$12 Billion For Them - 1.5 Million Homeless For Us

[katsung47]

Quote, "$12 Billion For Them - 1.5 Million Homeless For Us

Lilith
- 7 days ago - rense.com

Does anyone possess a clue as to why our U.S. government spends $12 billion every 30 days in Afghanistan and Iraq while 1.5 million of our citizens remain homeless and 13.4 million American children live in poverty?

http://www.care2.com/news/member/503332866/2840575

How could government spend money in this way.

[Fieldmouse]

Originally Posted by katsung47

How could government spend money in this way.

FYI, we have no real poverty in the US. Furthermore, the government spends trillions every year already on people in the US. How many more trillions would you like to spend?

[bergall]

Why don't you take a few of them in and save the government some money ?

[Champlain Islander]

Originally Posted by Fieldmouse

FYI, we have no real poverty in the US. Furthermore, the government spends trillions every year already on people in the US. How many more trillions would you like to spend?

Poverty as compared to what...people living in tent cities in 3rd world countries? Visit any of our large cities and take a ride to the places where people stay away from. There are people living in vacant tenements without electricity, water and sewage facilities. Many have boarded up broken windows and are a haven for drug use and prostitution. Most people don’t see these situations because it is far away from the most common tourist traps but they are there in every large city I have visited. True that many people are subsidized with food stamps and welfare housing but there is a segment of our population that don’t even get that mostly because they are so far removed from these services due to their lifestyle. Even here in Vermont we have hundreds of homeless people living around Burlington our largest city. Many of these don’t have any income other than pan handling and picking garbage dumpsters for returnable cans and bottles. Once years ago in the 70’s when I was a communications technician I was working on an outside building telephone terminal next to a dumpster in back of a large super market and saw a girl I went to high school with taking produce out of the dumpster that had gone past the due date. She told me it beat starving to death. There are lots of people who have developed a lifestyle of living off public assistance and then there is another group of people that don’t even get that. Poverty by my definition is everywhere. Pull the military back from all the places where we are wasting tax payer money and put them to work guarding our borders from the illegal invasion. Cut out all the outgoing foreign aid that we can’t afford and start to improve our own infrastructure which would create jobs and improve our own country’s living standards.

[sachiko]

This is true of our small city also. There are many wooded areas in town that will never be developed. One of them is a couple blocks from our house where the city has wells. There are homeless people camped there in the woods. They come out and scrounge for food in dumpsters behind restaurants. Sometimes people give them money.

Some of them don't seem to be completely competent mentally. They roam around with a strange collection of personal items in a box or shopping cart. The police know they're camping in the woods. Technically, it's illegal, but the police ignore them. Apparently they don't steal or break into homes or anything, but just get by scrounging for stuff. The Goodwill or Salvation Army, can't remember which, has a special where you can buy five items of clothing for five dollars. And there are various organizations, churches, etc., which provide meals on various days.

I don't know how one would organize a government program to deal with this.

[Champlain Islander]

Originally Posted by sachiko

I don't know how one would organize a government program to deal with this.

I think it starts locally to not allow that type of thing to flourish. Around here near the interstate exchanges the homeless set up camps in the woods and panhandle at the entrance ramps that have stop lights. They sit there with a sign and beg. I didn't give it much thought until they had a crack down and local police started to keep them out of there. They did some interviews on TV and the people pan handling said they make $200- $300 per day doing that and that is how they live. I was shocked but when you think about it they are always there and each light change brings about 10-20 new people sitting there in their cars waiting for the light to change and watching them plead for money. The cops have started to make the move the camps away from the interchange and issuing tickets for ordinance violations. My point is they gather in places that are conducive to their lifestyle. If harassed they move to another area that tolerates it. Keep up the pressure and don’t allow them to set up anywhere.

[Fieldmouse]

Poverty by my definition is everywhere. Pull the military back from all the places where we are wasting tax payer money and put them to work guarding our borders from the illegal invasion. Cut out all the outgoing foreign aid that we can’t afford and start to improve our own infrastructure which would create jobs and improve our own country’s living standards.

like I said, we don't have poverty here in America. Most of those folks choose that life style. We've spent a lot of good money providing a free education, more free education after more free education, food stamps, free medical, free shelters and on and on. Now you want to spend even more money on these folks. Might I remind you just a few years ago, Obama and company spent 1 trillion on infrastructure and jobs in America? We are currently spending 1.5 trillion more money the government doesn't have every year. Our government has ballooned to 25% of GDP. So let me ask this question again, how many more trillions would you like to spend?

[Champlain Islander]

Originally Posted by Fieldmouse

Now you want to spend even more money on these folks. Might I remind you just a few years ago, Obama and company spent 1 trillion on infrastructure and jobs in America? We are currently spending 1.5 trillion more money the government doesn't have every year. Our government has ballooned to 25% of GDP. So let me ask this question again, how many more trillions would you like to spend?

