Quote:
Originally Posted by irateplatypus
that's not so. the following paragraphs are lifted directly from the obama website w/all the attendant spin an official website can muster. each bestows a benefit on someone who can't afford the price without tax dollars provided by another. each takes tax dollars out of the realm of mutual benefit and directly confers it on someone who couldn't pay for it to the detriment of the earning party.
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Well, on the surface, I could see how these programs would give a conservative pause. But the fact remains that, if you examine any of them closely you'd see that they all have more weighty goals than redistributing the wealth.
Take the Harlem Children's Zone. If you have time, This American life did a pretty good story about it.
This American Life
It is actually something a conservative should get behind, which is an attempt to end the cultural poverty cycle present in inner city communities.
Other than that, I don't know why you'd have a problem helping folks pay for school in exchange for community service. Investments in education tend to pay off and then some. Are you paying for your own education, or is Uncle Sam (the taxpayer)?
I don't know how one could, in the context of current energy price volatility, claim that a program that ensures that people have heat in their houses is bad.
It could also be argued that a wonderful first step towards weaning people off of social security (or at least to make entitlement reduction easier to swallow) would be to motivate them to start planning for their own retirement.
I know you look at these things and think you're being robbed to pay lazy people to do nothing. I look at them and think that sometimes you need to spend a little money to help people make a little money.