I think you missed my point. The company I work for DOES employ impoverished Americans. And if they actually work hard and stick around, they can make more money. I have some employees that make $19/hour + full benefits, despite no high school diploma.

Why is welfare not being available to the unemployed bad? IF anything, that's a good middle ground. "Well at least you're TRYING to support yourself, here's a helping hand."

The only exceptions to the rule, should be the disabled and (I think you mentioned before) the mentally ill. Situations that are not by choice. But there are programs designed for those situations, that make more sense.

If only it were just one person.

Again, so what? That's one company. There are thousands more than pay nine dollars an hour with no benefits whatsoever. Please tell me what you've proven.

Except that the welfare amount doled out is so low that they still have to search out extra income to support their families. And the system is a gigantic beaurocracy fraught to the teeth with fraud and mismanagement.

Okay then, five. Get off your horse. What you've spouted off on this board are a bunch of cliches, nothing more and nothing less. The issue is far more complex than any of what you've said would lead me to believe you acknowledge. I can attest to the fact that the vast, vast majority of people in poverty that I've met or encountered don't act in any way like the stereotypes you've named on this board.

You know having a "conservative" view on welfare, doesn't automatically make someone a Republican. Pigeonholing people into a specific political stereotype based on an opinion on one topic is silly.

But it's such an exaggerated, stereotypical opinion. You can't really blame me.

Jokes. We has them.

Also, your comments in this thread have been so ridiculously pundit I couldn't help taking a shot at you.

Pot, meet kettle.

Well, I've always got openings. And the last meeting I went to in Bellevue, everyone was having trouble filling positions. Yet none of us came from areas with 100% employment.

You know how we could get rid of that fraud and mismanagement? Get rid of the system. Let people work for a living.

Well the vast, vast majority of people in poverty I've encountered act in this way. I deal with them everyday.

You mean the system that you just praised?

Honest to god.

That's bullshit. Total and complete bullshit. And I'm calling it at the top of my voice, because it's unreal and false, a filthy regurgitation of the stereotype that's been perpetuated by people like Bill O'Reilly and other loud-mouthed pundits that isn't situated in reality whatsoever.

It's fine I have thick skin, I play devil's advocate too much not to.

Does my opinion that the highest paid employee of a company's salary should be limited by both the company's median salary and lowest salary (therefore forcing higher pay for lower class employees instead of grossly inflated CEO salaries and helping shift lower-middle class salaries up at the same time) prove that I have wild and crazy opinions that conflict with both sides of the line and get me unlumped from Ron Paul?

No, because that ruins the joke and I'm really only here to be funny.

This is praise?

I meant get rid of the system, as in. There shouldn't be ANY system. As I've said from the beginning.

OK. I work backstage corporate for a large grocer chain. I spent a decade in the store-level. The last store I worked in was in the shitty part of town. These things occurred by the dozens:

Pays with Quest card (Food stamp card). Puts groceries into an Escalade with spinners.

Buys steak and king crab legs, with a Quest card.

Reeks of pot, definitely doesn't have glaucoma. Buys nothing but Doritos and Ice Cream. (I have no issue with pot. But if you can afford pot, you shouldn't be on welfare.)

Mother comes in with all her kids. She's utilizing WIC (a much better system than food stamps, it forces the person to get staples like milk, eggs, cheese, formula) and a Quest card. She doesn't get the 100% Juice on her WIC check. She uses her Quest card to purchase Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, candy bars and soda.

Customer complains because they can't buy Red Bull on their Quest Card. Proceeds to pay for the Pina Colada mix with the Quest Card (it's considered a food item).

Customer purchase steaks with a Quest card. Walks outside, sells it for half price to a guy walking inside. Goes to the liquor store and buys a bottle of Jack Daniels.

These types of things happen constantly. These are not event's I saw on O'Reilly (I can't stand him actually.) These are things I've dealt with at work for over ten years.

Again, a bunch of blah blah blah. Things you cherrypicked to match what you believe while you stocked boxes and tsk tsked poor people. As for buying soda and candy bars, even people with money don't eat healthy. It means nothing.

I wish it was cherry-picking. And I didn't choose it to match what I believe, it's one of the catalyst for what I believe.

Eating unhealthy on your own dime is fine. Buying expensive gourmet ice cream and mass quantities of candy bars instead of ingredients that could make a meal to feed your family for a night or two, while not even using your own money... that's what isn't fine.

I see, so the key to making yourself rich is eating fruits & vegetables?

If you pay taxes, you pay for other people's shit every day, dumbass. You, as a taxpayer, don't get to pick and choose where you want your tax dollars to go.