What if HUD disappeared? (rand paul article) Ron Paul was same veiws.

reply to post by Rockpuck


I believe that the lower middle class should be able to get some benefits as well. The true middle class does not need help because by definition they are in the middle so they are doing ok.
I don't think either needs to be scarficed but the middle class makes enough to keep a roof over their head. The poor does not.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Exactly, I'd have no problem helping someone that needs the help because they have a legitimate (being fat or depressed is not an excuse) claim that prevents them from operating normally. But I'd still support ensuring work-from-home programs that were subsidized by the government over just sending them a check. But regardless, the vast majority of the times that I deal with "poor" people it's nothing but self absorbed scum who feel society owes them something. But it's politically incorrect to differentiate between legitimate poor and poor by choice or idiocracy. But even so, there have been numerous specials on lately about previous Middle Income that now live on the streets. The difference? They are almost always striving to find decent work, working odd jobs and living in cars before they apply to live off the State. Even though even die-hard fiscal conservatives like me would like nothing better than to help those people get on their feet.

But it's ruined by people living off the state just to live off the state. Hence the HUD .. long term subsidized housing.. bs.

reply to post by dreamseeker


Fact: The more benefits that are available the larger the population that lives below the poverty line becomes.

Gee... why is that...

reply to post by Rockpuck


Being overweight,(not fat), is not a disablity. Depression is a serious mental health issue. I have not known many people who abuse the system and in fact I have known mainly good people who need help. There is no point in making many suffer because of a few bad people. I really don't feel is our place to judge who can get help and who can't.
Those people who do "abuse" the system have a mental health issue that causes them to lie or do drugs etc. Burn out is a serious mental health issue as well.
I would definitely work from home more but there are not enough work at home jobs. Even so people may still need HUD because work at home jobs are sub contracted and are not recquired to pay minuim wage.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Yeah but it is better than starvation and homelessness. Without these programs there would be more homeless and starvation would be up there with a third world country as a cause of preventable deaths.

Originally posted by dreamseeker
reply to post by Rockpuck

 

I really don't feel is our place to judge who can get help and who can't.
Those people who do "abuse" the system have a mental health issue that causes them to lie or do drugs etc. Burn out is a serious mental health issue as well.

Yet you do believe that it is the place of those who work to support these same folks?

Also, I'm noticing how you're staking the deck here. You contend that people with metal illness somehow deserve these handouts, then spin around and diagnose those who game the system as having metal issues and, apparently, worthy of handouts by your logic. Burn out, you say? I can see how a stressfull day of doing nothing productive could quickly lead to burn out.

Everybody (aside from the mentally retarded) reach a point around age 18 for most of us, when they begin to realize their future depends on them. Do they thrive, merely survive, or take a swan dive into the asphalt? This broken system has removed that responsibility from all but those of us with something called "gumption." This has been a miserably failed experiment. People were given what was supposed to be a hand up, which then turned into a hand out, and now they want even more. It needs to stop here. Those classic bumper stickers that say "Keep working, millions on welfare depend on you" should read "Keep working, you depend on yourself." The only way they ever will read that way is if drastic changes are made and the supply line to the middle class' teat is completely severed.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


You don't support them. Everyone pays taxes. A person who is disabled has paid into the system. The aruguement here is not whether or not this program should exist but what should be done to fix it. My main point is to show that the republicans and Ron Paul want to hurt more than help.
It is hard to explain when I have compassion for all human beings so reading these comments that are not compassionate really does not make sense to me. I never look at anything unless I veiw it in a compassionate fair way. It is sad to see people not understanding basic human needs.

reply to post by dreamseeker


Conservatives (not just Republicans) and yes, Ron Paul, overwhelmingly want to cut handouts to the poor. I know that it will effect people who cannot work, and it will cause people like you with "disabilities" to have to go out into the World and make your own way .. but tough !%! .. Government should never be used to prop people up, much less 45+% of the population.

reply to post by Rockpuck


This is the attitude I will never understand in a million years. I have 3 different disablities. One of them is a psychical disablity. I had to be put on disablity or I would not be as healthy. I can not work outside my home due to fluerscent light sensitivities and I get sick much easier than other people.
I still go places but I limit my time. Instead of being in stores for hours I am there for no more than 30 minutes. I used to get very sick and I spent half my work time sick. My 40 -50 hours a week became 20 -30 hours towards the end of the jobs I worked outside my home.
I still work yet at home and don't make much. I still contribute to society yet not willing to literally kill myself to barely make it. I have held 30 jobs and being fired/laid off 4 times. 10 of those jobs cut my hours to the point I left. Disablity benefits is something I can rely on unlike a job that depended on me being healthy yet the job was making me sick.
I maybe naive but I believe only love and human compassion should rule. When I see people saying comments like this it makes me wonder what kind of society I live in?

