Final Presidential Debate...

what box in a cave do you guys live in where the rich are good and hard-working and the poor are bad and lazy? wish i lived in a world as black and white as you guys

The question I have is, what happened to these people to get to the point they\'re at that they need to rely on welfare.  Did they get laid off?  Get another job, I know its a tough market, but there\'s going to be SOMETHING, even if its not the most desirable job.

Don\'t tell me that those on welfare don\'t feel entitled to it.  They do, and rather than go get a job, they\'d rather manipulate the government to get more money in their welfare check.

I know this isn\'t the case 100% of the time, but it drives me nuts to see people get something for nothing, and then still complain that they aren\'t getting enough.

Did you know a third of American citizens don\'t even pay taxes?  Isn\'t that enough of a break?

[Viper_Fujax]

most of them can\'t afford to take the time to go to college. not only does it cost money to go to college, but theyre losing the immediate cash that they need in order to pay their bills, (because theyre spending 15 hours a week in school. )

this leads to them having to get back-breaking, unskilled labor where they can be layed off the second a company needs to make cut-backs. all while being put on a wage that can barely get them by.

but..both of us are lumping the group into one catagory. there are some free-loaders that you\'re talking about. but like any group of people, theres going to be a percentage to take advantage of it (in the bad way)..i\'d have to see some hard proof statistics that prove the majority are free-loaders and not the people too poor to go to college and increase their income

I paid for college by working in the restaurant business while attending classes.  Sure, it didn\'t pay for the entirety of school costs, but it paid for enough were I wasn\'t burying myself with debt.  In this world you have to make sacrifices to become successful, and some people just aren\'t willing to do that.

I\'d also like to make a point that I didn\'t get any money from the state to go to school, I had to take out private loans.  Meanwhile, some of my classmates are getting grants and cuts because they\'re a minority.  So tell me, is that fair?

Do you believe in quotas and affirmative action?  I sure as hell don\'t see how that makes things "equal".  It makes things more unequal.

Back on the subject of wealth though.  The poor and minorities are cut so many breaks by the government and they just want more, more, more....

[Viper_Fujax]

to go back even further, before they can go to college, they usually live in a shitty neighborhood. shitty neighborhoods dont get as much school funding as the rich schools, so even their high school learnings are shit. so we\'re basically saying \'why arent you succeeding?\' while we have our foot on their back. so it goes even further than the 18+ year olds getting jobs and good incomes

edit: sorry, i had a thought and posted quickly. while you were paying for school, were you paying for your housing and electricity, and food? if you were, good for you, but you didnt mention it. I dont believe in affirmative action on the basis of black people getting payed back because of slavery, but if people are poor because theyre being held down by how our society works, then yea, id give them something similar to affirmative action

to go back even further, before they can go to college, they usually live in a shitty neighborhood. shitty neighborhoods dont get as much school funding as the rich schools, so even their high school learnings are shit. so we\'re basically saying \'why arent you succeeding?\' while we have our foot on their back. so it goes even further than the 18+ year olds getting jobs and good incomes

I have to disagree with this point.  I grew up in New Jersey, and right outside of my town was a city called Newark.  Newark is riddled with crime and terrible neighborhoods, but as far as funding goes they were the primary recipients of tax dollars.  So what do you think Malcolm X. Shabazz high school decided to do with their tax dollars.  Buy new books? No.  Hire more teachers? No. Improve the classroom facilities? No.

They choose to build a million dollar stadium in Newark, and the proceded to vandalize it with grafitti.

The citizen\'s did it themselves.

About Newark:

The city\'s public schools are among the lowest-performing in the state, even after the state government decided to take over management of the city\'s schools in 1995, which was done under the presumption that improvement would follow. The school district continues to struggle with low high school graduation rates and low standardized test scores.\'

[Viper_Fujax]

dont know enough about the school or anything related to it enough to comment. but yea, on the surface that looks bad. but my gut says that its the school board that is the fault of the waste of tax dollars and not the families\'.

also dont have an answer for why they would still have low graduation rates (standardized test scores are bullshit)..but who would with 3 lines of information..minues the information

dont know enough about the school or anything related to it enough to comment. but yea, on the surface that looks bad. but my gut says that its the school board that is the fault of the waste of tax dollars and not the families\'.

