Should welfare recipients lose the right to vote if...

[Corporate Thug]

No. Also likely unconstitutional.

this.

 

[Rainsford]

I don't mean to ask an obvious question, but doesn't EVERYONE have an incentive of one sort or another to vote a particular way based on what they feel would benefit them and their point of view the most? Disallowing votes from people who stand to benefit from voting a certain way would result in barring almost all voting, wouldn't it?

Of course what we're really talking about is baring people from voting if you think they have the "wrong" motivation. And that's something quite different...

 

[Rainsford]

Yeah, but politics in the US would be boring after all the libs are gone.

I have every confidence that conservatives would end up ripping each other to shreds even without "liberals" Political division is more a relative thing than an absolute. And at least some of the right in this country seem far more interested in hating some group than in the particular group that they're hating.

 

[BoomerD]

I agree but I would like to tweak it a little bit.

When you sign up for welfare aid, in order to receive you must forfeit your right to vote. This keeps it constitutional because welfare isn't a right, and the right to vote was surrendered freely.

Why do you hate Americans?

No US citizen should ever be denied the right to vote...doesn't matter if they collect welfare, if they're a convicted felon, (unless it was a conviction for voter fraud) or just as dumb as a box of rocks.

 

[JSt0rm]

Should welfare recipients lose the right to vote if they have been receiving benefits for more than 3 years?

look how gently caress you are

 

[monovillage]

I don't mean to ask an obvious question, but doesn't EVERYONE have an incentive of one sort or another to vote a particular way based on what they feel would benefit them and their point of view the most? Disallowing votes from people who stand to benefit from voting a certain way would result in barring almost all voting, wouldn't it?

Of course what we're really talking about is baring people from voting if you think they have the "wrong" motivation. And that's something quite different...

Yes, i'd say that everyone basically votes for what they perceive is best for them and their families, to a lesser extent (imo) what they think is best for their city,county,state or country. I personally would not prevent welfare recipients, or folks on social security or unemployment from being able to vote. Nor would I in any way, shape or form vote or support restrictions on government employees to vote. I basically brought the subject up in this thread to make a point that self interest is a very powerful motivator on peoples political choices and shouldn't be overlooked.

 

[JSt0rm]

Yes, i'd say that everyone basically votes for what they perceive is best for them and their families, to a lesser extent (imo) what they think is best for their city,county,state or country. I personally would not prevent welfare recipients, or folks on social security or unemployment from being able to vote. Nor would I in any way, shape or form vote or support restrictions on government employees to vote. I basically brought the subject up in this thread to make a point that self interest is a very powerful motivator on peoples political choices and shouldn't be overlooked.

And yet for all the self interest welfare queens have they still dont vote in any great numbers. However 20 people are funding the entire presidential election. Do you think they do it for anything but self interest?

 

[monovillage]

Why do you hate Americans?

No US citizen should ever be denied the right to vote...doesn't matter if they collect welfare, if they're a convicted felon, (unless it was a conviction for voter fraud) or just as dumb as a box of rocks.

Stripping them of their voting rights is just another punishment for breaking the law and being found guilty of a felony crime. It's meant to be a shameful reminder of their prior behavior. I would like to see a path the felons could pursue to regain their voting rights. Maybe some history/civics classes?

 

[JSt0rm]

It's meant to be a shameful reminder of their prior behavior.

Thats not true. Republicans push for this to remove certain groups from the voter pool. They do this for complete self interest.

Its because they are gently caress.

 

[monovillage]

And yet for all the self interest welfare queens have they still dont vote in any great numbers. However 20 people are funding the entire presidential election. Do you think they do it for anything but self interest?

My opinion is that most do it for self interest. There may be a few that have different motives, but you'd have to look at them all on a case by case basis. For some it's not money, it's power and influence.

 

[monovillage]

Thats not true. Republicans push for this to remove certain groups from the voter pool. They do this for complete self interest.

Its because they are gently caress.

OK, here's a quarter.

 

[JSt0rm]

My opinion is that most do it for self interest. There may be a few that have different motives, but you'd have to look at them all on a case by case basis. For some it's not money, it's power and influence.

I think money power and influence go hand in hand.

 

[JSt0rm]

OK, here's a quarter.

 

[Jhhnn]

You're full of it on this issue as usual.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/should


This is one of the reasons i've mentioned semantics and definitions to Wolfe9999, the OP in another thread. You take the worst possible interpretation of a word and try to slam it into what I had posted, then you insult me about "feigned". I meant what I said and it isn't what you thought it meant. You were wrong.

So which of the definitions of "should" fit with what you said, other than 2?

 

[1prophet]

Should welfare recipients lose the right to vote if they have been receiving benefits for more than 3 years?

Leave their constitutional rights alone, that's a no win fight, the better question is should welfare recipients be allowed to continue having children and raising them while on welfare and increasing the burden to society while the baby daddies are no where to be found and made to pay their fair share?

