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The Islamic Dilemma

Ok, sounds like that could be true. Or it could be true that we are doing a pretty good job of policing abuse and it is not as widespread. Would you agree that is possible too?
 
Since you and jhmd have no data to prove your argument, you cannot exclude the possibility that you are completely wrong. It's vexing then how two seemingly educated and intelligent men would base their entire position on income inequality and economic reform on unsupported anecdotal opinions about abuse of entitlements, particularly in the face of data that suggests abuse is fairly well kept in check.
 
And maybe the problem is not that Americans are lazy, but that the vehicles to prosperity and wealth building th at once existed are gone, and the economic implications of this fleecing are now coming into full bloom?


Maybe?
 
Convenient that "laziness" is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify and remains a point harped on by conservatives in the face of either a lack of data to support their underlying conclusion and/or a mountain of data opposing their underlying conclusion.
 
i wonder if bkf's diary has as much stuff redacted as his post count
 
WakeandBake said:
And maybe the problem is not that Americans are lazy, but that the vehicles to prosperity and wealth building th at once existed are gone, and the economic implications of this fleecing are now coming into full bloom?


Maybe?
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I've always agreed with you on the bolded part of your post.

And to save space, I will respond to your post about policing disability abuse here.

This is subjective, since it requires definitions of what is a "pretty good job of policing abuse" and of what constitutes "not widespread abuse". However, my personal opinion is that we aren't policing this abuse at a satisfactory level, and that the resulting abuse is above what I would consider acceptable levels.
 
TownieDeac said:
i wonder if bkf's diary has as much stuff redacted as his post count
Click to expand...

LOL. Nothing redacted there. Latest count is 8,069 dated entries. (That includes 467 entries during my four years at WF from Sept 1964 thru June 1968.)
 
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What level of abuse do we have? What level is "satisfactory?" A belief of whether we're doing a "pretty good job" or not is subjective, but the amount of abuse is a discrete, quantifiable (and objective - at least insofar as we're discussing the current laws) number.
 
How much more money should we spend on bureaucracy to cut down on the money spent on fraud?
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
What level of abuse do we have? What level is "satisfactory?" A belief of whether we're doing a "pretty good job" or not is subjective, but the amount of abuse is a discrete, quantifiable (and objective - at least insofar as we're discussing the current laws) number.
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I know you're training to be a lawyer, but I'm not interested in playing word games with you. All of this is subjective, but if you want an answer to what level of abuse I think is satisfactory, my answer is less abuse than we have now...whatever that level is.

(I can understand, though, why you might not be that concerned about something like this, because perpetuating this abuse might be a good future source of income for you.)
 
So you don't know what the level of abuse is but still think that it's too high?

I'm sure we'll be able to have a substantive and fact-driven discussion here if this is the initial hypothesis. Also, the amount of fraud in the current system is assuredly not "subjective."
 
8718499.gif


Could we do better? Probably. All programs should undergo intense scrutiny when taxpayer money is on the line. Then again the Pentagon operates 234 golf courses around the world. Or you could refer to this list I compiled in 15 minutes of research:

$60BN in contractor fraud/waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.
$70BN in waste in weapon system procurement.
Air conditioning alone cost $12BN a year in Iraq/Afghanistan.
The DoD spends $500 MM annually on marching bands.
The Pentagon-to-Lockheed pipeline drives up the prices of weapons and prevents effective oversight of weapon manufacturing companies — all of which ends up costing taxpayers billions each year.

Weird though, that in a thread about our relationships with the Middle East and Muslims, we're talking about welfare abuse and respectability politics. Almost like it's intentional distraction...

Could we do better?
 
PhDeac said:
How much more money do you want to spend on bureaucracy to cut down on fraud?
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I would like to see both bureaucracy costs and fraud costs reduced. Massive amounts of tax dollars are being wasted everywhere.

This is not a topic that can be covered with short posts on a message board where posters are playing "gotcha". There are no simple, easy solutions. You can either accept a study loss to abuse and take no action...in which case the problem will only gradually get worse. (That's where we were more than several years ago) Or you can take action to stem the losses due to abuse. The cost of doing this in the short run may well be greater than doing nothing and accepting a certain level of loss. However, the loss in the long run will definitely be greater by doing nothing. Unfortunately, this is a discussion that should have been made many years ago.
 
TownieDeac said:
8718499.gif


Could we do better? Probably. All programs should undergo intense scrutiny when taxpayer money is on the line. Then again the Pentagon operates 234 golf courses around the world. Or you could refer to this list I compiled in 15 minutes of research:

$60BN in contractor fraud/waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.
$70BN in waste in weapon system procurement.
Air conditioning alone cost $12BN a year in Iraq/Afghanistan.
The DoD spends $500 MM annually on marching bands.
The Pentagon-to-Lockheed pipeline drives up the prices of weapons and prevents effective oversight of weapon manufacturing companies — all of which ends up costing taxpayers billions each year.

Weird though, that in a thread about our relationships with the Middle East and Muslims, we're talking about welfare abuse and respectability politics. Almost like it's intentional distraction...

Could we do better?
Click to expand...

Great article today on this topic:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/pentagon-investigation-billions-broken-by-design-216935
 
bobknightfan said:
I would like to see both bureaucracy costs and fraud costs reduced. Massive amounts of tax dollars are being wasted everywhere.

This is not a topic that can be covered with short posts on a message board where posters are playing "gotcha". There are no simple, easy solutions. You can either accept a study loss to abuse and take no action...in which case the problem will only gradually get worse. (That's where we were more than several years ago) Or you can take action to stem the losses due to abuse. The cost of doing this in the short run may well be greater than doing nothing and accepting a certain level of loss. However, the loss in the long run will definitely be greater by doing nothing. Unfortunately, this is a discussion that should have been made many years ago.
Click to expand...

So who is figuring out the level of abuse if not bureaucrats getting paid to do so?

This is a discussion plenty of people have been having for a long time. You're not the first.
 
TownieDeac said:
8718499.gif


Could we do better? Probably. All programs should undergo intense scrutiny when taxpayer money is on the line. Then again the Pentagon operates 234 golf courses around the world. Or you could refer to this list I compiled in 15 minutes of research:

$60BN in contractor fraud/waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.
$70BN in waste in weapon system procurement.
Air conditioning alone cost $12BN a year in Iraq/Afghanistan.
The DoD spends $500 MM annually on marching bands.
The Pentagon-to-Lockheed pipeline drives up the prices of weapons and prevents effective oversight of weapon manufacturing companies — all of which ends up costing taxpayers billions each year.

Weird though, that in a thread about our relationships with the Middle East and Muslims, we're talking about welfare abuse and respectability politics. Almost like it's intentional distraction...

Could we do better?
Click to expand...

You should know by now what I think of the DOD budget. If it was up to me, I would cut it by at least 50% today. My position is that there is unacceptable waste in government spending everywhere. We are only talking about relative amounts here. And relatively speaking, I think we can cut DOD by a bigger percentage than social spending....but that doesn't mean that I don't think we are misspending massive amounts of money in social spending as well.
 
PhDeac said:
So who is figuring out the level of abuse if not bureaucrats getting paid to do so.

This is a discussion plenty of people have been having for a long time. You're not the first.
Click to expand...

That was the point of the entire last paragraph of my post.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
You don't even know what the level of loss is due to abuse.
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There are many things that neither of us know about an entire host of issues, son....and that has yet to keep either of us from giving our opinions on these issues.

If you broke into a business and stole a bunch of money, would someone be out of order for saying that was wrong just because they didn't know how much money you stole?
 
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