GOP rep: ‘Bullcrap’ to say taxpayers pay my salary - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099628]nonsense? I'm a living verifiable example that working your way out of poverty is possible.[/QUOTE] possible, but not probable. When you're born poor, beating the odds is the exception, not the rule.

[QUOTE=J Paul;52099625]You know we're not talking about that, though. You are still extremely poor compared to these Republicans in particular. You may have achieved nominal success in one of the easiest places known for people being able to do so (land of opportunity), but hey, that's still great, congratulations. I've done something similar myself man, it's cool. That doesn't change the fact that the Titans at the top who are actually running and pushing conservatism make enough that we could redistribute their wealth and take care of a good majority of the world's ills and they would still be fabulously wealthy. That is the problem.[/QUOTE] but thats the problem. there are virtuous rich and virtuous poor. there are immoral rich and immoral poor. how do you decide who is deserving and who is undeserving?

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099628]nonsense? I'm a living verifiable example that working your way out of poverty is possible.[/QUOTE] This is the same kind of logic that homeopaths use to peddle their quack remedies to cancer patients.

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099636]but thats the problem. there are virtuous rich and virtuous poor. there are immoral rich and immoral poor. how do you decide who is deserving and who is undeserving?[/QUOTE] Simple human morals. Nobody should have to live on a meal a day or starve. Nobody should die in agony from diseases that can be treated. And furthermore, nobody should be denied basic education just because they're too poor to afford it.

[QUOTE=Headhumpy;52099641]This is the same kind of logic that homeopaths use to peddle their quack remedies to cancer patients.[/QUOTE] your argument was poor the first time and its even worse now. silly comparison

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099646]your argument was poor the first time and its even worse now. silly comparison[/QUOTE] It's not? Your single anecdote is hardly representative of the experiences of millions of others living in poverty.

[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;52099644]Simple human morals. Nobody should have to live on a meal a day or starve. Nobody should die in agony from diseases that can be treated. And furthermore, nobody should be denied basic education just because they're too poor to afford it.[/QUOTE] and nobody in america has ANY of those issues! food is redistributed all the time. diseases are treated. and public school is free. is it regrettable that some places on earth are like that? yes. but what am I do other than offer my charity?

[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;52099644]Simple human morals. Nobody should have to live on a meal a day or starve. Nobody should die in agony from diseases that can be treated. And furthermore, nobody should be denied basic education just because they're too poor to afford it.[/QUOTE] There's also the economic standpoint in that poor people are far more likely to actually spend their money compared to rich people, especially when it comes to small businesses. More money in the hands of the lower class means more money being cycled into the economy.

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099636]but thats the problem. there are virtuous rich and virtuous poor. there are immoral rich and immoral poor. how do you decide who is deserving and who is undeserving?[/QUOTE] It's not about being deserving or undeserving. It's about being moral enough to understand that you don't need any more after the first fucking billion or two. What I mean by that is, automation is killing the workforce. The ability for people to pull themselves up like you and I have is going away as more jobs become automated, and at the same time, the top tier profits more because automation is cheaper. It is in their best interests to then invest their wealth back into the system so that these growing hordes of jobless people don't take us into another great depression, or even a violent revolt. Basically I believe that the richest few could fund the poorest multitude in exchange for an automated democratic socialist system where most work doesn't require humans, or at least a large enough percentage of it that there would be so many unemployable people that those who don't wish to be successful can instead devote their time to hobbies. It can happen. That's pretty much the only way I see capitalism continuing without creating a literal slave class, lol.

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099652][b]and nobody in america has ANY of those issues![/b] food is redistributed all the time. diseases are treated. and public school is free. is it regrettable that some places on earth are like that? yes. but what am I do other than offer my charity?[/QUOTE] Watch This User Lose All Credibility In Just 9 Short Words!

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099628]nonsense? I'm a living verifiable example that working your way out of poverty is possible.[/QUOTE] you are not. your father is if your family truly was poor he would have received welfare. i wonder why he's a leftist?

[QUOTE=Jund;52099661]you are not. your father is if your family truly was poor he would have received welfare. i wonder why he's a leftist?[/QUOTE] another snarky assumption. let me ask you this, are you or is your family poor? also, I'm not? youre telling me I didn't earn what I have?

