Why it's hard to be a Republican anymore

Grizlaw · Post by **Grizlaw** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:31 am

Bleedinbluengold wrote:What's Israel got to do with Amtrak? That was about the stupidist article I've ever read...

basically, that article was anti-Semitic.

Ugh...

No offense BnG, but you just hit one of my personal pet peeves. It really bugs me when people equate opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism -- they are not the same thing! It is possible to disagree with certain actions taken by the Israeli government and/or simply disagree with the level of financial and military support that the U.S. has given Israel without actually being anti-Semitic.

hokeyfine · Post by **hokeyfine** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:32 am

bleedin: israel has nothing to do with amtrack. the point i was making was maybe it's time to cut our foreign welfare a little bit and bring that money home to cover some of the blunders of the last six budgets.

mquast53000 · Post by **mquast53000** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:37 am

I think the issue at hand isn't that Israel needs assistance it is that our own citizens need assistance. Whether that assistance is ensuring the future of travel (Amtrak) or social security it is always hard to stomach billions of dollars going to foreign aid when there are millions of Americans that are in need of help. An example of this is the UN. Currently, member states who collectively pay less than 1 percent of U.N. dues comprise more than two-thirds of its membership, giving them power to block initiatives they don't like. U.S.-assessed dues account for about 22 percent of the U.N.'s $2 billion annual general budget. Yet the UN is constantly contradicting the US foreign policy. It is hard to imagine the US giving money to an organization that dislikes our actions, especially when there are American citizens in need of financial aid.

Post by **SonomaCat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 10:07 am

Ponycat wrote:Nothing wrong with Government Assistance, but we've created Government Reliance. Big difference.

I like that philosophy. I think the welfare reform done at the end of the 90s has gone a long ways towards shifting this dynamic in our country. Now nobody can stay on traditional welfare indefinitely, so people are having less kids out of wedlock (as it is now a financial burden to do so) and more people are working. It was some common sense legislation that took forever to pass, but finally happened under the relatively fiscally conservative Clinton administration (that sounds strange to say, but the combination of a Rep. Congress and a moderate Dem Pres. gave us the best truly Republican/fiscal conservative/free market legislation that we have had in a long, long time).

Post by **SonomaCat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 10:09 am

Grizlaw wrote:
Bleedinbluengold wrote:What's Israel got to do with Amtrak? That was about the stupidist article I've ever read...

basically, that article was anti-Semitic.
Ugh...

No offense BnG, but you just hit one of my personal pet peeves. It really bugs me when people equate opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism -- they are not the same thing! It is possible to disagree with certain actions taken by the Israeli government and/or simply disagree with the level of financial and military support that the U.S. has given Israel without actually being anti-Semitic.

Grizlaw: You don't happen to know many passionately pro-Israel folks in your line of work in your neighborhood, do you? It sounds like you have had this conversation before. We have had similar conversations in our office, especially when we had a Palestinian working in our department.

Post by **SonomaCat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 10:14 am

briannell wrote:
Nothing wrong with Government Assistance, but we've created Government Reliance. Big difference.

fully agree with this. welfare has become a way of life, rather than the small help it was supposed to be. although off subject , neither party has been able to change this.
-rebecca

this table shows how many millions of dollars each state spends on "welfare" to non-working and non-disabled families:

AFDC/TANF Benefits by State, Selected Fiscal Years 1978 – 2002
[Millions of dollars] 1978 1984 1986 1988 1990 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002
Alabama $78 $74 $68 $62 $62 $92 $75 $44 $36 $33
Alaska 17 37 46 54 60 113 107 77 55 55
Arizona 30 67 79 103 138 266 228 145 107 130
Arkansas 51 39 48 53 57 57 52 26 34 26
California 1,813 3,207 3,574 4,091 4,955 6,088 5,908 4,128 3,643 2,608
Colorado 74 107 107 125 137 158 129 80 48 53
Connecticut 168 226 223 218 295 397 323 305 166 128
Delaware 28 28 25 24 29 40 35 24 20 19
Dist. of Columbia 91 75 77 76 84 126 121 97 72 67
Florida 145 251 261 318 418 806 680 357 234 256
Georgia 103 149 223 266 321 428 385 313 180 109
Guam 3 5 4 3 5 12 14 NA NA NA
Hawaii 83 83 73 77 99 163 173 153 141 85
Idaho 21 21 19 19 20 30 30 6 3 5
Illinois 699 845 886 815 839 914 833 771 269 146
Indiana 118 153 148 167 170 228 153 104 87 146
Iowa 107 159 170 155 152 169 131 104 79 76
Kansas 73 87 91 97 105 123 98 41 43 50
Kentucky 122 135 104 143 179 198 191 147 104 101
Louisiana 97 145 162 182 188 168 130 103 58 67
Maine 51 69 84 80 101 108 99 80 73 66
Maryland 166 229 250 250 296 314 285 192 196 227
Massachusetts 476 406 471 558 630 730 560 442 336 279
Michigan 780 1,214 1,248 1,231 1,211 1,132 779 589 386 326
Minnesota 164 287 322 338 355 379 333 276 193 184
Mississippi 33 58 74 85 86 82 68 60 18 37
Missouri 152 196 209 215 228 287 254 180 139 148
Montana 15 27 37 41 40 49 45 30 21 31
Nebraska 38 56 62 56 59 62 54 41 41 52
Nevada 8 10 16 20 27 48 48 39 28 48
New Hampshire 21 16 20 21 32 62 50 39 32 29
New Jersey 489 485 509 459 451 531 462 372 222 194
New Mexico 32 49 51 56 61 144 153 104 113 82
New York 1,689 1,916 2,099 2,140 2,259 2,913 2,929 2,149 1,554 1,465
North Carolina 138 149 138 206 247 353 300 211 140 139
North Dakota 14 16 20 22 24 26 21 22 12 10
Ohio 441 725 804 805 877 1,016 763 546 368 336
Oklahoma 74 85 100 119 132 165 122 72 78 45
Oregon 148 101 120 128 145 197 155 141 34 69
Pennsylvania 726 724 389 747 798 935 822 523 573 338
Puerto Rico 25 38 33 67 72 74 63 NA NA NA
Rhode Island 59 71 79 82 99 136 125 117 105 89
South Carolina 52 75 103 91 96 115 101 52 91 35
South Dakota 18 17 15 21 22 25 22 14 10 11
Tennessee 77 83 100 125 168 215 190 108 146 132
Texas 122 229 281 344 416 544 496 315 248 203
Utah 41 52 55 61 64 77 64 50 40 41
Vermont 21 40 40 40 48 65 56 47 39 38
Virgin Islands 2 2 2 2 3 4 4 NA NA NA
Virginia 136 165 179 169 177 253 199 123 186 101
Washington 175 294 375 401 438 610 585 450 312 295
West Virginia 53 75 109 107 110 126 101 52 49 71
Wisconsin 260 519 444 506 440 425 291 145 7 126
Wyoming 6 13 16 19 19 21 17 7 9 2
United States $10,621 $14,371 $15,236 $16,663 $18,543 $22,798 $20,411 $14,614 $11,180 $9,408
Note: Benefits refers to total cash benefits paid, (see Table TANF 4) but does not include emergency assistance payments. NA denotes data not available.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Program Support, Office of Management Services, data

both parties need to work on changing this it is embaressing for a country that has so much to have this many families recieving aide.

Those are interesting figures. The encouraging part is how dramatically those numbers went down following the welfare reform bill of the late 90's. To put things into perspective, keep in mind how hot the economy was in the 90s (when the numbers above are huge) and that we were in a recession by 2002. Despite that, the welfare numbers dropped dramatically. That's progress. I am curious how that trendline moved from 2002 to the present.

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 10:19 am

had problem, i'll try again

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 10:20 am

"I like that philosophy. I think the welfare reform done at the end of the 90s has gone a long ways towards shifting this dynamic in our country. Now nobody can stay on traditional welfare indefinitely, so people are having less kids out of wedlock (as it is now a financial burden to do so) and more people are working. It was some common sense legislation that took forever to pass, but finally happened under the relatively fiscally conservative Clinton administration (that sounds strange to say, but the combination of a Rep. Congress and a moderate Dem Pres. gave us the best truly Republican/fiscal conservative/free market legislation that we have had in a long, long time). "
BAC- Stop saying things i agree with, I can't argue with someone that makes sense.

