One word
The Occupy Wall Street protestors ignore the fact that the economic crisis we face originated in Washington, not on Wall Street.
The many protestors that want their student loans and other debts canceled can be defined by one word: Deadbeats.
THOMAS L. GWYNN
Advance
Sum It Up
The Sum It Up question from last Sunday was: Do you agree with N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis' suggestion that the state should perform random drug testing on some welfare recipients?
* * * * *
After retiring as a 35-year trucker, I drove for the N.C. Governor's Highway Safety Program for nine years. The GHSP comes under the NCDOT, and as a trucker I was still subject to random drug testing.
I supported the program then and still do. If the truckers need to drug test, why discriminate?
Let all state employees drug test, and if I as a wage earner must test, then those who expect to receive benefits should expect the same.
BILLY J. JOYCE
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Yes, I think people getting a check from the taxpayers should be checked for drugs, including the people who work for the taxpayers, too.
HAROLD DYSON
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No. So far the state of Florida has spent $250,000 only to save $46,000 in payments. That's a net loss to the state of $204,000. Is this how Republicans cut budgets and spend money wisely?
BOB BURWELL
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Drug testing in Florida shows that drug abuse among social welfare applicants is not as widespread as imagined. Only 1.8 percent of the applicants tested positive.
In a tight budget time, it is wiser to spend the scarce resources on other worthy programs like More at Four, which probably would prevent more kids from drug abuse later in their life.
Drug testing of welfare recipients, like the voter ID legislation, is the radical-right agenda of targeting a segment of the population for harassment.
BOON T. LEE
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Should the state perform drug testing on welfare recipients? No. This is just another misuse of drug prohibition, an unjust policy from the start.
DR. JAMES S. CAMPBELL
* * * * *
The welfare system was developed to help people in need, and that is a good thing. However, it's no secret the system has been misused and abused. Many employers require mandatory drug testing for employment.
I don't see why people who receive taxpayer money should be exempt from this. This will weed out the abusers, continue to help the needy and save the taxpayers money. I don't agree that drug testing should be random.
It is my opinion that it should be mandatory for everyone on public assistance.
CHRISTINE PULISELIC
The Occupy Wall Street protestors ignore the fact that the economic crisis we face originated in Washington, not on Wall Street.
The many protestors that want their student loans and other debts canceled can be defined by one word: Deadbeats.
THOMAS L. GWYNN
Advance
Sum It Up
The Sum It Up question from last Sunday was: Do you agree with N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis' suggestion that the state should perform random drug testing on some welfare recipients?
After retiring as a 35-year trucker, I drove for the N.C. Governor's Highway Safety Program for nine years. The GHSP comes under the NCDOT, and as a trucker I was still subject to random drug testing.
I supported the program then and still do. If the truckers need to drug test, why discriminate?
Let all state employees drug test, and if I as a wage earner must test, then those who expect to receive benefits should expect the same.
BILLY J. JOYCE
Yes, I think people getting a check from the taxpayers should be checked for drugs, including the people who work for the taxpayers, too.
HAROLD DYSON
No. So far the state of Florida has spent $250,000 only to save $46,000 in payments. That's a net loss to the state of $204,000. Is this how Republicans cut budgets and spend money wisely?
BOB BURWELL
Drug testing in Florida shows that drug abuse among social welfare applicants is not as widespread as imagined. Only 1.8 percent of the applicants tested positive.
In a tight budget time, it is wiser to spend the scarce resources on other worthy programs like More at Four, which probably would prevent more kids from drug abuse later in their life.
Drug testing of welfare recipients, like the voter ID legislation, is the radical-right agenda of targeting a segment of the population for harassment.
BOON T. LEE
Should the state perform drug testing on welfare recipients? No. This is just another misuse of drug prohibition, an unjust policy from the start.
DR. JAMES S. CAMPBELL
The welfare system was developed to help people in need, and that is a good thing. However, it's no secret the system has been misused and abused. Many employers require mandatory drug testing for employment.
I don't see why people who receive taxpayer money should be exempt from this. This will weed out the abusers, continue to help the needy and save the taxpayers money. I don't agree that drug testing should be random.
It is my opinion that it should be mandatory for everyone on public assistance.
CHRISTINE PULISELIC
LTE #1.... Is that a fact? Even if assumed to be true, in case you haven't noticed, there is a revolving door between Wall St, K St., and Washington, DC.
ReplyDeleteDefining people is never an easy task. Defining people with one word: DEAD WRONG.
