Welfare should be abolished

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Here, most welfare/social security is paid directly into a person's bank account, and to open a bank account, you need ID and a Tax File Number. They used to pay by check, but too many were being pinched out of peoples letterboxes. Only thing is, homeless people probably don't have ID let alone bank accounts, so collecting their welfare would make it a bit harder. They however get a good deal from the Sally Army. If it were a stipulation that everyone who received government assistance had to have a bank account and proof that it was theirs, maybe it would cut down on fraud; also somehow the applications for aid would have to be looked at more closely.
I also believe that most well off people (single incomes of $60,000 PA) are not paying their fair share of tax, and those in the higher echelon (like big business execs) hardly pay any at all). Having someone on $1million per having 47 cents in the dollar taken out in tax still means he is better off than someone on $25K being taxed at 25 cents in the dollar. It's meant to be proportional, but the more you earn, the less proportionally you pay. So people like Dick Pratt (Visy Board paper magnate) and Eddie MacGuire will always be better off than Joe Schmo the factory worker; and all of them will be better off than a disabled person on social security.

It always amazed me how people can quite innocently proclaim that someone on a million dollars will not mind having four hundred and seventy thousand dollars taken from them.

What always amazes me even more than that is how people can still advocate socialist doctrines after they have lived in the same century that gave rise to Nazi (National Socialist) Germany, Communist Russia, Pol Pot's Kampuchea, Red China, Nth Korea, East Germany, etc...

O-hi-o Todd ! What you said was complete BS on so many levels.


Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

I think I could name as many on the other side, what ever that is, of the ones you have listed and many more with other systems of economics/governments. Democracy and Capitalism are not the same thing at all. Very often confused. You can have one without the other. Power in the hands of the few corrupt. I think Zappa had something to say about the socialist side, which I happen to lean towards. He said something to the effect that people like to own things, no way around it. I agree, but yet still lean towards the socialized. I don't completely kick Capitalism out of bed either. Hence I don't have a label for my views, I just don't know what that would be. Perfect government? Never going to happen. Someone will always be unhappy with it. I think it’s part of the human condition. I’d just rather not see the needless suffering. No matter what the label that gets tacked on.

So... I spent 1 year 7 months and 19 days, drafted into the Army (US). (6 years actually, they just never enforced it). I get almost free med care for life. Is that welfare? Your tax bucks are supporting it, paying for it. Make you mad?

Does me. It was you that drafted me against my will, in a war I didn't think justified, and you're not giving enough of your money, the health care sucks the big one. Cough it up. (mini rant, damn it feels so good )

Just to clarify.. when I said our benefits system was almost wholly paper based, i was referring to the records angle, rather than payment methods. LadyM worked for our department of work and pensions (wonderfully euphemistic name there) and she has seen the hangar sized buildings full of rafts of paperwork, that goes almost completely unreferred to, simply because it involes way too much heavy lifting to access.