I do think welfare reform needs to go father, but Clinton did a great deal in pushing our country back onto it's own feet. He was a good Pres, even if he's a sleazy husband.

-rebecca[/quote]

Grizlaw · Post by **Grizlaw** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 12:19 pm

Bay Area Cat wrote:Grizlaw: You don't happen to know many passionately pro-Israel folks in your line of work in your neighborhood, do you? It sounds like you have had this conversation before. We have had similar conversations in our office, especially when we had a Palestinian working in our department.

I have had this discussion before BAC, and it does disturb me that a lot of people can't understand the nuance. Living here, I have a lot of Jewish friends, and the people I know personally are clear-thinking enough to understand that those who question whether we should support Israel do not generally do so out of hatred for Jews, but I know there are those who do not.

The thing is, I can sympathize with some of the knee-jerk responses. Historically, Jews have been persecuted probably worse than any religion in the history if the world. At different times, they have been persecuted by Christians, Muslims, Nazis, the KKK, and pretty much every other group that has ever persecuted anyone. Thus, I can understand where the tendency comes from to automatically get defensive at the criticism of anything Jewish (including Israel); however, the fact that I understand it does not make it right.

At the end of the day, the Israeli government is a political body. Just like any other such body, it is open to criticism, and questioning its actions or questioning whether we should support it to the extent that we do should not be equated with hatred of Jews.

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 12:34 pm

aw heck GL- I'm from a jewish family, all critics of Isreali government. They criticize all forms of government, like you said

" At the end of the day, the Israeli government is a political body. Just like any other such body, it is open to criticism, and questioning its actions or questioning whether we should support it to the extent that we do should not be equated with hatred of Jews. " this is true, but there are some people more touchy than others regarding the subject.

Can set you up on the East Coast with a slew of argumentative Jews (mostly family & friends).. so, although historically Jews were and still today targets of hatred, they are not perfect. see Jews disagree with Jews too, so it's okay for others to disagree with foreign policy regarding Isreal.

-rebecca

"

Ponycat · Post by **Ponycat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 1:21 pm

briannell wrote: I do think welfare reform needs to go father, but Clinton did a great deal in pushing our country back onto it's own feet. He was a good Pres, even if he's a sleazy husband.

[/quote]

Welform reform would have never happened without a Republican Congress and would never have been brought up without Gov's like Thompson, Ridge, and Racicot, who actually started the whole thing in their states. Although Clinton did sign it into law which did take guts.

Grizlaw · Post by **Grizlaw** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 1:41 pm

mquast53000 wrote: edit: I have a sneaking suspicion that Grizlaw is a major Hilary Clinton supporter! Grizlaw what are you plans for Hilary’s 2008 presidential election?

Heh...I must've missed this my first time through the thread.

Short answer: um, not exactly. Clinton I did some good things, but I'm not completely sold on Hillary. We'll see; depends on who else is running.

Post by **SonomaCat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 2:12 pm

Ponycat wrote:
briannell wrote: I do think welfare reform needs to go father, but Clinton did a great deal in pushing our country back onto it's own feet. He was a good Pres, even if he's a sleazy husband.
Welform reform would have never happened without a Republican Congress and would never have been brought up without Gov's like Thompson, Ridge, and Racicot, who actually started the whole thing in their states. Although Clinton did sign it into law which did take guts.

I think a lot of things can only happen when the party that normally wouldn't support such a thing is in the White House. Welfare reform would never pass without a Dem President because it was a big enough issue that it had to be bipartisan. With Clinton on board, enough Dems voted for it to pass. Same with NAFTA. These were Republican issues that a moderate Dem President was able to pass that would have been fought tooth and nail (and called mean and unfair) if proposed with a major Dem's support.

Similarly, Bush has been able to raise Medicare and drug benefits (without means testing) and other spending programs that probably would have been fought against by Republicans if a Democratic President would have proposed it.

It's interesting to me how many of these sorts of things work out.

Ponycat · Post by **Ponycat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 2:20 pm

Welfare reform was part of the contract with America, after the Dems butt kicking in the 94 elections Clinton had no choice but to moderate. To say welfare reform would have never passed without a Dem president is flat out political spin.

