“You're STILL not getting it are you? Fool that you are, "IF" one of them gets elected far more than 30% will have supported them.”

No Fool. What has taken place is the conservatives have taken control of the GOP. In this country we have only two viable parties. In the 2000 election the majority selected Gore. In the 2004 election Bush won by 2%. That does not alter the fact that the policies we have been following and the policies presented by the ten GOP candidates do NOT conform to what the majority want for this country.

“Moreover, the foundation of your belief is based on ignorance. The vast majority of people who are poor and receive welfare aren't retarded or disabled. They are simply people who made incredibly stupid choices and continue to do so.”

No- many people that have service jobs that we all need do not pay a living wage. If we were able to grant every worker a B.S. degree we would have waiters, grass cutters, garbage people with a college degree. These jobs exist because we need the services and society does not value them enough to pay a living wage. Low income families are a combination of people that have service jobs, limited ability workers and disabled. In any event, so long as they do what they can I believe those that have abundance should help them with the resources needed to live!

They don't pay a living wage? WHERE ARE THE BODIES, COL?

"They don't need public assistance they need to get off their asses and work."

Every wealthy person should have to work a few years doing service jobs for minimum wage. I see a lot of low income workers breaking their back and have very little to show for their work. All workers can not own their own business and pay themselves $200,000 per year!

"You'd lose that bet. Most people don't support higher taxes. "

If the choice is not receiving Social Security or Medicare or increasing the taxes on the top 10%, MOST people will opt for the wealthy paying higher taxes! That is what the choice will come to and VERY SOON!

I have known minimum wage workers my whole life, Col. Know what I see?

I do not personally know a single minimum wage worker who does not have a color TV. MOST have bigger, fancier ones than we have (we have a 13 inch), and not a few have 52" big screens. They also all have cable or dish, DVD players, and stereos. This is not "subsistence" living. True they have little to show for their work because at the end of the day all of these things belong to (name your local rental place). But because they insisted on purchasing from these places, IF they pay off their contract, they will have paid 3-5 times the value of the item.

A good example is computers. Know how many (functional) computers I have (not counting parts)? THREE. Know how much I paid for each? $65 for my main machine, which has a 1.8 Ghz P4 Proc, $125 for my Linux machine, which I bought three years ago and which functioned as my main machine for over two years, and $100 for my newest acquisition, with a 1.0 ghz proc. Know how much the average poor person pays for theirs? Over $1000, usually more to the tune of $2000-3000 before all is said and done. They borrow money at payday loan places at 500-1000% APR because they can't afford their cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets (oh yes, ask any convenience store owner where they sell the most lottery tickets...the POOR side of town. And liquor stores aren't located in the ghettoes without a reason).

You can blame Bush and blame anyone you want for the plight of the poor, Col, but the VAST MAJORITY of America's poor are poor because of LIFE CHOICES, NOT because of "the man"

SHOW ME THE BODIES! Show me the Americans starving in the street, emaciated, left without food to die by their heartless countrymen. You show me that and I'll march with you all the way to Washington.

You need go no further then the Gulf Coast and the eastern coast of Texas. Many of these people had almost nothing before Katrina and now they have NOTHING. Anyone below the poverty line is POOR. I saw hundreds in the affluent community I live in Florida when I was president of a non profit corporation that helped low income families with housing. We had a waiting list for low income housing that was 5 times the total number of units we had available. Every year we received less and less money from FL as they were cutting the taxes on the wealthiest residents under Jeb Bush. There were laid off workers in Ohio on 20/20 that had to wait in line over 5 hours in line to receive surplus food.

Gideon

WHY don't you try and live on $10,000 per year. That is what $5.15 per hour at 40 hrs per week amount to! Hell try $15,000 which is what a person would receive at the proposed increase in the minimum wage!

I've done it, Col. The thing is, I've worked my way UP the chain so I don't HAVE to. I know more about living off of a fixed income than you ever will. You've lived your entire life on the taxpayer's dime, Col, so you have a decided conflict of interest.

And no, people are not starving to death on the Gulf Coast. That is an outright, bold faced lie, something you're very, very good at presenting, Col.