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/38309864.html

Child care loopholes lead to easy money (rest of article at link)

The two-story house on 17th St. looks typical of the working-class homes on Racine's west side. Three bedrooms, one bath. Assessed by the city at $122,000.
Yet inside, a young woman has tapped into a home-based money-making operation that netted her and her three sisters more than half a million in taxpayer dollars since 2006.
And they did it with the blessing of the state.
All four had been in-home child-care providers. Collectively they have 17 children. For years, the government has paid them to stay home and care for each other's children.
Nothing illegal about it under the rules of Wisconsin Shares, the decade-old child-care assistance program designed alongside Wisconsin's welfare-to-work program.
"It's a loophole," said Laurice Lincoln, administrative coordinator for child care with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services. "Do we have concerns about it? Yes, it can be a problem. But if it's allowed, it's allowed. We really can't dispute it."
The Journal Sentinel spent four months investigating the $340 million taxpayer-supported program and uncovered an array of costly problems - including fraud. But the investigation also revealed a system rife with lax regulations that have paved the way for abuse by parents and providers.
Consider:
• Sisters or other relatives can stay home, swap kids and receive taxpayer dollars. The four Racine sisters took in as much as $540,000 in taxpayer dollars in less than three years, mostly to watch each other's kids.
• Rules allow parents to be employed by child-care providers and enroll their children at the same place. At some centers, children of employees make up the majority of kids in day care. In one Milwaukee location, an employer and parents are accused of teaming up to bilk the system out of more than $360,000.
• Child-care subsidy recipients have been allowed to work for almost any type of business. Payments were made when moms claimed to work ironing a man's shirts, drying fruit and selling artwork they made during art class.
• The government pays for child care while parents sleep. Counties have no way to monitor whether parents are actually sleeping while their kids are in day care.
"We're not being good stewards of taxpayer dollars," said state Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine) who introduced legislation in 2007 to try to crack down on child-care related fraud. "We have a system where there's a whole lot of finger-pointing going on and in between, a whole lot of fraud happens."
The state published new rules in November - a month after the Journal Sentinel began asking questions - yet three of the five counties with the majority of Wisconsin Shares cases were unaware of the new requirements until contacted by the newspaper.
Caring for family

Torneshia Simmons, a 28-year-old single mother of five, sat at her dining room table at her 17th St. house in December surrounded by her children - all under the age of 9. The younger ones climbed on her and tried to snatch the hat off her head as she explained how she and her three sisters have been caring for each other's kids for years.
"I've been doing child care for my family since I was like 14," she said. "I've been watching their kids before I had kids, after I had kids . . . I've been watching all my friends and family's kids."
Simmons first became an approved provider and received Wisconsin Shares money in 2002. Her sister Shanta McKinney first received child-care subsidies in 2003. Other sisters Tumina Ransom and Temeshe Brown got into the business in 2006 and 2007, according to state regulators.
For a while, Simmons took care of Ransom's and Brown's kids, she said. Then last summer her 2-year-old son was found wandering around outside unsupervised. The county shut down her child-care operation.
She said she now has another job that keeps her qualified for government-supported child care.
But when asked for details about her work, the answers got fuzzy.
First she said she worked at a clothing store called Get Fitted, Family Owned on Washington Ave. She said she worked second and third shift. A few minutes later she said she worked part time and the store was simply called Family Owned.
It's unclear what she would be doing working third shift at a retail clothing store.
And when the Journal Sentinel contacted the co-owner of Get Fitted, Carey Collins, he said Torneshia Simmons doesn't work there and never has. He didn't recognize Simmons' name. And his store closes at 8 p.m.
The Journal Sentinel could find no record of a clothing store called Family Owned. The Racine Area Manufacturers and Commerce and the state Department of Financial Institutions couldn't either. Simmons didn't list an address or phone number on documents filed with Racine County. Nor did the documents contain a federal tax identification number - all facts that should have raised the suspicion of Racine county workers.
Yet workers approved funding for Simmons' kids to be in her sisters' care 75 hours per week, costing taxpayers a weekly total of $1,283.
Simmons, who filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2007, claims her children now go from McKinney's Racine house to Brown's house in Kenosha at about 11 p.m. McKinney, who has three young children of her own, and Brown, who has five, drop off or pick up the kids, she said.
But rules prevent providers from caring for more than six children at a time - depending on their ages - so for Brown to care for Simmons' five children, she would have to take her own kids elsewhere at 11 p.m.
Documents show Ransom is authorized to take care of Brown's kids.
Ransom, McKinney and Brown declined to comment or didn't respond to attempts to contact them.
Simmons said she's not concerned that the arrangement could interfere with her children's sleep. They go to bed whenever they want anyway - usually around 11:30 p.m. or midnight, she said.
State officials say such a situation is out of their control.
"Even though it might not appear to be in the best interest of the children, we don't have any authority to regulate that," said Jim Bates, a program analyst for Wisconsin Shares.
The government spends $66,716 a year on child care for Simmons' kids. That's 75% more than the average Wisconsin worker earned in 2007.
The full extent of the caregiving relationships is unclear in records, but it appears the sisters frequently change the arrangements.
Racine County officials declined to comment on the four sisters.
Nobody knows how often any of the roughly 34,000 Wisconsin families who receive child-care assistance take advantage of regulations allowing siblings to care for each other's kids. Neither the state nor the counties track that data.
But the Journal Sentinel discovered it's not the only rule that's especially prone to abuse.