Post by **SonomaCat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 2:27 pm

Ponycat wrote:Welfare reform was part of the contract with America, after the Dems butt kicking in the 94 elections Clinton had no choice but to moderate. To say welfare reform would have never passed without a Dem president is flat out political spin.

It's not political spin because I am not playing for either side. It simply appears to be the reality from my perspective. Regardless of how Clinton came to the point of deciding that it was a good idea (and many in his cabinet backed it as well), he did support it, and with that, the Republicans got the votes they needed.

As we have seen with the current Rep. President and Rep. Congress, it is still hard to shove through legislation without bipartisan support, even with seemingly all of the power with one party.

That's a good thing -- it keeps the really bad ideas from getting passed much of the time.

I'm not praising Clinton for passing it -- just observing how the political system works.

mquast53000 · Post by **mquast53000** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 3:14 pm

I was waiting for a response!

I read an article about all of the "oops" Hillary had during her senate election. Boy the crap she said and did... She was lucky as hell the Gulioni (sp) pulled out of the election due to health problems. It sounded like she was going to get a real ass whooping.
While I was reading the article I couldn't believe the lack of support she had from her own party. The big named democrats didn’t like the idea of a “newcomer” would represent New York State. My favorite instance was when she was at a Yankees game and as she put on a hat she said that she has ALWAYS been a Yankees fan!
Of course when it came down to it all she needed was some money. Where she lacked experience and knowledge she made up for it in cold hard cash. I really couldn't believe how much soft money Bill had got her! Another example of how money can help the most incompetent politicians- the article mentioned that Hillary needed the Jewish vote and how Bill had taken significant amounts of money for Hillary's election from Islamic groups! I was laughing and crying that she did that. Another good old fashion oops was when she accepted the invitation to participate in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Well Democrats NEVER are in that parade because the parade is anti-gay everything- Hillary is a HUGE supporter of gay rights! Despite all of these little mistakes she was still able to win the election with an amazing 55% of the votes (didn’t help that her opponent was not very appealing candidate). New York land of the liberals! I think that was one of the few states that would have elected her!

Sorry guys a little off topic

Bleedinbluengold · Post by **Bleedinbluengold** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:05 pm

Grizlaw wrote:Ugh...

No offense BnG, but you just hit one of my personal pet peeves. It really bugs me when people equate opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism -- they are not the same thing! It is possible to disagree with certain actions taken by the Israeli government and/or simply disagree with the level of financial and military support that the U.S. has given Israel without actually being anti-Semitic.

Of course, no offense taken. This is total speculation on my part, but if the person who wrote that article didn't have a "[beep]-on" for Jews, I think he would have conducted a little more research to point out some pork that about 80% of America could agree was wasteful.

For example, who among us would rather have the money spent on this project (http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.j ... pont24.xml) be spent on Amtrak?

Or, how 'bout we take the money from any, or all, of these projects(http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pag ... 4_treasury) and spend it on Amtrak? At least the money would still be used in a transportation project.

GL, I completely empathize with you on your pet peeve. I guess my pet peeve would be lazy journalism.

The comparison was lazy journalism.

To show the ridiculousness of his comparison, why don't we just take $350MM from the Palestinian Authority, $350MM from Israel, $350MM from Iraq, $350MM from Afghanistan, $350MM from the Balkans, $350MM from Alaska pork. Then Amtrak would have enough to carry their 10MM passengers for another year. In comparison, Greyhound carries twice the passengers (Greyhound is also profitable), and the airlines carry over 100MM passengers annually.

'93HonoluluCat · Post by **'93HonoluluCat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:38 pm

mquast53000 wrote:I think that was one of the few states that would have elected her!

Why do you think she change her home of record to NY? She wanted to be a senator--NY had the best political climate for her.

mslacat · Post by **mslacat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:45 pm

I find myself attracted to the Democratic party, mainly because of their fiscal
conservatism when compared to the current Republican party.

'93HonoluluCat · Post by **'93HonoluluCat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:49 pm

mslacat wrote:I find myself attracted to the Democratic party, mainly because of their fiscal
conservatism when compared to the current Republican party.