Here is a question to consider should someone with a disablity have to cut their life span down just to satisfy the middle class? What I mean is should the disabled have to work 40 hours a week even when it is not possible for them just so people don't complain?
How is that showing human compassion. This whole post is showing that the republicans and ron paul have no compassion for the poor,disabled and elderly. who in their right mind would ever agree with that? Anyone can become disabled, elderly or go through hard times. I want people to think what if it is you that is being cut off from the only affordable housing available to you?

reply to post by dreamseeker


Ron Paul has refused to accept medicare and medicaid at his personal medical practice (to avoid inflating the cost of medical costs even more) and for those without insurance or not able to pay for the medical costs at his practice, they get free or discounted services. If you don't have a job, you can get care at his medical practice. He even accepted food or other commodities for trade of his services. How is that not being compassionate to the poor?


Dreamseeker, you claim to have compassion yet you feel it is necessary to coerce people through force to give money(sometimes money that they don't even have) to the government so that the government can give it out to others(sometimes to people that don't even need or deserve it). How is that compassionate?

reply to post by eLPresidente


That is very compassionate and is more humane than forcing people to strave or live on the streets for heavens sake!!
By the way how is the rich missing that money? I am for taxing the rich more and the poor/middle class less. The rich aren't struggling. So don't tell me they are. Have you ever hear of a rich person dying because they could not buy that porshe or second home?
We all have to pay taxes in some form. We have to maintian a certian quality of living for ALL not just the rich!!!

reply to post by dreamseeker


You're not making a very good case here and you didn't even rebut my points. I made some relatively valid arguments and you just turned around and said the rich need to be taxed, which has nothing to do with my post, so why did you quote me?

I'm all for voluntary charitable contributions but you cannot FORCE somebody to give you anything, that is not what a free society is about.

First let me say that I live in subsidized housing. My wife and I both go to college, I have a 3.66 at the moment and she has somewhere around a 3.8 GPA. We have two children, 2 and 6 years of age. Both my wife and I are 24. One of us works during the Summer and we are lucky to see 30 hours a week at minimum wage. We only have one car and with two children and no help it is all but impossible for both of us to work, childcare for both children would cost more than a full time job paying minimum wage would even bring in and finding full time is impossible. We currently pay slightly over $300 a month out of our own pockets for rent, water is included, as is the case with many apartment, and we pay our electric. Our apartment is a very crappy 2 bedroom, there are so many problems with this apartment complex that it should be shut down to be honest. The neighborhood is so crappy, there's no way I will let my 6 year old out to play with the other kids, most of the 6 year olds here know exactly what crack is. We each are taking the maximum amount of the government offered student loans in order to get by, in hopes that once we finish school we will be able to each find average employment and earn enough to live a much better life.

I can see why people would want to eliminate things like HUD but it would have to be done slowly, nobody should have to be homeless during this transition. Something at the state level would be ideal in my opinion. There should be a serious overhaul of the housing system for the low income when something like this is done. These apartments and houses should be inspected and repaired if need be in order to meet proper living conditions. Many families such as my own do pay a rather large portion of their income toward rent even for these places. In cases such as my own where my rent for this apartment is over $300, I don't understand why there is any need of additional pay from the governments part for rent for these places, they aren't even worth $300 a month, hell they aren't worth $200 a month. If anything the extra money from the government should go for repairs for these places. There is no reason for the people who are working for next-to-nothing to be paying so much of what they do make for piss poor housing like this.

