I mean at some point you have to either get someone in there to stop the free money or convince the people not to vote for their free money. It is just like the wealthy voting against a progressive tax. Why would they want to not get every last dollar they can for themselves? Why would they voluntarily give more than their “fair share”?

I think people look at things in an incredibly shallow fashion. If the rich would pay more of their money (percentage wise) for taxes, there wouldn’t be a huge gap between the poor and the wealthy. This helps with crime and health care. Look at countries in Europe with high taxes. Their crime is low, they have better education and health care than Americans, and their quality of life is ranked higher. You can argue the “well they’re not as big as we are” point but bottom line is, we have over 300 million people in this country (legally) that could be contributing in a system where we didn’t go to sleep at night worried that, if something happens and they get sick, they’re now in a huge hole that will take them a lifetime to get out of.

You know my medical history, what would happen if my parents had to pay $926k out of pocket for my illness? I’d be dead. Luckily they were both government workers with government insurance. Is everyone that lucky? Absolutely not. Does cancer care if you’re insured or not? Absolutely not. Do insurance companies do everything they can to reduce the amount they pay out? Absolutely. Does this infuriate the people who can’t afford good insurance? If we put ourselves in their position, we can understand why it would be hard to deal with not getting handouts.

You can also see the side of the people running business and ask why they would have to pay more than their “fair share”… Bottom line is if you look at the mass majority of the wealthy, they’re making it off the backs of the middle and lower class. They’re fighting the minimum wage increases. They’re dropping benefits such as insurance. They’re doing what is best for them and for their bank account with no regards for the future and the middle and lower class. They want to make their dime and retire as quick as possible. Let the next generation deal with the repercussions.

I think it is passed time for Americans to “man up” and realize that other Americans affect us greatly. Our culture is killing us.

In a country where you can have nearly anything your heart desires delivered to your front door overnight, it’s hard not to get lazy. I think we have it so good here that we have come to EXPECT everything to be handed to us easily.

An example - my father came up to visit last month and while he was here he helped me install a new washer/dryer in our home. While we were working he told me a story from his childhood. His father (a truck driver) worked out a deal with one of his customer to take a new dryer as payment for delivering a truck-load of them. My father, a small boy at the time, still remembers vividly his mother weeping out loud when she saw her husband bringing their very own electric clothes dryer into the house.

Just two generations back, people had appreciation for the things they had . . . and were willing to work hard for the things they wanted. I am not sure exactly what’s changed in fifty years, but I do know that few of us appreciate simple things, we simply expect them. Few of us are willing to work hard to get ahead . . . what’s the point when the government programs give you MORE money to sit around the house then you can make working full time for minimum wage?

By that logic, maybe I have just talked myself into the answer I could not come to originally - the fix: stop paying people to sit at home. People may be more apt to make something of themselves if we stop paying them not too.

So basically, the problem is laziness. And the fix is?