While it would be "fair" to american taxpayers to eliminate welfare for addicts, its simply unrealistic. Too large of a portion of our population relies on it that if you took it away there would be riots, killings, anarchy, etc. A better solution would be to drug test welfare recipients and dock them a portion of their check (20% or so) if they test positive. This would give them an incentive to quit using drugs but also wouldn't cause an uprising if they tested positive.

And to whoever was saying "school or jail," incarceration costs $41,000 per year, which is way more than keeping that same person on welfare would cost.

To me the big problem that we have is that the democrats are giving social assistance (hundreds of billions in the PORK-ulus package) to illegal aliens rather then kicking their asses out of our country and back to Mexico.

Ah, but the republicans don't really want them kicked out, either. A lot of small businesses and agriculture employ illegal workers, and some of those folks vote republican. Why do you think it's an issue that hasn't been dealt with?

PhiGam: what social assistance do illegals receive? Because at my office, if you are undocumented, you don't get anything except emergency medical services.

And you pulled that figure from where? What cost are you comparing that to?

Maybe it didn't occur to you but somehow incarceration and low income somehow goes hand in hand. Regardless of what it costs, the labor that you get out of an incarcerated person is much less than what it would cost to pay that same person if they had a degree.


But anyways...I just love how folks just want to point out the flaws of the system instead of coming up with a solution...oh...wait...coming up with a solution that is agreeable would be too...

socialist?

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/018281.html), the FY 2007 cost was somewhere around $25,000.

If we're going to attack, let us be armed with the proper ammunition.

The overwhelming majority of inmates produce exactly nothing of value for the economy, while the majority of people with degrees do, in fact, produce something of value (whether that's commensurate with their pay is altogether a different issue), so I don't really get this comparison.

The $25k or whatever (and it varies wildly) is essentially 'sunk cost' for the inmate with very little hope of recovering any of it.

Thanks for the figures Munchkin

Where have you been? Illegals get BILLIONS in services. The public school in my area spends about 12k per yr per student. How much do you think the country spends on emergency medical services? California alone probably spends billions.

OK forget prisons. Build more gallows.

Welfare recipients add nothing to society other than more welfare recipients and more criminals. They are like the Ocotomom. We should cut them all off before they become Octowelfare recipients.

Newsflash: That is just YOUR area...maybe you haven't heard that there are places such as....ummmmm I dunno... VIRGINIA (which is where she got this from) where in certain counties, illegals can LEGALLY be DENIED public services.

SO stop comparing yourself to 'the rest of the country'.

Prince William passes illegal immigration measure

States tackling illegal immigration as they see fit

If it bothers you so much, write a congressman and see if they can do the same for where YOU live.

Stop talking about it and be about it.


So you plan on rewriting the lawbooks covering executions huh? Do you have a surefire way of making sure that the wrong people aren't put to death or you just want to make it a blanket thing? (Starting to sound a lil' Middle Eastern here...hmmm..) Especially with most states that have the death penalty on moratorium?

You just start sounding dumberer and dumberer with each post you make on this topic.

This thread makes me irrationally angry and incredibly sad all at the same time.

Why?

To be honest, I don't even know. Some personal reasons, some "I want to save humanity" reasons, some "WTF why are people using up resources when I need them too?" reasons...

We are still talking about kicking druggies off of welfare, right?

I wouldn't exactly consider giving junkies money for their next fix saving humanity. But thats just me.

You can't save everybody...we aren't obligated to, but at the same time, you can't humanly just dump everyone to the wayside either.

Damned if you do...damned if you don't hm?