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099652]and nobody in america has ANY of those issues! food is redistributed all the time. diseases are treated. and public school is free. is it regrettable that some places on earth are like that? yes. but what am I do other than offer my charity?[/QUOTE] 1 in 6 people in america face hunger. 49 million americans struggle to put food on their tables. in 2013 alone, 17.5 million households fell into that category of food insecurity, those with families more than those without. These numbers have only gone up since then.

[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;52099674]1 in 6 people in america face hunger. 49 million americans struggle to put food on their tables. in 2013 alone, 17.5 million households fell into that category, those with families more than those without. These numbers have only gone up since then.[/QUOTE] and those people receive assistance. ive worked at the food bank, I know how underfed people receive food [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Some terrible anecdotal arguing" - Craptasket))[/highlight]

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099669]another snarky assumption. let me ask you this, are you or is your family poor? also, I'm not? youre telling me I didn't earn what I have?[/QUOTE] Ignore personal attacks, it's just shit flinging. I had an actual point I'd like to discuss with you. I understand that socialism hasn't worked in the past, but we also weren't able to take a human workforce out of the equation in the past. That, I believe, literally changes all the rules. Those who own the production machines will still be fabulously wealthy, they'll just be paying to support the people they would otherwise be employing. How is that so bad?

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099669]another snarky assumption. let me ask you this, are you or is your family poor? also, I'm not? youre telling me I didn't earn what I have?[/QUOTE] uhhh yeah that's exactly what i'm saying. your views are so far removed from reality that you actually believe all the ills of poor america are self-inflicted. you project yourself into your father's shoes undeservedly. it was through [B]his[/B] sweat that you even had the foundations to have a stable upbringing and employment opportunities, something millions of americans are not graced with. you want to believe that you and him are the same person, and that his accomplishments are yours. but they are not. why are you asking me more questions before addressing my points? did your father receive welfare while in poverty? is he a leftist because of his experiences of having to raise a family through poverty? my father came over here from red china with less than a thousand dollars to his name. after my parents separated, my family fell back into hard times and had to live off of food stamps for a few years. so take off your horse-blinders and maybe you'll begin the see the world that others live in and not just your own. at least stupidity is more easily curable than moral bankruptcy. [editline]13th April 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=J Paul;52099686]Ignore personal attacks[/QUOTE] if he didn't want me to talk about it then he shouldn't have tried to use it to defend his point also kind of a dumb ban but w/e

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099652]and nobody in america has ANY of those issues! food is redistributed all the time. diseases are treated. and public school is free. is it regrettable that some places on earth are like that? yes. but what am I do other than offer my charity?[/QUOTE] 40% of food in america goes to waste and 20% of households with children report food insecurity, the american healthcare system is so bad that healthcare expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy and our emergency rooms are choked with people who can't afford routine doctor's visits, and our school system is the laughingstock of the western world but please tell me more about how good poor people have it and how they're not allowed to complain :class: e: aaaand i forgot to refresh and he's banned, woops

Yeah I'd be dead without welfare. Pulling myself up by my bootstraps is difficult when I haven't been able to work for the last 2 years because of mental illness, and am only now managing to get my life together. Meanwhile I still had bills to pay, and I still needed to eat and live somewhere, so what should I have done instead of taking out government handouts like an entitled liberal? It's a damn good thing we have some form of welfare in place; I just wish it was extensive enough to help everyone who needs it. People get stuck in poverty for a billion reasons, so this "I did it, why can't you?" attitude gets really tiring sometimes.

