South Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is being ridiculed for a recent speech where he appears to compare poor people to stray cats and connect having “ample food supply” to increasing welfare demand.
Here is the key quote:
“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”
Perhaps his grandma should have also told him not to quote her on this one.
Almost sixty percent of kids in South Carolina participate in free or reduced cost lunches. Bauer insists that those free lunches appear to be driving down test scores:
“I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina,” adding, “You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I’ll show you the worst test scores, folks. It’s there, period.” … “You go to a school where there’s an active participation of parents, and guess what? They have the highest test scores. So what do you do? You say, ‘Look folks, if you receive goods or services from the government and you don’t attend a parent-teacher conference, bam, you lose your benefits.’”
I just hope that he does not read this blog and see the availability of haggis in a can for lunchroom cafeterias, here.
By the way, have you noticed that the number of truly moronic statements goes up dramatically with the free availability of microphones. I can show you a bar graph where politicians near free mics have the worst ideas in any state.
“I disagree. We had a huge increase in our economy and gross revenues grew to very high levels.”
Byron,
You’re wrong! The top 2 percent of the economy flourished, while the remaining 98% lost ground. A clue for you. The Dow Jones Index is a measure of how well the rich are doing. The GNP only deals with the capital increases on an overall basis and has nothing to do with how most people are doing. You have a blind spot created by your adherance to your political philosophy. For instance we both dislike the Fed, but you made no comment to dispute the fact that it operates to create a certain level of joblessness and therefore makes it impossible for a chunk of the population to find work.
“My father, as a poor black man in the South made it out for one– and every single one of his 5 brothers and sisters did, too. Mike S. you have a weird conception of common sense. It makes sense to me to not subsidize irresponsible reproduction.”
Jhnglt5,
Accepting for the purpose of discussion that your statement about your family is true, other than the fact that it had extraordinary talents, what does that prove? There are millions of people that didn’t have your father’s, but are perfectly decent people who would work hard if they could find work. You realize of course that being black people in the South, having five children was considered by the
mass of white people to be “irresponsible reproduction.” You don’t of course because you and yours are comfortable and have ceased to care for those who aren’t, to the point of being contemptuous of them.
I find it disturbing that people who have had little contact with the poor and jobless, are so smug about their own selves and so contemptuous of others in their ignorance. I worked directly with welfare clients for 15 years and I find the characterizations of them here to be completly ignorant and symptomatic of the lies of the Reagan Era, that have taken root primarilly due to racism. Most whites in the US when they talk about welfare and the poor really mean Blacks and Latinos. The truth has always been that more whites are on welfare than people of color, but that spoils peoples ignorant narrative. Just as my point about the Fed encouraging a level of joblessness goes ignored because it clashes with your pre-determined philosophical adherence to a hack writer, who never got over the Russian Revolution because she was on the side of the aristocracy. That revolution surely went bad, but even in that badness it replaced a system far worse, that Ms. Rand fondly remembered.
Joblessness has been a foundation of American fiscal policy for many years and yet those like you pretend it’s no a rigged game, because you got yours. Well you are entitled to your selfish outlook on life, but it certainly indicates the smug certitude that it can’t happen to you or your family. That smugness is ephemeral for all except the most wealthy (Donnie Trump has gone bankrupt four times now)and it stems from an inability for you to put yourself into someone elses’ shoes.
John Puma:
I disagree. We had a huge increase in our economy and gross revenues grew to very high levels. As the left likes to say Reagan was responsible for the largest tax increase in history. Which is true, gross tax receipts to the treasury did substantially increase. There was more money for every thing and congress spent it.
Reagan did that by lowering the tax rates paid by individuals. You can have both low taxes and high gross receipts, the Reagan years proved it. The problem is government spending. A good deal of the money spent during the Reagan years was on social programs, the great society did not just come to an end.
Delete “decades” in last post.
To Byron,
Fifteen years decades into the “Great Society” we began the thirty years of the “Reagan Revolution.”
