General Discussion

kpete

(72,014 posts) Tue Dec 11, 2012, 11:05 AM Dec 2012

The poors are refusing to assume their God-given place as cannon fodder for our empire.

Nicholas Kristoff complains:

This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire. Some young people here don’t join the military (a traditional escape route for poor, rural Americans) because it’s easier to rely on food stamps and disability payments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/kristof-profiting-from-a-childs-illiteracy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Oh, dear god, have I seen this movie before. You have the heartbroken local bureaucrat without any specific examples, just "many people." You have the statistics-free analysis of programs, and you have the pet "scholar" from the American Enterprise Institute who, in a stunning coincidence, writes a book concluding pretty much the same thing about social-welfare programs that everyone else at AEI believes. Indeed, his work reinforces the ideas that the AEI was set up in the first place to promote. (Burkhauser, you will note, has made a career out of suggesting an increased work ethic on people who are not him.) And, of course, there is the anguished liberal conscience of the Times columnist. What's missing, of course, are any of the actual people who allegedly are getting fat on disability payments. This is what I learned in Mississippi.

Read more: Nicholas Kristoff Social Security Fraud - The Voices Missing From The Safety Net Debate - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/nicholas-kristoff-social-security-fraud-121012#ixzz2EkvpOXF5

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/nicholas-kristoff-social-security-fraud-121012

5 replies

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Highlight:

The poors are refusing to assume their God-given place as cannon fodder for our empire. (Original Post) kpete Dec 2012 OP

Kristoff should try living on SS, SSI, or TANF Downwinder Dec 2012 #1

Du rec. Nt xchrom Dec 2012 #2

Disabled people are supposed to join the military? Mariana Dec 2012 #3

Unless and until Kristoff writes about corporate dependency on taxpayer dollars BlueCaliDem Dec 2012 #4

So...wealthier kids don't have to risk death, move away TwilightGardener Dec 2012 #5

Downwinder

(12,869 posts)

1. Kristoff should try living on SS, SSI, or TANF

Reply to kpete (Original post)

Tue Dec 11, 2012, 11:27 AM

Dec 2012

for a while before he writes about it.

Have to give Newark Mayor Cory Booker all lot of credit for his ends weeklong food stamp challenge Hr should have done it for a month.

So come on Kristoff, live for a couple of months on $900 you can even get $10 a month food stamps.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)

2. Du rec. Nt

Reply to kpete (Original post)

Tue Dec 11, 2012, 12:15 PM

Dec 2012

Mariana

(14,860 posts)

3. Disabled people are supposed to join the military?

Reply to kpete (Original post)

Tue Dec 11, 2012, 12:24 PM

Dec 2012

Really?

"Some young people here don’t join the military (a traditional escape route for poor, rural Americans) because it’s easier to rely on food stamps and disability payments."

BlueCaliDem

(15,438 posts)

4. Unless and until Kristoff writes about corporate dependency on taxpayer dollars

Reply to kpete (Original post)

Tue Dec 11, 2012, 01:20 PM

Dec 2012

he, and others of his ilk, have zero credibility.

The true taxpayer-dependent welfare queens are American corporations. They get billions, even trillions of taxpayer dollars, backed by taxpayer productivity, and use it for venture capital, lavish executive pay-outs, and executive salaries while they harp on John & Jane Doe whenever they merely mention they deserve a living wage.

Republicans are enablers of corporate welfare and they're traitors to this country as they persist on turning this country into a country of plantation-style states, making the people who live within their borders the neo-indentured slaves who have no rights, no voice, no recourse for our grievances.

TwilightGardener

(46,416 posts)

5. So...wealthier kids don't have to risk death, move away

Reply to kpete (Original post)

Tue Dec 11, 2012, 01:27 PM

Dec 2012

from their family and friends, spend 12 weeks being screamed at in Basic and exercised until they puke, and then become the property of the US government, to improve their circumstances--they just go to college, or mom and dad put them into the family business, right? I understand that poor kids sometimes escape their circumstances by joining the military, but I never thought that was a GOOD thing, unlike this yahoo.

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