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099601]of course, you can only be moral and virtuous if you force the redistribution of wealth with threats of violence and prison. this is what turned me away from the left, this asinine idea that if youre any more right than center, you aren't a moral individual. if you were rich, would you not donate your money to the poor? what makes you the "one virtuous rich man"? do you believe that everyone who's rich refuses to be philanthropic? ludicrous. I'm 20 years old with no college education, and yet my personal wealth and net worth places me squarely in the middle class. my father (who is a leftist I should add) grew up in poverty, didn't go to college, and now owns a successful local business. (and before you say anything about handouts or inheritance, that didn't happen until i was about 10, for the first half of my life we lived in lower middle-class accommodation, and my father is so used to it we live pretty much the same now, even though his business brings in six figures.) I've worked since I was 13, I've done the grunt work, I was never given a job I didn't earn. Now I'm in a salaried position with a local company that provides me with health and dental insurance. So you can sit there and peddle your economic determinism drivel at me all you want, my family has pulled themselves out of poverty honestly. I PERSONALLY have pulled MYSELF out of poverty honestly. Its not an impossibility.[/QUOTE] From poverty or from lower middle class? Those are two different things.

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099669]another snarky assumption. let me ask you this, are you or is your family poor? also, I'm not? youre telling me I didn't earn what I have?[/QUOTE] Replying to this as an example of something I hear a lot. When people talk about 'earning' and 'deserving' what they have, it often seems like the idea that luck and or privilege* played a role in getting them success invalidates what they have so they reject the idea that they ever had any out of hand, when in reality we are all a combination of the two. Not every random rich kid succeeds and not every poor kid fails but that doesn't mean that the system we currently have is fair. If your family send you to a private school and have a network of connections, you have to work hard to fail, and if you grow up in an impoverished community, you can work hard your whole life and still need luck to get anywhere. Using myself as an example, I've worked hard in school my whole life and am now at a top university doing what I want to do, and a lot of that comes down to my own effort and merit, but the fact that whenever I needed resources for my learning and all I had to do was ask for it to be given to me undeniably gave me an edge over an identical person who's parents couldn't afford it. That's before we get into the fact that my school had decent funding and the million other advantages which come from being in a reasonably middle class town. So yes, you did earn what you had, and it seems you didn't have the easiest time of it, but you also had things going for you that helped, and very possibly a little bit of luck here and there to get you jobs etc. * On the word privilege, it's seen as a buzzword that's thrown around and a lot of people hate it, but some people have advantages due to various sociological factors which others don't and that's what I mean when I use it.

-snip-

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099173]this is why I vote against tax increases, feels good to hit clowns like this in the wallet[/QUOTE] read the 27th amendment

[QUOTE=purvisdavid1;52099137]Buddy, you're a politician directly drawing money from the state. Tax payers pay your salary, you're a fucking moron. Get voted out of office please.[/QUOTE] He's saying his company paid enough taxes to cover his salary for many years to come. However when it comes to that job, its not the money that matters but the position itself and the power it holds, you're elected to represent a population and if you can't do that he can expect to get elected out of office come the next election cycle.

to paraphrase, "I'm in congress to serve myself you fucks!" [editline]15th April 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=ultra_bright;52105951]He's saying his company paid enough taxes to cover his salary for many years to come. However when it comes to that job, its not the money that matters but the position itself and the power it holds, you're elected to represent a population and if you can't do that he can expect to get elected out of office come the next election cycle.[/QUOTE] except theres very few compedative districts in the country anymore which means he can say shit like this and get reelected thanks to hardliners who always vote red

