Lisa Benson for April 19, 2011

All these hummingbirds look rather fat and rich, could they be looking for another tax “benefit”;isn’t that the word GE used. They said when you don’t pay taxes you can’t get a refund… no, no, no…it’s a $3.2 billion tax benefit.

I can’t wait until it runs out and the moochers will be eating each other.

Yes, conservatives think that an insurance program you pay into out of every check your entire working life is nothing but a handout, and they are willing to risk the full faith and credit of the United States of America to force you into accepting less than the full annuity you have earned, just so the rich people controlling the party can pay less than their full share of the taxes they owe for this nation making them prosperous. Shame.

This nation didn’t do anything except provide them the atmosphere to become wealthy. Everyone has that opportunity.

Almost – should have corporate names on those birds: GE, Haliburton, Citibank, … .

Unfortunately, most of the fat corporate hummingbirds on the list (such as GE and several of the Wall Street firms) are in partnership with the current president, so don’t expect them to stop flocking to the government, at least for the next year or so. Even the corporations Obama claims to be against - such as the huge oil companies - are making record profits as the direct result of his policies while not paying any federal taxes. Eh? What’s that about?

Ian Rey, the issue Lisa is highlighting isn’t Social Security (which liberals refuse to consider reforming, since it’s just a huge ponzi scheme that supplies them with a slush fund), but multiple other entitlements that encourage folks to sit home rather than work.

In my state, once you qualify for one program you automatically qualify for all: food stamps, free oil delivery, free housing assistance, free state school college tuition, Medicaid, electric/gas assistance, and welfare payments. What kind of fool would want to work? As a result, we’ve got entire communitys of multiple generations who are dependent on big government, don’t pay taxes, and wouldn’t know how to exist without these handouts because we’ve trained them that way. Now the states are broke and want us to bail them out. Why are these programs untouchable?

“What kind of fool would want to work?”

The one who wants some dignity.

Jimathai, shame on you. You’re very naive if you don’t think that some people do indeed want to be on welfare and receive the long list of payments that I itemized. There’s some folks who know how to milk the system better than the (overpaid) bureaucrats that run it. I’m all for safety nets, but that’s not what I described.

And no, I don’t blame the poor - I blame those who keep the poor dependent on big government so that they and their children stay poor and blaming everyone else other than the system that sends them their checks. I have great respect with the folks who have dignity and shake themselves free of the quicksand that’s been dumped on them.

^Never been unemployed, huh?

Each one of those birds represents a corporation, right?

Corporate birds of the same feather.

Frenchette, never. I have 3 jobs at the moment, but my brother is unemployed and living with us. It seems that since he had owned his own small business (a small restaurant) he’s not eligible to collect unemployment. The irony is that he lost his business because with the downturn in traffic, he wasn’t able to pay his taxes - which have almost doubled over the last 2 years for the business - on time.

Again, I’m good with safety nets, but not good with the formation of entire communities based on entitlements.

Yes, pirate, some are corporations that have greatly benefited from current policies, do not pay taxes, and are likely not to be seriously audited. The list might surprise you of who they are, but for kicks, let’s do some research in a few months that highlights the major contributors to the Democratic campaign $1 billion war chest and see if they’re the same names.

For all the talking points that get endlessly repeated, I’m thinking that there’s lot of people who don’t really understand how the world works.

I don’t think they’re saying the unemployed are sucking on the system, I think Benson is saying those who receive state and federal benefits as a “way of life” are in for a rude awakening. What happens when that fluid runs out?

Here’s a comparison for you. Why do creatures who are caged in a zoo fail to re-adapt to fending for themselves? Because they have forgotten how to fend for themselves.

Working is a habit. Always has been. Given the choice beteween working and doing nothing with the same end result, most people (despite the dignity part) will trend towards entropy (aka doing nothing). What the problem is is that so many people now have gotten indoctrinated into the system to the point where they believe they can’t survive without the system. This is what our nanny state has done over the 20+ years of welfare programs.

Look at social security as a prime example. In the 50’s, when it was put into place, people were hurting and needed a helping hand. They were desperate, and scratched, scraped, scrounged to make it into retirement, and SS was put into place to help them retire. Now, those people who were children of the 50’s are retired, and many of them rely heavily on SS because they knew it would be there for them when they retired. They switched from “helping hand” to “relied upon.” And now we have the baby boomers, who are switching from “relied upon” to “I deserve this.” They built the SS payment into their retirement calculations, because they feel they deserve it after all the years they’ve paid into it.

Fortunately, Gen X has recognized the folly of this and many of us are starting to anticipate SS not being there at all. But we still have a large portion of society that relies on SS and will expect it to be there when they retire, for the same reason the boomers do. And therein lies the problem.

