I'd expect the percentage of people I'm talking about to lower than what I think and much higher than what you think. I'd venture a guess of 20% while you would probably say it's something like 3% whne the truth is likely somewhere north of 10%. Should I damn an entire demographic of people for 1 bad apple in 10? No, I shouldn't. Should the government target it's money better to weed out the 10% and offer them little to now assistance? Absolutely they should.

Helping the poor is great........giving them "entitlements" (gasp, Republican talking point) is counter-productive.

Check out my reply thrax.

To deadcode, I agree with you, you learn in basic economics that minimum wage is detrimental to society. Unfortunately we live in a society of compromise. I would gladly cede minimum wage (which as a student of economics I realize is burdensome to the gross product) for government intervention in public goods like education, healthcare, and personal freedom.

Unfortunately we don't have free education as we should or free health care. Ultimately we have a lot of backwards policies like medicare (which costs twice as much as other health systems and gives half the coverage). In a perfect world we wouldn't need a minimum wage, but unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world and without a minimum wage today many people would be destitute.

"Unfortunately we don't have free education as we should or free health care."

BO; You are right. It is unfortunate that health care and education are not free. However where we differ is on the understanding of the following fact: It is impossible to make health care and education free. The United States government is made up of human beings; not Wizards. They wield no such powers over reality.

The best you can hope for is cheap, quality, health care and education. This IS what the poor need. The only system in existence that produces high quality goods at a cheap price is capitalism.

Why is it such a foreign concept that the private sector cannot educate our children. The rich all use private schools. Any parent would choose a private school over a public school.

Am I the only one worried about government run health care? Do you really want the same system that brought you the DMV, USPS, MTA, AMTRAK, FEMA, etc. Do you want that system to now run the health care system? Cmon; I cringe at the thought of going into surgery under those situations.

Call me crazy; but I'll take a hospital that has a vested interest in my well being: profit motive. Over a system that is about politics.

Opps: Why is it such a foreign concept that the private sector CAN educate our children.

Take a look at the industry in the USA that has relatively no regulation: the technology industry.

Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel, IBM, Yahoo, Amazon, on and on and on.

You want to rebuild America? Let capitalism off it's leash.

Our health care system is fine, it is the insurance industry that needs serious reforms.

Also about half of the large health care plans, greater than 100,000 members, are not for profit. The most efficient run plan, Kaiser is not-for profit. Just some food for thought deadcode.

Also private vs public school is really dependent on the location. Good middle class towns and suburbs have excellent public schools.

Boner:

"Ultimately even if the poor that receive benefits from social programs don't turn their lives around they will have contributed to the national consumption, where a rich person would not".

People who read these threads have memories and they know that you haven't been able to come up with evidence for a declining MPC as a function of income. You need to clean up your mess in the older threads before making the same unverified assertions in the newer ones.

Also the technology sector does very well without regulations since they make use of very few common or public goods. Hell remove the one area the technology sector is regulated, FCC SHITHEELS, and boom that would help even more. Wait what good does the FCC do with auctioning off airwaves? Oh yeah it limits competition amongst telecoms. The problem is private companies will lobby for regulations that help them limit competition.

We don't live in a perfectly competitive economy and proper regulation is needed to ensure efficiency above pure short term greed. No proper regulations are rarely written since that requires real hard work.

Don't get me started on non-profits. Non-profits mean nothing. Trust me; the people who start them profit handsomely.

Nothing wrong with non-profits. My point is; don't treat them as if they aren't legitimate profit motive businesses (obviously there are exceptions).

Don't take my word. Check out Kaiser's CEO's compensation package. Hint: He is doing fine.
http://kaiserpapers.org/minnesota/executivecompensation.html