Ron Paul may or may not share these views but I am aware that he would also like to eliminate government loans for education. One thing I have not seen is what he would replace this form of financial aid with, I am under the impression that there is no intention to replace it if removed. In my honest opinion it would be nice to see how the man plans to solve our problem and not only how he plans to reduce spending. Most people with any kind of education should surely be able to see that removing these loan options from the education system would result in far less college graduates. How would the poor go to school? Forget them, if they didn't want to be poor they wouldn't have chosen to be born into poverty, am I right? Don't get me wrong, I am very aware that people believe the reason for the removal of these loans is because of what they have done to the college system as a whole, they price hikes that resulted from more money being available to them. However, if there are people who truly feel that having these loan options taken away would reduce college prices, I would like to know which America you live in. The odds are likely that schools would not take a sudden huge drop in pay simply because certain loans are no longer available. Besides, would private loan companies not just attempt to make their loans more available for people who would otherwise not qualify, only for higher interest rates and what not? It wouldn't solve the debt problem for Americans. Another point I would like to make is that if much less can actually attend college, than much less would be qualified for "real" jobs in today's America where a college degree has practically become a requirement for middle class work. With unemployment being so high for the young would it really be wise to make those who are just entering the workforce even less qualified for work, therefore leading to even higher numbers of unemployed young?

Please, don't get me wrong, I actually can understand a lot of Ron Paul's views, but these make no sense to me. As a young American, I would very much like to see how these people plan to actually fix our country, that includes plans for what to do next and not simply just what to remove. I want to see how they plan to solve the problem they would be causing by removing things, or better, to prevent such problems, and not only what they plan to remove or eliminate, especially when the focus seems to be on important things being taken away rather than all the may pointless things the country is wasting money on. I don't know, maybe my opinion doesn't count since I did make the choice to be born into poverty after all...

reply to post by dreamseeker

This is the united states of america not the states of america. Everything depends on something at a federal level.

Actually the states were supposed to be like mini countries. That is why they are called states and not provinces or parishes.

The original meanings of the word state when used in reference to government:

2.country: a country or nation with its own sovereign independent government
3.government: a country's government and those government-controlled institutions that are responsible for its internal administration and its relationships with other countries

The constitution was meant to be a compact between individual governments. The federal government was only meant to be the administrator of the contract. The reason states rely on the federal government is because the feds have over stepped the constitutional limits on their power and roles.

There is a program that got cut for people in my state due to not having enough money.

Maybe you should hold your local politicians accountable instead of looking to the federal government. Then again if we got the federal government out of programs like HUD then the states could fund them through taxes.

would more people be able to get into public housing?

Having people in public housing actually hurts the poor and middle class. It creates an artificial market price and makes affordable housing harder to find for most people. You ever wonder why rental properties are so expensive? It is in large part because the housing market prices are set by the government. If the government says "$800 a month is what we will pay" then $800 becomes the base price for everything because land lords know they can get it. If the government said, "you guys work it out" then the price would fall for everybody. There would be no artificial minimum price.

How can the HUD program improve at the state level if there is no connection or funding on a federal level?

In theory it would mean an equal sized cut in taxes. That would leave room for states to raise taxes or find other revenue sources.

reply to post by doomedtoday


You should keep in mind that education costs are skyrocketing in the US exactly because the government hands out free money. Universities know people can pay these inflated costs through government loans.

If you are living off of education loans you're most likely digging a hole for yourself. You'll be paying them off for the next 30 years or more.

I don't mean to sound insensitive, but you chose to have children. If you hadn't made that choice you would have two less mouths to feed. You chose to get married and for both of you to be full time students.. You may not have chosen the situation you were born into, but how long ago was that? Everything you've done since that day has been a choice, and those choices led you to where you are today. I was born to a poor family as well. I spent time as a kid being homeless because my parents were bums.. So I don't feel too bad for ya.

I have two kids - I had one before college and one very recently. I went to state college with a partial scholarship (really it was nothing), and paid for the rest with money I earned, because I also worked full time (40-60 hour weeks) throughout. I didn't sleep for four years. I had to pay for a full time baby sitter for more than half of that four years.

So as you can see we have a similar situation but we made different choices along the way. I have no student debt, I have revolving debt but the balance is cleared monthly, and I have installment debt on my home. I have never been on government assistance, even though I'm sure I qualified back then. I chose to be responsible for myself and my family and to remain independent of government handouts.

Do either you or your wife work or are you both just using student loans? I'm genuinely curious. No offense but I see decisions like this as a decent portion of why this country is in such bad shape. Not just decisions made on the individual level, but the decision government made to encourage this.