The effects of this unleashing of the “beneficence” of the private sector is painfully self-evident.
I think the government has a duty to keep a floor under its most vulnerable citizens. We had cowboy capitalism under Bush and look what happened. It seems to me that greed takes over when there is no government regulation.
lottakatz:
“. . . primarily as a disincentive to people that resort to welfare is absurd because the State exists to benefit its citizens, not the other way around.”
I disagree, isn’t the main function of government to protect against the initiation of force, either internally or externally? In other words as a referee using an objective rule of law for internal disputes and the military to protect us from external enemies. While some people require assistance that should not be governments focus. In my mind, our government was created to give people an objective standard of law they could depend on and plan their lives around.
The beneficence of government can only come at the detriment of it’s citizens.
Actually I think we all want the same things, we just have different ideas as how they can be achieved. Jhngalt5 and I believe the private sector can do it, you and others here believe government can do it.
We (jhngalt5 and I) see almost 50 years of government trying to eradicate poverty beginning with Johnson’s “Great Society” and trillions of dollars later we still have poverty. Is poverty a given? Are there always just going to be some people that cant do it on their own or are the programs not working? If poverty is a given then help those that cant help themselves. If it is the programs then why not try something else?
I will put this conversation in the mix:
Read/React: “The Novocaine Presidency”
http://www.theroot.com/buzz/readreact-novocaine-presidency
Byron
“lottakatz: what is wrong with doing public jobs like picking up trash? Or helping with carpentry or plumbing or whatever skill they have on public projects or doing charity work for Habitat for Humanity? Assuming of course they are able to work. Basically that is what FDR did during the depression. What would be the difference?”
———-
Most states have “Welfare to Work” programs of some kind. If you don’t work you can’t get temporary assistance. It didn’t work very well at all in the beginning and today the results are mixed, some do, some don’t, it depends on the goal of the programs. I recall reading early on that when female heads of household were in the programs that the cost of child care generally ate up so much of the paycheck that the families were left with less money than straight ADC payments would provide. Not a good thing.
I would like to see a jobs creation program, a massive jobs creation program based on rebuilding the infrastructure and ushering in new technologies, similar to FDR’s in many ways but even larger. Lotsa’ luck on that getting through Congress ’cause that would be socialism.
“Welfare to Work” studies:
From 2003
http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc223.pdf
“What are the chances of escaping from
poverty?
Increased employment and income improved the economic
circumstances of the families in these samples but
did not, for large proportions, translate into an escape
from poverty. In New Jersey, where incomes were highest,
about half of families in the sample were still in
poverty at the end of the period (Figure 4). Although
poverty rates improve over the period in each state, they
remain high: in the second year, 41 percent in Washington
and 51 percent in Wisconsin had incomes below the
federal poverty level”
+++
From 2009, an overview/synthesis of programs that shows mixed results based on program goals. Overall, the benefits to the government and recipients do not seem to outweigh the cost to Government and recipients. In some goal oriented programs leaving the recipients the same or less well off for small gains in government savings. Interesting read.
http://www.mdrc.org/publications/511/overview.html
jhngalt5 (John Gault #5?) Your suggestion to take a persons children from them- not to improve the welfare of the children but, primarily as a disincentive to people that resort to welfare is absurd because the State exists to benefit its citizens, not the other way around. To postulate that license to breed or continued custody of the fruits thereof be predicated on the individuals value to society (in any regard, using any criterion other than the welfare of the child) marches us, IMO, down that slippery slope. Yes, that one. Byrons mention of “3 generations of imbiciles is enough” Buck v. Bell I think.” is but a stopping point thereto.
If using a broad, nearly burlesque manner (albeit a sarcastic one) to indicate where your kind if thinking gets a society and my disdain for it is to you a personal attack so be it. I have no intention of formally arguing your point because it is frankly ludicrous to spend time diverting attention from the central tenant- that the most basic of human rights (or product thereof) can be removed from a person as a disincentive to be a burden on society. That you would make an exception for the “truly needy” instills no faith in me that another would not and might have the power to enforce his decisions about what constitutes a burden to society.