When you take away the need for someone to take responsibility for their own futures, they become incapable of planning for their futures (for the most part). You de-instinct them (yes, I know, that’s not a word). There’s no fear about retirement for the boomers and many X’ers.

The same goes for all the other social programs. They are not rights. They are privileges, granted by taking from those who create and giving them to those who take. Unfortunately, we have an entire class of society with a bullhorn that believes these privileges are rights, and their shouting is convincing others that they are rights, too. Unfortunately, them shouting doesn’t make it true. And sadly, that shouting is drowning out the voices of reason, saying “Do not rely on program xyz to be there for you. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”

^You realize that most stock holders are overseas, right? And that you want to empower foreign interest, right?

This is argument is stupid. Sure there are a few people living off the government, not gonna deny that. But those people aren’t:

LOBBYING CONGRESS WITH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS! Speaking of lobbying these people aren’t:

Asking for less regulations to pollute, to speculate, to off shore, avoid paying taxes, tax breaks, blowing up state’s rights, monopolizing the industries they are in, destroying social programs for their personal gain, Asking the public to cover their losses, and funding Tea Baggers into office through astro-turf groups

We’re fretting over pennies instead of dollars.

you realize, vortex, that in most corporations, more than half the stock is owned by a single person? That much of the rest go to their children, associates and spouses and that in the end, just a tiny part (about one percent) is owned by shareholders?

I think Lisa forgot to put the initials GOP on the birds. The GOP is the Party most benefiting from handouts, ie tax breaks.

I mean; Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch…and while I’m at it, Vince McMahon are the owners of their corporations. What do you think makes them owners, not shareholders among others? They have ore than fifty percent of their corporation’s stocks.

I mean; Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch…and while I’m at it, Vince McMahon are the owners of their corporations. What do you think makes them owners, not shareholders among others? They have ore than fifty percent of their corporation’s stocks.

Basic math lesson: > 50% != 99%.

And War, let’s evaluate your ideas. Lobbying congress with billions? Isn’t that what ACORN does? The UAW? The ACLU? I’m pretty bleeep certain that the “takers” do have advocates in Washington pushing their agenda. They’re called the Democratic Party.

Less regulations to pollute: Not really. More like trying to keep expenses down so consumers don’t pay, most of all poor people who can least afford it.

Speculate: I thought anyone was allowed to speculate about anything. So now you’re removing the first amendment?

Offshore: Again, it’s about the bottom line and US workers costing the company too much.

Avoid paying taxes: Pretty certain EVERYONE wants this. Who wants to pay more taxes? Not this guy.

Blowing up states rights: Umm… those powers not enumerated in the US Constitution are relegated to the states. The most recent activity has been the democrats to strip states of their fundamental (and constitutional) rights.

Monopolizing: That’s the nature of a free market society. If someone has a really good idea, the objective is to maintain firm hold on the market segment that you have and to expand it. And then you have upstarts challenge your monopoly. Aaannd… then there are laws in place to break up monopolies where competition cannot exist. Your argument is a paper tiger.

Destroying social programs blah blah: You mean to reign in out-of-control spending programs? These programs are indoctrinating millions of citizens to live off the teet of government, and costing the rest of us who WORK trillions of dollars. They are trying to keep us solvent. Or maybe you missed the memo Monday about the S&P downgrading the US Government’s outlook to “negative” due to our overwhelming debt. 1/3 of that debt has been accumulated in the last 2 years under the leadership of the Democratic Party.

Asking public to cover losses: I agree with you there. This shouldn’t be allowed. The “too big to fail” concept should have gone the way of the dodo, and the big financial firms never should have been propped up.

Funding the Tea Party: Pretty certain that both the Tea Party (which is obviously a real movement, since they took a lot of house seats in November… or maybe you don’t pay attention to stuff like that) and organizations like ACORN get a lot of funding from individual groups. I am pretty certain that democratically-aligned groups have received more money than the Tea Party has, and by a wide margin.

Handouts equal dependence, but what is one to do? In the coming years, there will be more people than jobs, what then? The jobs that are available now need specialized training and/or a college degree. Realistically, this is not reachable or realistic for the general needy or learning-disabled population. Not everyone was born an Einstein, a Ford, or a Wright Brother.

^ Too bad. In every game, there are winners and there are losers. It is a fact of life. Because because you suck at playing the game doesn’t mean the winners should give you what they won.

Now, for those who can’t play the game (like you said, learning disabled), I believe they should be helped. If you lack the fundamental ability to work, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But if there’s too many people for the jobs out there, figure something else out. Start a business. Become a consultant. Do something other than suck off the earnings of others.

The problem is that we have expanded the “can’t” people to an ever larger portion of the population. At some point we have to say “no.” Because if we don’t, we’ll end up bankrupt as a country.