saintfan

When I was in elementary school my mom (single mother, 1975) qualified for free lunch for both me and my sister. She refused it. Now, I'm not saying that everyone can refuse it. Some people NEED it and that's what it's for.

Fast-forward to this summer. In California, they've cut public schools to the bone, and they may not be done, while they continue to fund stupid social programs and while California becomes more and more a welfare state.

Here's the rub. The elementary schools feed the kids free of charge. Lunch. Breakfast too. Dinner too. All school year. All summer long. But the program is abused. Kids bring their friends. Kids who don't NEED it show up too, with THEIR friends. The principal at my daughter's Elementary school is livid over the whole thing, but there's not ONE DAMN THING she can do about it.

American's don't mind giving. We are the most generous people the world has ever known. We don't like STEALING. And that's what the 'free lunch' program has become. I'm speaking ONLY about California, but I'm willing to bet this particular problem is not specific to the Golden State.

No, sir. He's not an idiot as you suggest. He's PISSED OFF, and he has EVERY RIGHT to be pissed off, just as I and so many other people are pissed off because our country has drifted slowly over the years from what the founders intended. It is no longer drifting. It is on rapids and it is approaching the waterfall.

I've discussed this stuff with you. You're not stupid. You're well read on the subject, so I know you know we are not where the Constitution would have us be. We are increasingly a nation of people who feel entitled to things simply because someone else has them. There are people who grew up watching their parents and their grandparents manipulate, abuse, and scam Government programs, and of course they're scamming them too, all at the expense of the working public.

WE ARE TIRED OF IT. No. he's no moron. He is a pissed off American who is tired of seeing loafers live off his dime while he struggles to provide decent things for his family - things he wouldn't have to struggle to provide if he wasn't being forced by big brother to subsidize someone else who is able but not willing to go out and get his own. He doesn't have to. If his kids are hungry, no problem. Head down to the school. If he wants a cell phone he doesn't have to save for it, Obama will just give him one. If he needs a car, he doesn't have to sacrifice. He simply needs to get on Welfare and the Government will provide one for him, pay for the insurance, AND for AAA.

If you work for what you have, and if these programs don't piss you off, then I'm not sure I can have a conversation with you. Anybody who thinks Thomas Jefferson or Lincoln would approve is sadly mistaken. The "New Deal" was sneaked through in the dead of night and the country has been on the hell express ever since.

C'mon Man...

jcp026

This is pointless. If we can't even agree that poor children, poor through no fault of their own, and hungry because they're human shouldn't be able to get lunch and breakfast at school for free then I don't know where we can agree.

saintfan

You didn't read what I typed. We DO agree that poor children should be able to get lunch and breakfast at school for free. I doubt you'll find a man or woman in America who disagrees.

Where I disagree with my liberal friends is accountability. If, for example, you're benefiting from Section 8 you should be subject to periodic inspections - random so that you cannot prepare and hide your 3000 dollar stereos, Ipods, 52" televisions, and the 12 relatives living with you. There are people who need Section 8 who are using Section 8, but there are more people on Section 8 because they're lazy and they are career abusers of the system. We need to put a stop to that practice.

The principal of my daughter's Elementary school should have the power to enforce rules. But before that, rules have to be created so that she can enforce them. As things are now, when some kid wanders in she cannot require that kid to show proof that he/she should be there, and if she DID ask the district would fire her. That program exists at the expense of Civics, and music, and physical education, and more. It's a free for all. Pun intended. It sucks and it should be stopped.

People like me (and I'm sure I'm speaking for many others, but this is just me, talking to you) are sick and damn tired of our Government robbing from us and giving to the "poor", because, to be truthful, many of the poor are poor by choice, and it's breaking my back to subsidize the lazy. MY kids don't have all they could/should have, because my neighbor wants to run her air conditioner at 68 degrees all damn day. That makes me angry. MY bill is 400 dollars a month (more in Northern California than anywhere in Arizona by the way) so hers can be 60.

Now my friend that isn't right. And it's just one example of a thousand others I could submit. And if you can't see that...if you can't see why that makes me livid, well, then you're right. This is truly pointless.

C'mon Man...

Danno

Why do you think that?

SmashMouth

ScottF

Accountability is not a fault exclusive to liberals. It seems what you are saying is that you do not have issue with the programs, but how they are administered. If that's true, I agree 100%.

However, there are countless examples of government programs that are not monitored, abused, and are therefore not cost effective, not just 'liberal' programs. As a matter of fact, the average American would be hard pressed to name the programs that are successful.

Keeping with your school example, look at No Child Left Behind. Great idea in theory, but underfunded from day one, and never gave 'failing' schools a chance to get out of hole. How do you fix an at-need school? Penalize it by witholding funding. Brilliant.
That law was compliments of Bush, Secretary of Education Rod Paige and co-authored by Boehner. Yep, FEDERAL law imposed upon individual states , and written by conservatives. Hmmmmm...

saintfan

If you think this is a liberal / conservative issue, at least from my perspective, you couldn't be more mistaken. I'm sick of big government. ALL big government. I have a - and fundamental is a key word - FUNDAMENTAL difference of opinion with the progression of a welfare state, and it isn't that we are creating one, we already HAVE created one.

Now, if you want to create a running list of social programs penned by liberals and conservatives, I can guarantee you which list will be longer, and to that end which list will host the most failures, but that's not my point. And I think you know that sir.

