Foodstamps today are not pieces of paper, like they were a few years ago. Now they are on a debit card of sorts, and you use it the same way as a debit card. It is illegal to sell foodstamps, and you could not get more than a $1 back in change when they were paper.
The Constitution says that the government is to promote the general welfare and ensure domestic tranquility.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I think that providing Social Security benefits both provides for the general welfare and ensures domestic tranquility, therefore it is within the government's scope.
Paulewog said:
Second of all, it's makign the government get further into debt.
Social Security is paid for by workers. Our payroll taxes go into a Social Security Trust Fund, and payments are made to beneficiaries from that trust fund. It is separate from other taxes. Social Security is expected to run out in 2038 because it will be paying out more benefits than it is collecting in payroll taxes. This is not government debt--we are not borrowing against anything.
Third, it is not eceomically sound... there are more people claiming SS then there are giving to it.
Where did you get this information? I went to the Social Security
website and found out that about 6.7 million people recieved benefits in 2001. While that may sound like a lot of people, keep in mind that the U.S. has a population of 288,265,363 (courtesy of the US
Census website). So using a calculator, I found out that last year only about 2.32% of the population received benefits from Social Security. Let's look at the general working population--the ones who are paying into the system (more or less)--and adding up the number of people from 25 to 64 (also from the
Census website, the numbers are in the thousands, so append 3 zeros on the end), I found out that the working population is around 143 million. The number of people who received benefits is only around 4.7% of that population. So I can't see how your third point is accurate.
What is wrong with your state's public school system? What are you or your parents doing to change it--they're using your money, after all to finance their school system. How should public education be reformed?
I do think that your definition of capitalism is oversimplified. An example of a problem with capitalism would be environmental problems, or HMO's, or deregulated energy like in California.
The Constitution also allows for Congress to pass duties on trade.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
Article 1, Section 8 and says that the states are only allowed to tax trade with Congress' consent (except for whas is absolutely neccessary for inspection laws) and that the net gain is to be given to the US Treasury.
Article 1, Section 10
I think that the government is clearly not there just to protect us--the preamble of the Constitution that I quoted above lists what the government is about, and there is more than just provide for the common defense in that list.
The way the government was set up in the beginning was much better, in my opinion.
Yeah, slavery and displacing native peoples really rocked! Women knew their place, too. Those were the good old days.
Paulewog, I don't mean to jump on you, but it does help when your position can be supported by information rather than opinion. I really, truly don't care if you disagree with me about whether we should have free trade (or whatever) if you can show me how you reached your conclusions and back up what you say with some information. That's how we get an informed citizenry! Thanks for being such a good sport and talking with me, I really appreciate it.
--tibac
