**** Elections thread *****

[wufwugy]

"Hey all slackers, get jobs and you'll be better."

Wouldn't it work? Provide care for the disabled. Don't give free housing, free food, free money, and other free stuff to people who just wanna be slackers. Then employment participation rates would skyrocket while expenditures on welfare would plummet. Cities would get cleaner, have less crime, you see where I'm going with this...

Back before the Great Depression, this was standard economic theory. How this theory got undermined is a political one and quite alarming.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Wouldn't it work? Provide care for the disabled. Don't give free housing, free food, free money, and other free stuff to people who just wanna be slackers. Then employment participation rates would skyrocket while expenditures on welfare would plummet. Cities would get cleaner, have less crime, you see where I'm going with this...

Back before the Great Depression, this was standard economic theory. How this theory got undermined is a political one and quite alarming.

It is a pipe dream relying on a vision of humans which doesn't live up to observation.

[wufwugy]

It is a pipe dream relying on a vision of humans which doesn't live up to observation.

What observation?

[MadMojoMonkey]

What observation?

The observation that the vast majority of people who accept those free services do so only for a short-term period in which they need some community support.

Only a small %-age of people who ever receive welfare or food stamps or other individual (not corporate) subsidies are habitually claiming that benefit.

The notion that these free services are a net loss on the society is belied by the actual data of who is using these services and how much.

[wufwugy]

The observation that the vast majority of people who accept those free services do so only for a short-term period in which they need some community support.

Only a small %-age of people who ever receive welfare or food stamps or other individual (not corporate) subsidies are habitually claiming that benefit.

The notion that these free services are a net loss on the society is belied by the actual data of who is using these services and how much.

The benefits phase out.

There's a reason why unemployment decreased at a much steeper decline after North Carolina slashed its obscene UI benefits than before.