Let’s fire all the garbage men and have our trash picked up by sterilized welfare recipients.
And the rube goes on selling its wares. How much am I bid for these words?
“I don’t consider it logical to suggest performing public service for public funds is equivalent to slavery”.
Neither do I. Those that can earn their keep, should do so. It increases self esteem, which promotes the ability to return to being self-sufficient.
“The personal attacks have been on other threads.”
I can’t help you there. I’m doing my best to put an end to the personal attacks. Like others, I would appreciate your help. I think we’ve been making some progress, and in the long run, I think it will be an enjoyable place to exchange ideas. A place where only ideas get attacked.
The personal attacks have been on other threads. I don’t consider it logical to suggest performing public service for public funds is equivalent to slavery, or to blindly ignore my acknowledgement that welfare should be available for the truly needy.
jhngalt5,
Please direct to the personal attack directed at you. I have looked but cannot find it.
I’m sorry you don’t feel that people are attacking your argument with logic. I think they are doing there best. Maybe it’s a communication problem.
First, sterilization is not a logical choice because, once forced to get off their ass, some of these people may become responsible individuals capable of raising a child without handouts.
Secondly, are you seriously suggesting that demanding work for money is equivalent to indentured servitude? You must be a moron. I don’t even need to get into why that is a fallacious argument, but I will say, OBVIOUSLY, slaves don’t get paid.
Third, I have already stated I support welfare for the truly needy. So, please read my posts before you throw your two cents in.
Every time I get on this blog, I dream that I may encounter smart, civilized debate. Instead, I am always dissapointed with the rampant logical fallacies and personal attacks. Try attacking my ACTUAL argument with LOGIC. That would be so refreshing.
Duh:
you thinking Virginia about 70 years ago? “3 generations of imbiciles is enough” Buck v. Bell I think.
“The ruling was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. In support of his argument that the interest of the states in a “pure” gene pool outweighed the interest of individuals in their bodily integrity, he argued”
lottakatz:
what is wrong with doing public jobs like picking up trash? Or helping with carpentry or plumbing or whatever skill they have on public projects or doing charity work for Habitat for Humanity? Assuming of course they are able to work. Basically that is what FDR did during the depression. What would be the difference?
I don’t think jhngalt5 is talking about making anyone work for a private person or entity.
lottakatz,
” Why not just sterilize them[?]”
Funny you should say that. I seem to recall an effort in South Carolina from about 10 years ago where they tried to impliment just that. I’ll try to find a link to some info about it.
Gee Jhngalt5, why stop with taking their children from them? Why not just sterilize them. Why have them pick up trash to get assistance? Why not allow the government to just assign them positions with an employer or even farm them out to private families for unskilled work- I’d like a couple of indentured servants or slaves to do my housework and run my errands.
Do you extend your no govt. ‘welfare’ to non workers to the elderly and disabled? I suggest you support the health care bill so we can get those death panels in full swing as quickly as possible, real death panels, not that ‘end of life counseling’ the Democrats want but the real thing like they did in Europe in the 40’s…
You have my vote, I’m right there with you meine liebchen, er, bro, Srsly.
Bdaman,
Read the following from the South Carolina constitution and send a reply when you “get it.” I’ll be checking back periodically for two weeks.
—
SECTION 11. Death, resignation, removal of Governor.
In the case of the removal of the Governor from office by impeachment, death, resignation, disqualification, disability, or removal from the State, the Lieutenant Governor shall be Governor. In case the Governor be impeached, the Lieutenant Governor shall act in his stead and have his powers until judgment in the case shall have been pronounced. In the case of the temporary disability of the Governor and in the event of the temporary absence of the Governor from the State, the Lieutenant Governor shall have full authority to act in an emergency. (1972 (57) 3171; 1973 (58) 48.)
http://www.scstatehouse.gov/scconstitution/a04.htm