Some "people" are too big to fail, the rest of us need to question that.
Lte1....I read yesterday that student loan debt has now surpassed credit card debt in the US. I remember those stories about college students being offered credit cards even though they were not yet employed. So maybe that means many graduate with two sources of debt? Better these OWS tools go occupy Big College AND Big Visa.
ReplyDeleteI don't know who this Bob Burwell is. But he sounds like a real radical liberal based on his comment.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of drug testing in Florida was not to save money, but as a deterrent for illegal consumption and the 'use' of taxpayer funds to buy the illicit substances.
Dr. Campbell is in the twilight of his career, if he's even still practicing, and he has obviously decided to become a liberal activist. He's now good for a liberal letter every month it seems.
Boon T. Lee....well, he's just being Boon T. Lee, the liberal. Has it been a month? We know ye too well.
70% of black women are unmarried. One black book writer is calling for black women to start marrying outside of their race. If a white man had said that, the PC people would have went crazy.
ReplyDeleteBurwell is a basket case.
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon folks! Not much to comment on today either.
ReplyDeleteLTE: Umm, not sure if you have been paying attention over the last three decades or so, Mr. Gwynn, but Washington and Wall Street are virtually one and the same. That's the reason behind the protests. "We the People" has been replaced by "We the Corporations". Billions of dollars in student loan debt held by a lot of young people having difficulty finding jobs has the potential to create another crisis similar to the RE mortgage debacle.
Sum it up: an easy answer: no. As Bob and Mr. Lee point out, the results in FL have proven it to be a waste of time and money. It's just more bullying of the have-nots. Resources would be far better spent on making them more employable. When did the R's tranform into the Borg? Every state legislature controlled by the R's are proposing the exact same bills using the exact same arguments with exactly the same catch phrases.
"One black book writer is calling for black women to start marrying outside of their race"
ReplyDeleteI'll gladly marry Halle Berry :)
Dotnet, look no further than ALEC for the answer to all this legislation.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council
http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
and ALEC is closely tied to those lovable brothers, the Kochs.
ReplyDeleteBy the way dotnet....did you see where Duke Power is asking for a 17% rate increase because of governmental regulations?
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you pay my share since you like 'regulations' so much.
I could throw a fake tit on the side of the road, and some of you would go over and suck on it.
ReplyDeleteIt's utterly insane that ANYONE would support Obama at this point.
Khaddafy is no more
ReplyDeleteBucky, having regulations beats getting cancer due to poisonous chemicals being dumped into the air and water not to mention being defrauded on every business deal or investment you try to make. I have money, so I personally don't care how much Duke raises its rates. The rate increase will most likely be considerably less than that.
ReplyDeletedotnet...you must be terrible naive. China and India are building coal powered plants hand over fist, and they have few 'regulations'. Until we have some type of global government with real penalties for environmental violations, the U.S.'s feeble attempts to restrict pollutants are worthless.
ReplyDeleteYou HAVE money. I thought you cared about the other smucks of the world? Some liberal you are!
WW - Right on both counts. The credit card bit has been going on for years...both of my sons were offered at least four credit cards each the summer before they began college...no credit or employment info required.
ReplyDeleteThe student loan business shouldn't really be that big a problem. The average student loan last year was about $5,000. If they borrow $25,000 to get a degree, they should earn that back in the first three years of higher wages after college, so should be able to pay it all back in say 10 years without that much strain.
Many of the best colleges, most notably Davidson in this area, have declared loan-free student aid the norm by leaning on their affluent alums and using sponsors.
The biggest and fastest growing problem is the for profit online colleges like Phoenix University, which last year got 88% of its revenue through federal student loans. These schools prey upon lower income students who they use as cash cows to offer their low cost courses.
Having taught a couple of college classes online as an experiment, I feel confident in saying that they are, for the most part, a ripoff. There is no substitute for the face-to-face give and take of the classroom. Unfortunately, most students and many teachers do not understand how much they are missing.
I know of schools that are teaching public speaking online. The students never meet each other. They make their speeches to a camera alone in a room. Anyone who has ever taught public speaking will tell you that the most important part of the course is offering students the opportunity to get comfortable speaking in front of an audience, which doesn't happen in the online classes. Ripoff is a mild term for such fraud.
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ReplyDeleteWithout regulations what else do you get:
ReplyDelete1 a python infestation in the Everglades
2 18 Bengal tigers shot in Zanesville, Ohio
3 puppy mills
4 ......
besides, if businesses conducted themselves properly, there would be no need for regulations.
