These stories aren't uncommon, but for whatever it's worth nearly all disability and workman's comp benefits are capped by the feds and the states at well below $3,000 per month (the federal cap for disability payments maxes out at $733 per month), so you can rest assured the great majority that particular money is coming from the mother. Nobody's buying new cars and houses on federal disability benefits.

Uncomfortable? I'm amazed! Who could have guessed that deep in the depths of FOFC would we apparently stumble upon the only person on the internet who is capable of critical and balanced thinking?! You should teach a seminar.

My girlfriend had been on a leave of absence from work since September, out on long-term disability due to debilitating migraines (vertigo, inability to stand up, nausea), since September. She was pulling in far more than $733 per month on her disability checks; fairly certain it was about double that number.

She just returned to work Sunday, and things are looking much better now, which is awesome.

Edit: read too quickly, didn't notice the federal caveat.

Except that even if you force all the people who are 'abusing the system' to go to work, the amount of labor production and economic stimulus is virtually nothing in the macro perspective. To complain about it is easy. That group is clearly "all that is wrong with the safety net." But it's just a very small slice of larger economic pie. It comes down to a moral judgement more than an economic one.

That's not to say that we need to eliminate fraud, but there's always going to be people who milk the system. The bigger issue is that we are always focusing on the poor because they are never doing enough in peoples eyes, we should focusing on the white collar fraud. That's where the real money is, but the work is way harder than just cracking on poor people.

It isn't so much the assumptions--everyone does that, as it is the double counting of the assumptions. They're being counted both to make the proposed tax cut revenue neutral and to show deficit reduction. They can't be used for both. In the corporate world, that would be accounting fraud.

On a certain level, it's honorable that this Administration is willing to follow through and offer a series of actual program cuts consistent with the vague generalities that are offered during a campaign. To actually get anything done, you have to get beyond the superficial "belt tightening" and "live within our means" rhetoric, and actually suggest which programs are to be cut back or eliminated. So, hats off for the willingness.

I suspect (this is an easy call) that this is going to go over like a lead balloon. When the initial skinny budget was floated, people went nuts over various things like Meals on Wheels. Here, we'll see any number of sympathetic cases attack the proposal as inhumane, etc. It's basically the nature of the beast here. Programs develop a constituency, and inertia is very tough to fight against.

That said - the major weakness here is that all you gain out of cutting programs is reducing the deficit. And the fact of the matter is, hardly anyone really cares about that. If the federal budget worked like a state budget, and had to be balanced each year, you'd see a far stronger correlation with service levels and spending levels. You could say things like "only buy reducing these spending programs can we do the tax breaks that are going to make us competitive again" or whatnot. That would be a way to sell specific spending cuts - they are necessary for something as a trade-off. But here, all we get is some amorphous deficit reduction, that has some hard-to-measure and harder-to-feel impact on a set of numbers we can't really explain and definitely cannot comprehend. What the hell is 19 Trillion dollars? Why should we suffer to shave down that unfathomable number a bit here or there?

There's a reason why budget cuts are among the topics that the party tends to deal with at only a 30,000 foot level. Getting into details sucks. There's no upside to it. Ryan has passion for this, and believes it's genuinely the right thing to do. So does Heritage, who's now writing the substance. And so does Mulvaney, apparently. But none of them realize how DOA this gets as soon as you go beyond the depth of a one-page summary document with grandiose claims but no specific oxen being gored.

Good luck with it.

#FakeNews, yet again. Coming from left-wing outfits like... err...uhh...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-...ath-1495544546

Your hostility is unfortunate. You should look into that.

I get that when we see abuse of the system personally it has more of an impact on our way of thinking than just reading or heating about something. When you're working hard for what you take home and you see someone you feel is doing just as well, if not better, by doing nothing it frustrates us. I just wish people would look at the actual data on this.

Yes, abuse of government systems happens, but we'd either use more resources than we'd save trying to crack down on it or we'd take money out of the hands of people that really need it just to knock what a minority of abusers down a peg.

If you really want to make a difference on our economy then we need to take a look at corporate handouts and tax reform.

You basically called "most of us" fucking idiots. Twice, without a hint of irony. Maybe look into that.

No, not idiots. Just caught up in the same stuff I see everywhere else. It has happened to me, too. I'm just trying to point out a better way.

It's up to you to see if what I am saying applies to you at all. If you feel it doesn't, don't get hostile, just ignore it--it doesn't affect you.

And the Internet is always an iffy medium to get a read on someone. It's possible what I say really applies to no one here at all.

But I'm not going to not call it as I see it. As I am sure you know, having posted with me for almost 20 years now.

RIP: Chief Rum's arm.

