Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hcrvx2.UUCP Path: utzoo!hcrvx2!jimr From: jimr@hcrvx2.UUCP (Jim Robinson) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: Make the rich pay? - no, the middle class, as usual. Message-ID: <2564@hcrvx2.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Dec-86 18:25:50 EST Article-I.D.: hcrvx2.2564 Posted: Mon Dec 15 18:25:50 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Dec-86 20:28:24 EST References: <2819@watdcsu.UUCP> <708@looking.UUCP> <3764@utcsri.UUCP> Reply-To: jimr@hcr.UUCP (Jim Robinson) Distribution: can Organization: Human Computing Resources, Toronto Lines: 68 Keywords: rebooting can.politics....... please wait Summary: In article <3764@utcsri.UUCP> clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke) writes: >We're not talking about Sunday openings here, I think.... > >In article <2840@watdcsu.UUCP> brewster@watdcsu.UUCP writes: > (in response to my posting) >> You seem to assume that there is an automatic right for people to >> expect to receive unemployment and welfare. > I sure do, only I'd phrase it as "a right to food, clothing, > shelter and education". Education's not usually on that list, > but we acknowledged that right in the nineteenth century when > we brought in free schooling. Daycare is education. Here's my two cents worth: Chuck the current welfare system. A person who is down on his luck deserves assistance in getting back on his feet. However, the current system does not require the recipient to make such an effort, it merely maintains the status quo. Thus, I'd propose that a prospective welfare recipient of able mind and body be given two choices if he wants to receive a cheque; he can either perform some community work (I bet the unions would love that) or he can take some kind of job (re)training which would be paid for by the government (i.e. toi and moi). Daycare would be provided for those who have pre-school age children. I don't mind paying taxes to help people help themselves but I do very much mind when the people in question are allowed to take my money and do nothing in return for it - either for themselves, as in job training, or for the community. It is simply not fair to those of us who foot the bill. As the Forget Commission has pointed out the unemployment program is a mess. This is yet another example of a program that attempts to maintain what should be an unacceptable status quo. Subsidizing those parts of the country which are simply not economically viable makes no sense but UIC does it anyway. I guess it's easier to run massive deficits (I believe UIC's deficit is on the order of several *billion* dollars) and give people what they want, but can't afford, than it is to bite the bullet and make some hard decisions. And please don't even try to tell me that Joe Blow has a right to live a government supported life in some chronically economically depressed area because his father and father's father lived there. Mr. Blow deserves an opportunity to become a self-supporting citizen thru job (re)training and perhaps government subsidized relocation, but he does not deserve to continue receiving government largess to live in an area which you, I, and he know quite well cannot support him, just because he likes it there. >> In the same vein, I have never understood the calls for universal >> free daycare. > I'm not sure I'm asking for that. I pay for my children's daycare, > and don't want a handout. But you must realize that it costs about > the same as a university education -- not just the tuition fees, the > whole thing. I can afford it because I'm better of than most people. I am against universal daycare. Why in the world should I have to pay for Mr and Mrs Yuppie's daycare costs when they're making more than me??????? Subsidized daycare for low income families? - fine. For low income single parents? - even more fine! But families with two BMWs sitting in the garage of their harbour front condo? Give me a break. And now some more reboot material of an entirely different sort: Let's make Canada nuclear-weapons free said the Liberal delegates at their recent convention. Can anyone out there explain to me how this is *not* an endorsement of unilateral nuclear disarmament? And given that it is just that, is there anyone out there who can explain why it is to our advantage to let the other side have the ability to nuke us into oblivion secure in the knowledge that we cannot retaliate? J.B. Robinson