The rest of us truly are suffering for these decisions. I agree that education is very important, and that the more educated we are as a society the better off we all are - but the system as it stands encourages people to live off of borrowed money (just like the federal government, and you see what's happening there!), to spend irresponsibly, and encourages schools to charge as much as possible because they know the $$ is guaranteed. You cannot sustain that lifestyle, and neither can this country.

Now - I am a fairly liberal conservative, if you buy that. I believe we can be fiscally responsible and still deliver education, health care, and living/food assistance to families that really need it. How can we accomplish this? Well first off, we revise the qualifications and come up with a system to prevent fraud. Two able bodied adults should be able to hold a job, and therefor should get very little assistance for living and education. I just took a second job delivering pizzas on the weekends so I can save money to finish my basement! It seems reasonable to me, if I can work 70+ hours a week, that other people could attend school and still work. Even if one of you needs to stay home to be with the kids, the other can work.

Anyway, forgive my rant.. I worked hard and continue to work hard to be where I am. It truly bothers the hell out of me to see capable people living off of handouts. You're well written and obviously intelligent.. Are you really the type of person who needs subsidized housing and government assistance?

reply to post by dreamseeker


You have to see the big picture here. Once the Central Bank is dissolved, and their vast assets seized and returned to the U.S. Treasury where it belongs, and the dollar is based on gold, and has a market value, instead of an interest bearing value, people will not need all of these government programs to buy a home. They can go to their hometown bank, flush with money, and obtain a loan for simple interest. Same with car loans, and home improvement loans. You think this won't work? It used to be like that, believe it or not.

Without all of the hidden taxes, people will have more income, and more available assets to draw from. Companies will come back, because America will be a tax haven, and jobs will again be available.

The FED/Central Banking Cartel in America is a thief and a criminal who had defrauded the American people out of all of their treasure. It has made Americans homeless and poor, and then feeds them scraps from the Welfare table. This has to end, people.

reply to post by MikeNice81


We have created an over complicated society. I am not thinking of all these different twists and turns really. I am just thinking of basic human needs. If a program or system could be created that was better I am all for it. The problem is will it be guarnteed to be better?
Rents would have to be $150-$300 for people on disablity to qualify. Will that happen? Another point I have is both pauls want to elminate something without putting a tested method into place. what needs to happen is a test run first of the new system so people can see it is better.
I am only for replacing something if it is IMPROVED. I still want the inspections done on apartments; this forces the landlord to fix anything unsafe. Public housing is actually better because if something is not working right it has to be fixed before a person moves in. It is a guarntee that the housing is safe plus housing based income is the only thing makes sense.
Can market rate housing be based on income? I need to see a plan of what is being proposed in writing before I can agree. I am an intelligent educated women I only like real proven answers.
There is an answer to every single question or problem out there. I do agree that the problems in the USA need to be fixed but what can't do guess work on something so serious as housing! I would respect Ron Paul if he said here are my plans laid out to fix the problems. He doesn't do this he just comes in and says he is going to get rid of things without detailed plans. Just saying everying will be on the state level is not in depth enough for me. If I can do research then he sure the heck can do his research or have someone do it for him.

reply to post by TinkerHaus

I realize you were replying to someone else now. At the same time I am an example of a deserving person.

I am on disablity which was something I was born with. I have no children and never got married. I am gay. I have made only smart educated choices in my life. Just because people fall on hard times does NOT make them bums. Most people should understand that in this economy.
If it weren't for my disablities I would have a $50k job and own my own house. My credit is ok, I pay my bills. I am extremely responsible. I am a great example of a person who truly deserves the help I get.

reply to post by eLPresidente


Not making a good case? In who's world? Do you come from a world where no one is poor and no one is rich. I am showing you to solve the problem. Raise the taxes on the rich; simple. Another solution is to punish companies for outsourcing jobs that americans can do from home. Anyone with half a brian can do a customer service job from home. It only takes a computer,internet connection and downloadable software. I am poor and I have all those things needed to work from home. People can finance,rent or buy a computer at a thrift store. I once saw a computer that was an HP compaq for $150 at a thrift store. It could run the internet and was no more than 4 years old.
There are multiple solutions to every problem of course. Yet both pauls do not offer solutions just threaten to remove things. You can't remove things without a great solid plan. Passing things on to the state is not a good solid plan per say. If it is I need PROOF!