I don't understand why we need to increase defense spending even more than we already have been doing, considering we spend so much more than the rest of the world.

This was so smooth.

"Still not touching you" - Melania pic.twitter.com/bx9kZmdPwW

— Karen Civil (@KarenCivil) May 23, 2017

Not sure what the deal is with Melania/Trump but IMO, we should keep family out of this unless they are really involved/upfront such as Kushner & Ivanka.

I know there were some cheap shots taken on Michelle & girls and thought they are off-limits then.

I think Melania is just trying to enforcer her cyber bullying policies and prevention she announced at her convention speech.

Between the border and military increase and gutting of everything else, I'd say he's playing Hearts of Iron, except that it's way too complicated for him.

https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/...naive-realism/



Seemed timely here.

+1

Because a lot of rich and powerful people make money off of it?

Carrier plant that Trump helped save will cut 300 jobs right before Christmas - May. 23, 2017

Wow, MBBF hasn't posted since he went on his random tirade in the NCAA tourney thread and got boxed.

I guess he took his ball and went home.

MSNBC won the primetime news ratings battle last week, and for the first time in 17 years Fox News finished 3rd. CNN won the daytime ratings.

MSNBC Wins Primetime Week In Total Viewers And News Demo | Deadline

Sort of speechless by this Mulvaney quote:


Trump's budget has a huge math mistake - Axios

Makes sense for MSNBC to retool with a more right wing friendly lineup!

This whole line of argument assumes they care. The budget numbers from the GOP have been fantasy for years. This is just another step down the road they've been on since at least the Ryan budget years. The important thing is to establish a he said/she said situation so news orgs will play the "some people say" game.

Yeah, like that line item where they charged $6k for 30 steaks, when really it was just 30 $1 gas station steaks, but Trump can't tell the difference. So they really saved us $5,970 in steaks.

Rush Limbaugh (it's okay, even I thought '...of all people') has a pretty good take on this IMO. How some behind the scenes stuff that he hints at (right or wrong) factors in but, of more general interest, how the slide will affect the product on the air day to day.


https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2...ratings-slide/

Apparently the Trump promise to donate all foreign sourced profits to the Treasury is complicated by the fact that Trump properties aren't keeping track of what profits are foreign sourced.

Everything's a con.

By the CBO's estimate, 15 million people will lose healthcare by the end of 2018.

Yeah, the Senate isn't going to do that in an election year.

Jeff Sessions also made false statements/material omissions on his application for security clearance regarding his contacts with Russian officials.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politi....html?adkey=bn

And perhaps more important, but buried a bit in the news today, Comey's decisions regarding his handling of the Clinton investigation were influenced by an unreliable and/or fake document produced by.....Russia.

How a dubious Russian document influenced the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe - The Washington Post

This op-ed Flynn wrote back in November looks bad now that we know he took half a million from Turkey.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blo...ds-our-support

Erdogan is just misunderstood.

Because no one pronounces it correctly.

If all these meetings with Russians were on the up and up, why do so many people in the administration lie about them?

Apparently, the GOP candidate for that Montana Special election bodyslammed a reporter the day before the election.

I wish I could make stuff like that up.

edit: we have audio, sadly no video (and no, I'm not joking)

https://t.co/OioGWXQUIv

Weird story.

Greg Gianforte: Fox News team witnesses GOP House candidate 'body slam' reporter | Fox News

Political Road Rage.

Any chance he was drunk? They said this was a BBQ I believe.

nah, he was setting up for a bit with Fox News reporters at the event where he was going to speak, the reporter asked a question, they went back and forth, and then the roid rage came out.

This shouldn't have any effect on the election, since this is just a he said/four other people said and had audio proof-type situation.

I doubt it'll have much effect - but the fact that the fox chap is on the side of the journalist being assaulted says a lot about this candidates honesty imho ....

Most people have already voted, so it will have microscopic effect

Nah, they said they had a lot lower amounts of people voting early than normal, and the last minute votes usually break R, so.. who knows.

(funny thing, Republicans in Montana fought against Elections by Mail in that state because they're afraid it would advantage Democrats.. bet they wish they had it right now.

He body slammed the fake news media. This should drive up Republican turnout.

So looking like Hannity made be the next to go at Fox after he continues his conspiracy theories about the death of democratic staffer Seth Rich:

Advertisers Pull Ads From Sean Hannity’s Fox News Show | HuffPost

Dear Donald,

The amount of money spent by NATO allies on defense has no bearing on how much the United States spends on defense. These aren't club dues.

Thank you.

I thought that one of the only benefits of Hildawg losing would be that at least we wouldn't have to hear about 4-8 more years of clinton conspiracy theories. I guess i was wrong.