You must be tired after a hard days work FM. I never said spend more money on them. My point which you obviously can't grasp is to bring home the troops and cut out all the foreign aid. I am not advocating spending more money in fact it should save money. If our government has to spend money I would rather have them building roads, bridges and modes of mass transit here not in another country. I believe jobs is the way out of the economic mess and when there are jobs then people can work, pay their bills, build houses etc. The billions we spend on the war(s) effort and as foriegn aid are all wasted. Put part of that to work here in the US and business would be booming.

like I said, we don't have poverty here in America. Most of those folks choose that life style.

Now I know you don't know what you are talking about. I have quite a bit of experience and knowledge about the inner city in NOLA. Been there and interacted with those people and so has my family. There is poverty there in a huge way.

[Fieldmouse]

There you go again, claiming you don't want anymore spending in one sentence and in the next demand more spending on roads and bridges. Your looking for government to supply the jobs. It doesn't work that way. We will never get out of this mess if people continue to look towards our government jobs for a solution.

Now for whether it's a choice. It's a choice. We have more and more government programs on top of government programs. The only thing they do is train folks like yourself to look to the government first when a problem arises. Then as time goes on, that's all you think of. Need food, food stamps. Need a roof over your head, government shelters. Need more education for job retraining, government programs. Asked about so called poverty, my government spending even though trillions are being redistributed every single year to people who didn't earn it. The icing on the cake, I don't know what I'm talking about. Too funny.

You know I hope you are going down a spending your retirement time helping the needy instead of fishing. That's good for you. My believe is to end all these silly government programs and let the charities pick up the slack. They can say no to the idiots who perpetually abuse the system. Our founding document declares we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately too many people feel they also have the right to my liberty. That's what is wrong in America.

[Champlain Islander]

You are on a head trip FM and love to take what people are saying and twist it all around to suit your argument and at the same time ignore what they are saying. Making statements like there is no poverty in the US just makes me laugh. I know we have it and many of those people are powerless to change it. My eyes were opened to things in NOLA pre Katrina right there in the inner city. Just so you understand I am not talking about the tourist areas although I have spent considerable time there too. I am talking about an inner city where many of the kids have never even touched a white person and never left their project. My wife and I visited a school and we were two off three white people there ..the other was a teacher. There were hundreds of elementary kids there going to school in a run down open air building with razor wire at the top of an 8' fence surrounding the place. There were armed guards there at the gate for a reason. Those kids were animals and a few weeks before we got there a 3rd grade rioted, beat the teacher up and they had to call metro cops in there to stop it. They are in a closed society much the same way as a third word refugee is in another land. It is a different world there and not something many people would believe unless they spent time there and focused on the differences between that and normal life which most of us get to experience. Don’t you think it strange that tens of thousands of people had no way to leave the city when the hurricane was approaching? Many had no cars, no money and didn’t even know through the media about Katrina since they don’t have TV’s or radios and certainly don’t get the paper even if they could read. I was saying was that I wanted to stop spending money with the military in foreign lands (I think we are spending something like 4 billion a week in AG) and stop paying the billions in foreign aid. Just in the war effort we have spent $1,213,421,706,458 and counting just since 2001. I am no math guy but that number is many more millions than I can count. Click on this one to see the tally mounting http://costofwar.com/en/. Watch the tens of thousands of dollars roll past every few seconds. That is money being drained from us and much of it is lost forever. People need work and the US needs infrastructure improvements. The federal government and some state governments pay for bridges to be built not private companies or individuals. Building roads and bridges means people are at work which trickles down to less unemployment and a recovery from the recession. Yup the government is spending some money but it is to fix what is broken or obsolete which has to be done sooner than later. All over the country we have bridges that are being closed due to deterioration. That same bridge in Iraq gets built and doesn’t cost that country one dime. You and I paid for it along with the other 300 million people living in America. The 4 billion our government spends each week in Afghanistan could pay for many different things which provide jobs for people thus helping our economy and acts to build infrastructure. In the war with Afghanistan we are spending the money and not getting a tangible gain back other than fighting terrorism which is hard to gage. In addition we are still spending huge sums of money in Iraq rebuilding their infrastructure. We invaded their country, over threw their government, bombed their roads, bridges, airports and buildings. Now we are paying to build them back up. That money is being pissed down a rat hole and we will never see it or realize the gain from that investment. I agree with you that domestic welfare and entitlements have gotten us into a mess. That money is given out and nothing comes back in return. What I am talking about is putting people right here in the US to work producing something which benefits the country. No more free rides. The government has to spend money otherwise they just close down. What I am talking about is spending on necessity not for someone else. That necessity like a bridge put thousands of people to work who in turn were able to recover financially since they are working and can buy a home. That allows others like building tradesmen to work and make a product. People with money can buy cars and take trips all things that will put others to work….and it goes on and on. Once our economy starts to roll it will increase and self perpetuate up to and including producing more tax revenue. I have plenty of things to do FM other than fishing. Next week at this time I will be getting ready to fly out to Colorado the next day. For the record I won’t be fishing there but I will be having fun.