Seems the poor and the rich have one thing in common, they know how to game the system and exploit the loopholes while the middle class ends up taking it on the chin.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Should welfare recipients lose the right to vote if they have been receiving benefits for more than 3 years?

So you want people who mostly don't vote now to not vote at all? Solving a problem that doesn't exist are you? Maybe you should look up Clinton Era Welfare Reform too.

 

[zsdersw]

They are still citizen and required to pay taxes.

There is no need for a second class of citizens that have not committed any crime.

This is precisely why I voted No.

 

[zsdersw]

I imagine this will complicate things at polling places...

... and like everything else the government tries to restrict will be ineffective.

I understand the need to prove you're a citizen and that you live where you claim you live, but requiring proof you're not on some form of welfare? No.

Being an adult citizen taxpayer is all that is required to be eligible to vote. Whether your income comes from the government in the form of welfare, a government job, private employment, or a business you own/operate... your taxes go to the government just the same. As a result, you have a say in what the government does with those taxes.

 

[Modelworks]

I agree but I would like to tweak it a little bit.

When you sign up for welfare aid, in order to receive you must forfeit your right to vote. This keeps it constitutional because welfare isn't a right, and the right to vote was surrendered freely.

You cannot sign away your constitutional rights. No contract is binding that is used to deny a right you have under law.

 

[dmcowen674]

Remember, according to Republicans voter fraud should be stopped and voter disenfranchisement should be increased. According to the numbers from different studies, voter fraud occurs approximately .00004% of the time, and the supposed anti-fraud measures Republicans want will create a voter disenfranchisement rate of approximately 10%. Which means if they stop ALL voter fraud, they will stop 1 fraudulent voter per 250,000 people they disenfranchise.

And no, people on welfare should not lose the right to vote. The fact that anyone, regardless of political affiliation, voted yes makes me very sick.

Well look at those that replied yes:

Yes adairusmc, Anarchist420, boochi, Braznor, D1gger, Doppel, Harrod, ichy, JockoJohnson, LennyZ, momeNt, monovillage, OlafSicky, Onceler, PokerGuy, RavenSEAL, rpanic, schneiderguy, ScoobMaster, sixone, slayernine, SNC, spidey07, Udgnim, xBiffx, Yreka

It is the insane rabid America hating Republicans on here.

I love the poll it lumps them all together for the world to see at one glance :thumbsup:

 

[Exterous]

NO!

Are you a US citizen over the age of 18 that is not currently being incarcerated? Then nothing should stand in the way of your right to vote. We got rid of things like poll taxes and literacy tests for reasons like this. Welfare is a separate issue altogether. Whats next, only white male landowners should be able to vote because they have a physical stake in the country? Pffffttt....

FTFY.

Seriously though -they should not lose the right to vote. If you have a problem with people on welfare for a long time then reform welfare. OP has the same problem our government has: Instead of fixing one law lets make a lot of other laws to make up for issues with the first one

 

[Munky]

Yes, because they will always vote for the politician making the biggest promises.

 

[zsdersw]

Yes, because they will always vote for the politician making the biggest promises.

That's about the stupidest justification I've ever heard.

Try again.

 

[Munky]

That's about the stupidest justification I've ever heard.

Try again.

Then you should brush up your reading comprehension skills. I'll make it simple for you - the person receiving handouts will always vote for more handouts. They're not concerned where the money is coming from, or if there is money to pay for it, or that they're a parasitic drain on the economy. They only care that they get their next fix.

 

[zsdersw]

Then you should brush up your reading comprehension skills. I'll make it simple for you - the person receiving handouts will always vote for more handouts. They're not concerned where the money is coming from, or if there is money to pay for it, or that they're a parasitic drain on the economy. They only care that they get their next fix.

Comprehension of what you typed isn't the problem... it's what you said that is stupid.

Everyone gets handouts from government, whether in the guise of social welfare or corporate welfare. So yes, receivers of benefits will tend to vote for those who promise more or the same amount of handouts.

Where your argument fails, though, is that the people the OP is referring to have lower turnout than most other groups of people, and are a very small minority.. which doesn't make a constituency worth much of a politician's time. So the notion that this is a significant problem--significant enough to override very real and very serious constitutional concerns--is thoroughly stupid.