"besides, if businesses conducted themselves properly, there would be no need for regulations." - Precisely. Businesses have themselves to blame for a lot if not most of these regulations.
ReplyDeleteBucky - "liberal" and "conservative" are useless terms to me. I've never claimed to be either. I only see ideas that are doable, potentially doable, unlikely or utter nonsense. I also believe in dealing with facts instead of propaganda (i.e. a lot of lies hidden beneath a kernel of truth)
Still think Cain's 9-9-9 plan is a good idea?
ReplyDelete84% would pay more
People who throw the terms "liberal" and "conservative" around merely reveal their ignorance. Political scientists use the terms because they have developed reasonably clear definitions of what the terms mean.
ReplyDeletePeople who use the terms on this forum are clearly NOT political scientists and are simply using the terms in relation to whatever their own political stance is. To Hitler, Dick Cheney would be a left winger. To Stalin, Ted Kennedy would be a right winger.
Buckbottom and his sort use the terms as ways of avoiding actual thinking. Rush/Beck/Fox/fruitcake websites tell them that something is liberal, so it must be bad, and they just parrot what they hear. Useless as tits on a boar.
Hey Rush....have I called you an idiot lately? I didn't think so.
ReplyDeleteRush/KittyKat/Idiot/Nitwit...you're an idiot!
What's truly pathetic is you even quoted Tom Keith wrongly last night.
So ...you're a double idiot today. Going for three times an idiot tomorrow?
Jeez...it just never stops.
P.S. No matter what my IQ is, I'm smart enough to know you're an idiot.
ReplyDeleteAnother Democratic idiot, Harry Reid, was pontificating on the floor of the senate recently that the public sector had lost the most jobs. When in fact, the private sector has lost almost double the public sector.
ReplyDeleteYou can't tell a liberal, Democratic, know-it-all nitwit anything though. He'd swear up and down he was still right, even after being shown the verified data.
Pelosi, Wasserman-Schultz, Dean, Rush, Reid,....none of their elevators go to the top.
LTE1: Cancel student loans? Golly, why not? Those loans are someone else's money, in other words, someone's property. We know how this bunch regards private property.
ReplyDeleteReports are that the crime problem at OWS sites continues to grow. Social justice continues.
Sum It Up: drug testing welfare recipients is silly, vindictive, and wasteful. But, if you want to do it, fine, as long you test all recipients of public money for scholarships; and let's throw in high school athletes for good measure. Oh, add in a drug test prior to driver's license issuance, and license plate renewal, and maybe at random on morons who don't use turn signals. Maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all.
Re the commonality of state legislation, mentioned above: some of that is the reflexive "No New Taxes" lawmaking, of the sort that saved me 15 cents on my last Stella 10-pack purchase, God love our legislators.
ReplyDeleteOther common legislation is to roll back organized labor's ability to command membership and dues payment without true consent from potential members of bargaining units; and to misuse their dues without permission. That is a whole other matter than a showboating sales tax cut.
Also there has been legislation to curtail/dilute the power of public sector unions, the formation of which was opposed by none other than union titan George Meany and Dem idol FDR. Public sector unions are the ruination of quite a few states and localities.
Conferring economic self-determination back upon individuals rather than coddling coerced collectivism has been a goal of some on the right for decades. Thus, it is not surprising to see legislation promoting such being proposed in newly Republican legislatures. I doubt they needed ALEC or the Koch bros to help them think of it. If the Koch bros helped elect those folks, well, good on them.
And good on the Libyans who laid Khadhafy low. I'm sure Rev. Farrakhan is now in mourning.
ReplyDeleteToday's developments in Libya are truly encouraging. For one thing, they mark the first victory in a real war for a US president since 1945. And it was done with zero US casualties.
ReplyDeleteSo far, the National Transitional Council has done a great job. About half of them have been kept scattered outside of Libya to ensure that another potential strong man could not round them up and kill them. In the next few weeks they will gather in Tripoli and begin the extremely difficult process of creating a new nation.
We can only hope that they are up to the challenge, because unlike the failed processes in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can have no role in imposing anything upon them.
If they succeed, they could become the prototype for more revolution in the region. They certainly have my best wishes in a most trying time.
I don't know what the big deal is about drug testing. It's the only test I know that even idiots like Rush can pass. All one has to do is not take drugs.
ReplyDelete