No actually there was board election/poll/meeting or whatever to determine where to allocate the funds, and the citizens thought a football stadium was a higher priority than the school itself.

also dont have an answer for why they would still have low graduation rates (standardized test scores are bullshit)..but who would with 3 lines of information..minues the information

I\'m not sure I understand your point here.  Are you saying the test is unfair?  I hate standardized test as much as the next guy, but they are STANDARDIZED, i.e. everyone gets the same test.

[Viper_Fujax]

im saying that now teachers teach in order for their students to test well and not necessarily for learning and comprehension. you would think that if you learn and comprehend the subject you\'d do well on the test, but many times thats not the case. but their students HAVE to do well on those tests if the school wants to get the funding it needs/wants

 and you\'ve taken enough of those tests to know that the test doesnt really test that you\'re smarter/dumber than a person who did better/worse. some kids are smart but just suck at taking tests, whether that be because of the timed pressure, the atmosphere, whatever.

I definitely agree, but I doubt the low test scores are due to the teachers not teaching the test.

Poor poor, Viper growing up in Cali has jaded your point of views on govt .

NJ\'s state and local govt\'s are so fked up its not even funny. They probably get more tax dollars per capita than most states and its wasted to shit.

Schools are not the problem, its the parents that bring these kids to there schools. I\'m sorry that Ray Ray and Pookie get shitty schooling because they don\'t know their father and their mother\'s a crack whore.

But Bubba from bum fuck nowhere Nebraska probably gets less funding to go to school just as much as RayRay and Pookie. So please don\'t make schools a racial thing.

So you believe money should be taken away from the successful and given to the poor?

I believe that the wealthy should contribute something to the country that allowed them to become so remarkably successful.  Yes, $250K per year is remarkably successful.
 
Money paid to the federal government in the form of tax revenues helps maintain the infrastructure and stability of the market that a wealthy manager\'s business operates in.  As Biden said, paying taxes is patriotic because it supports the entire structure we depend on for our wealth.
 
Back to the subject of Joe the Plumber, it appears that his concerns about Obama\'s tax plan were unfounded:
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27221645/
 

Wurzelbacher also acknowledged that he had no specific plans for buying Newell’s business, saying he and Newell had simply talked about the idea from time to time. He might have difficulty making the purchase: Court records from his divorce show that Wurzelbacher made $40,000 in 2006.
 
Even if he did buy Newell Plumbing and Heating, Obama’s tax plan wouldn’t affect him. While Wurzelbacher told Obama that the business would be taxed at a higher rate because it grossed more than $250,000 a year, Ohio business records show the company’s estimated total annual revenue as only $100,000.
 
In any event, Obama’s tax plan specifies that the higher rate would apply only to revenue above the $250,000 threshold. For a company with revenue of $280,000, the top end of Wurzelbacher’s supposition, only the extra $30,000 would be taxed at a higher rate.

Cored,

Regardless, I\'m speaking on principles.  I hate the fact that I\'m being forced to contribute rather than donating money to private charities.  It seems very authoritarian to me...

Less force, more freedom.  Let freedom ring.

If you\'ve ever seen a school in a shitty neighborhood, you\'d see that the the funding is not even close to the big issue.  The issue is that the kids don\'t care.  They don\'t care because their parents don\'t care.  An over generalization?  Probably.  But it\'s basically what it boils down to.

If you want to learn, you can learn.  The idea that you can\'t learn because you\'re poor is ridiculous.  The idea that new text books are going to help the kids in these schools learn better is ridiculous.  It boils down to drive, priorities, and attitude.  The problem is, poor communities are often filled with families whose parents have little of the three, and so the kids grow up the same way.  You can\'t teach someone who doesn\'t want to learn, not matter how much money you throw at the problem.