: as of October, 4.9 million Americans had been unemployed for more than six months, and 3.6 million had been out of work for more than a year. 

When you see numbers like those, bear in mind that we’re looking at millions of human tragedies: at individuals and families whose lives are falling apart because they can’t find work, at savings consumed, homes lost and dreams destroyed. And the longer this goes on, the bigger the tragedy. 

There are also huge dollars-and-cents costs to our unmet jobs crisis. When willing workers endure forced idleness society as a whole suffers from the waste of their efforts and talents. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that what we are actually producing falls short of what we could and should be producing by around 6 percent of G.D.P., or $900 billion a year. Worse yet, there are good reasons to believe that high unemployment is undermining our future growth as well, as the long-term unemployed come to be considered unemployable, as investment falters in the face of inadequate sales.

whoyeah · Accepted Answer

This is like listening to fingernails on a chalk board. Get with the truth!

It's the Inequality, Stupid http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

"The nation's largest corporations and richest citizens receive more welfare money than our social welfare programs." http://cps-news.com/wp-content/corporate-welfare/Corporate-Subsidies.html

Conservative political policies have been built around the manipulation of that ugly quality called victim blame. If an American is homeless or jobless, if they cannot afford health care, if they lost their home in foreclosure, then surely they have done "something" to deserve that fate. Conservatives are brilliant in that they have freed us from the responsibility of being our brother's keeper. It's much easier to conclude that our brother is always stupid, irresponsible, immoral, and obviously not as smart, responsible and virtuous as "us." If they had "our" superior qualities, their lives would flourish.

Today, homeless families are the largest growing segment of America's population. Almost half of those "irresponsible," "underachieving," homeless types are children under the age of six. An accomplished "victim blamer" will conclude that those homeless children are suffering appropriately for the "sins of their fathers."  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-papantonio/gop-poor-people-get-what_b_288541.html

noillcallyou · Answer

Can I just say that.....I hate living under the swaying grip of the governmental disbursement of food stamps. Speaking for most minorities in this country that's on government assistance, it's very frustrating to overcome it.  When you're raised by parents that never built a foundation for you to stand on, it's hard to ungrave a decent future. I never wanted to depend on the more wealthy to support me and my family. All I ever wanted was to earn my own living. I've been working since high school. But most jobs around me want temporary workers or minimum wage workers. Add bills up the wyzu what choice do I have?

? · Answer

that's a possibility, but only when we reform our trade regulations discouraging outsourcing, raise the minimum wage, allow unions to organize freely, make our tax code more progressive, make our capital gains taxes shadow our progressive tax code, and allow antitrust legislation to work as designed. then will we realize our shared view of decreasing dependence on social insurance.

? · Answer

Could you imagine following the community guidelines?????

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? · Answer

But... what about rich people who offshore their money illegally, and neocon politicians who GIVE THEMSELVES RAISES??!

You cons LOVE top blame everything on the poor and calling them "lazy", but the fingers could easily point to the rich who suck away from the public trough.

? · Answer

YES!  When millions of liberals stop mooching off of the government, they would all starve to death or die of diseases,(and so would their kids so there wouldn't be the generational greed), and then we wouldn't have to pay for their laziness.  What a great day for America!

John W · Answer

I am voting for sequestration, its the only way to get real cuts and save America.

Anonymous · Answer

We need to get people out of entitlements and give them jobs.

Anonymous · Answer

and you might actually come close to achieving that if we had a President who wasn't determined to destroy the jobs in the country!

Anonymous · Answer

This is a rant, not a question.

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Can You Imagine if millions of people stopped taking food-stamps, unemployment benefits and medicaid?

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