And here again is the problem. Here we are being kept busy while the real problems in Washington hide behind them. There isn't a politician in Washington overly concerned with the abuse of the free lunch system in our public schools beyond whether or not he/she can get a vote as a result of either implementing or ending it. You know it. I know it. And yet we do nothing about it.

If we agree on accountability (and how can thought people disagree) then we must also agree that these programs are created, not for their social benefit, but for the garnering of votes. Thing is Conservatives will listen to me, while my liberal buddies are hell bent on thinking I just don't get it. They don't understand they aren't really helping these people that they think they're helping. They are simply funding a mentality that is quickly destroying our country.

And when I bring up the fact, for example, that the school lunch system is being robbed blind here's what I get in response:

1) There must surely be no reason to have this conversation with me because I'm against feeding hungry kids.

Well that's bull**** and it's typed here by me, both before AND AFTER that silly thoughtless response.

2) Well, hey, the Conservatives do it too.

A point which I would never deny, but that's the old deflection defense. Nothing substantial in it a'tall.

So who's going to stand up and FIX the problems? I can tell you, and anyone else who stands still long enough to listen, and whether you believe it or not unfortunately IS my problem, but Obama has worsened the problem. Spending is OUT OF CONTROL. We just turned health care in to another overly-convoluted expensive silly government program that the medical system isn't equipped to handle, and that will do NOTHING to make health care cheaper because it doesn't even approach addressing the REAL problem because the REAL problems are the people in Washington making laws based on their special interests and in the interest of getting themselves and they buddies reelected. And yet the American public was stupid enough to allow it to happen.

If you don't believe me, consider Obama said OVER AND OVER again "NO NEW TAXES", and yet the deciding supreme court justice on his health care law had to "decide what was meant" and decided it was okay defined as a tax and that's what was meant. Obama is on record promising no new taxes, so how could this justice determine he meant otherwise? The whole thing was rigged from the get go, and you know it, and I know it, and yet American's keep towing the line and becoming more and more powerless as Government gets bigger and bigger and more in control of our lives - THE VERY THING THE FOUNDERS PREACHED AGAINST!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone who reads the Constitution - and not only the Constitution but the correspondence and communication between the men who wrote it as they carefully crafted every word - can only come away with a rude awakening. America offers opportunity and nothing more. That is it. That is all. Period. End of page. End of paragraph. End of story. Anything else is a bastardization of the principles upon which those men designed the way our government 'should' be run. And there's no arguing that. It is fact. There is no more clear fact in the whole debate, so why not lets just get back to the Constitution? Nobody wants to do that because half the country would have to recognize their agendas don't fit here. Nobody in this country is guaranteed a cell phone for the love of God. This country doesn't promise central air and heat for everyone? That's insane, and yet here we are...

There was a woman on PBS TV today smiling and speaking softly, all proud of herself, because she is part of some government program that teaches illegals how to navigate our system and her heart is bleeding because it is SO challenging to these people because they don't know the culture and they don't speak the language.

HELLO? You stupid person! They aren't even supposed to BE HERE?!?!?!?! The liberal is okay with the money spent helping these poor illegal people "navigate our system" and the Conservative wants them run out of the country on a rail because being here, even when measured against federal laws Obama and his ilk flatly refuse to enforce, is AGAINST THE FUC**** law! Count me with the Conservatives. I simply cannot understand how anyone could possibly disagree, but they exist, and they are destroying this country one social program at a time.

C'mon Man...

SmashMouth

Iowa deli co-owner caters for Obama visit, but his T-shirt tells another story

Ross Murty likes business, but he doesn’t like President Obama.

And so the co-owner of the Village Corner Deli here agreed to cater Obama’s visit Wednesday — but not before donning a T-shirt blaring the message: “Government didn’t build my business. I did.”







It was a reference to a remark Obama made several weeks ago that his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has seized upon to portray Obama as anti-business. Obama, referring to the help government provides to businesses by building roads and providing education and other services, said, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that."

“No one from the government was there when we were sweating it, when we were building this business,” Murty said. Before him was a bank of chafing dishes filled with smoked beef brisket, pulled pork, vegetable parmesan bake and cheesy hash brown casserole provided to the White House press corps covering the president’s three-day swing across Iowa this week.

Murty, 45, a registered Republican, didn’t really have a choice with the catering job. His partner, Bret Dalton (a registered Democrat), accepted the work on Saturday while Murty was away in Chicago watching a Cubs game. Dalton volunteered for Vice President Biden’s presidential campaign in 1988, when he was a student at Iowa State University.

But that’s not why he got the contract.

“One of Obama’s lead people came into the deli Saturday morning,” Dalton said. “I didn’t even know it was for Obama until that night.”

When he found out, though, Dalton had some fun. He called up Murty, who was driving back from Chicago, and asked: “Guess who’s coming to town this week?”

“He was a little stunned,” Dalton recalled. But the two take their political disagreements in stride, and the conversation was all in good fun, both said.

“I would never say no to anybody for any reason,” Murty said. “My partner and I have different views in politics, but business is business.”

The White House performs background checks on contractors for security reasons, but it does not vet them for their political views. Also, the caterers are hired to provide food for the White House press corps, which pays for the food, even though the White House makes the arrangements.

The Obama campaign had no comment on Murty's T-shirt.

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