[QUOTE=Mitchd247;52099601]if you were rich, would you not donate your money to the poor? what makes you the "one virtuous rich man"? do you believe that everyone who's rich refuses to be philanthropic? ludicrous. [/QUOTE] I want to be very clear with this. Donation is not a replacement for social programs. Donation will never have the impact and result that a socialized system will. The apathy of the average individual combined with their ignorance of the scope of problems needing to be resolved makes it impossible. Furthermore, I find the implication that someone should have to resort to donations to be dehumanizing; that you feel so entitled that people should be grateful you help them out. Discusting.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;52108208]I want to be very clear with this. Donation is not a replacement for social programs. Donation will never have the impact and result that a socialized system will. The apathy of the average individual combined with their ignorance of the scope of problems needing to be resolved makes it impossible. Furthermore, I find the implication that someone should have to resort to donations to be dehumanizing; that you feel so entitled that people should be grateful you help them out. Discusting.[/QUOTE] I disagree with this. All forms of wealth redistribution, whether through private charity or forced through taxation, are functionally indistinguishable. The difference however is readily apparent when examining the efficiency of the program's organization and the efficacy of its operation. For the former, let's talk operating costs. We all know that even in non-profit programs, a portion of the revenue must be devoted to overhead--this is unavoidable. Depending largely on voluntary contributions, a private charitable enterprise is under strong pressure to operate efficiently and keep costs low. The public sector has no such regard though as they are not required to estimate their income, instead being guaranteed a set amount of funding to accomplish their goals via the budgeting of tax revenue. It would be reasonable to think this would lead to a greater outreach, but instead what we find is the exact opposite: gross inefficiency. Using government data, it's been estimated that between as much as 66% to 75% of each dollar budgeted to public redistribution agencies is absorbed in overhead costs--private counterparts average out only 33% or less. Part of this could be attributed to a generally lower cost of running a private charity, as they may also have their labor donated, and do not have to concern themselves with the additional cost of tax collections or government bureaucracy. Shifting to the latter, let's look at back at the last few decades using some data from the [URL="http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years"]Heritage Foundation[/URL]. [QUOTE]Since [1964], U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs (in constant 2012 dollars). Despite this mountain of spending, progress against poverty, at least as measured by the government, has been minimal.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE][t]http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/~/media/infographics/2014/09/bg2955/bg-war-on-poverty-50-years-chart-1-600.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] The data appears to show that the impact of programs instituted to "cure poverty " (Lyndon B. Johnson's claim, not mine), have thus far been negligible at best and inflationary at worst, depending on how you look at the data. Certainly you're apt to find similar records in the private sector's efforts as well, but likely not of this magnitude, once again due to the greater flexibility offered by a diverse collection of goals and the insulated resources of thousands of private charitable operations across the U.S. Now I'm not saying that the government isn't useful in this sector--I think the best resolutions for many of the problems in our nation would come from a collaborative effort between a fiscally limited government and a largely free private sector. The government provides a multitude of invaluable services to society. However, this post is already too long and far too off-topic. For more information on the subject and a source for the claims I've made, I'd highly recommend reading through "The Costs of Public Income Redistribution and Private Charity" by James Edwards. It's a bit lengthy, but offers an intricately written examination of the issue that I found fascinating the first few times I went through it. Sorry for the long-winded post.

[QUOTE=Chonch;52108669]I disagree with this. All forms of wealth redistribution, whether through private charity or forced through taxation, are functionally indistinguishable. The difference however is readily apparent when examining the efficiency of the program's organization and the efficacy of its operation. For the former, let's talk operating costs. We all know that even in non-profit programs, a portion of the revenue must be devoted to overhead--this is unavoidable. Depending largely on voluntary contributions, a private charitable enterprise is under strong pressure to operate efficiently and keep costs low. The public sector has no such regard though as they are not required to estimate their income, instead being guaranteed a set amount of funding to accomplish their goals via the budgeting of tax revenue. It would be reasonable to think this would lead to a greater outreach, but instead what we find is the exact opposite: gross inefficiency. Using government data, it's been estimated that between as much as 66% to 75% of each dollar budgeted to public redistribution agencies is absorbed in overhead costs--private counterparts average out only 33% or less. Part of this could be attributed to a generally lower cost of running a private charity, as they may also have their labor donated, and do not have to concern themselves with the additional cost of tax collections or government bureaucracy. Shifting to the latter, let's look at back at the last few decades using some data from the [URL="http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years"]Heritage Foundation[/URL]. The data appears to show that the impact of programs instituted to "cure poverty " (Lyndon B. Johnson's claim, not mine), have thus far been negligible at best and inflationary at worst, depending on how you look at the data. Certainly you're apt to find similar records in the private sector's efforts as well, but likely not of this magnitude, once again due to the greater flexibility offered by a diverse collection of goals and the insulated resources of thousands of private charitable operations across the U.S. This post is already too long and far too off-topic, but for more information on the subject and a source for the claims I've made, I'd highly recommend reading through "The Costs of Public Income Redistribution and Private Charity" by James Edwards. It's a bit lengthy, but offers an intricately written examination of the issue.[/QUOTE] So would you be for the whole sale removal of publicly funded programs under the knowledge you've given here that a charity would be able to do everything better, more efficiently, more effectively, and without costing you any money involuntarily?