Gidion

Again you show your ignorance. GE, Ford, Merchants National Bank University of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University were not the Government. In addition I formed two small corporations. I spent 5.5 Years on active duty in the Army and my reserve pay (week end drills) came from tax dollars and part of my salary as Dean of a Community College came from tax dollars. The VAST majority of my income DID NOT, as you put it, come from the taxpayers. Not all people who are poor starve to death but they have nothing but the bare essentials and then only because of some of the help you and others on this Blog site would end. The outlook you display is despicable and I do not have to justify myself to the likes of people who would turn their back on those the need help in this country so they can add more zero's to their Net Worth. Again we need leaders that understand the LONG TERM needs of ALL Americans not just the privileged FEW! I say again NONE of the ten GOP candidates have that outlook!

You're right. In order to meet those needs we need Mao, Stalin, Castro, or Kim Jung Il. Since Mao and Stalin are dead and Castro's really, really old, would you settle for just ceding the country over to North Korea?

What you propose is socialism, Col, plain and simple. AT no time in the history of our country (let's not forget, over a century and a half of our country's independence preceded the New Deal) was the starvation you insist would happen if we didn't have trillions of dollars of inefficient government programs to feed the poor EVER in existence. The truth is, your propagandist lies are merely scare tactics used to try to sway the American people to your Socialist Utopia.

You spit on the good works of the volunteers in our country when you say that nobody cares about our poor besides the government. The truth is, the government doesn't care about the poor, never has, never will. Not Democrat, not Republican, not Socialist. They care about POWER, plain and simple. PEOPLE care about the poor, and PEOPLE in this country give massive amounts to care for the poor.

so your saying that if one of these ten people get elected then the american people are stupid

redistribution of wealth is not socialism it is communism

socialism today is where everybody gets the same care ie medical, food, health

communism is where everybody gets the same of everything the janitor and the doctor gets payed 5 dollars an hour or whatever. however the men with the real power gets rich

as for chiraty there are a lot of problems with the non-profits only about 8% of the money gets to where it is supposed to go.

this would include what the government pays them to help people.

and what has been said here is that only 25% of what the government collects gets to the charities. i am sure that isn't the right amount but probable close

the real power houses to get money to the poor would be the for profit companies

not saying that they would or wouldn't do it just saying that they could be the real power houses for helping people.

the democrats in this country want to take all of the money from the rich and give it to the poor. there is only one problem with this the democrats who want to do this are part of the rich. and they are not going to take money out of their own pockets.



as for people who are rich and who are poor. some people like drengin can take 1 dollar and turn it into 5. then there are others who can't make any money

when i was living in vegas there was a story of a man that was living on the streets who won 10 million dollars. with in a year he was back on the streets broke.

and yes the elderly do have families most of the time.
but some of those families cannot or will not take care of them

the united states was in the black at the end of world war 2 and now we are trillions in debt.

want to guess who has been in charge for most of the 60 years col.

that's right the democrats were in charge of the house and senate for over 40 years

and they were when clinton took office

i think the republicans had control of the senate once in over 40 years

and as you have already said it is the house and the senate that vote on spending the president can only veto or sign

Gideon

“What you propose is socialism, Col, plain and simple.”

NO what I am proposing is democracy. What you want is to have 25- 30% set the policies for 100%. That is NOT what America is about. You so full of BS it comes out of your ears. Balancing the budget by asking the top 10% to pay a little more in tax is NOT socialism.

So you’re saying that if one of these ten people get elected then the American people are stupid” They made a BIG Mistake. If you believe Bush has been good for our country, you truly are delusional. There is NOTHING that Bush has resolved or improved. EVERY issue that he faced is today worse and he has added the deficit and Iraq which are problems HE CREATED!


What has happened is one of the two parties has been hijacked by conservatives. Rather then BOTH parties having candidates that are more moderate we have parties that only consider what their controlling faction wants and NOT what the MAJORITY wants. The majority of the people did not elect Bush in 2000. He was elected because of an error and a court ruling. In 2004 Bush won by only 2% of the vote. That clearly shows we were just about equally divided. However, many who voted for the GOP are not conservatives. A Republican who is NOT a Conservative will most often vote Republican rather then for a Democrat. What did Bush and the GOP do? The acted as if they had a mandate and passed policies that ONLY considered that element of the GOP that was able to get control of the GOP. Clinton was far more centrist even though he is a Democrat.