So with the New Health Care Reform passed through the House. Who is for or against it?? Why or why not?

I am not in favor. My opinion (whether it's right or wrong) is why should we pay for the people who are too lazy to get a job just so they can have health insurance? Now it's different if they are disabled and unable to work. But these people who won't get off their butts to get a job shouldn't get subsidized health care that we, tax payers, are paying for!

Edited November 8, 200916 yr by TN_girl21

Don't you just love it when people cherry pick their answers? On the same note those same people who distrust their government are in a video on you tube regarding the tea baggers. I think the people who made it are called media progress or something but take a look at some of those videos. Scary, and I fear big percentage, believe this stuff retard Palin and others are spouting. It is ignorance to the highest degree that in one video, everyone of the people stated that they recieved NO tax cut or break. Every single one of them had NO clue of a tax cut. And every one of them said they got their news from the comedy channel, Fake News. Everyone of them, unbelievable. And yet, according to polls, these people are supposed to be educated and rich? Huh, where did the ignorant curveball come from cause these people are real ignorant.........My mom always said the more you know the better you do. Apparently not.

Edited April 23, 201016 yr by tdslf1

I think the people at the forefront making up the stuff that the tea baggers say are the wealthy well-educated folks. The followers, the real baggers themselves, are just regular folks, like you and me - but without a brain.

Patty Do you even read these articles that are suppose to support your position?

"Americans' trust in government and its institutions has plummeted to a near-historic low, according to a sobering new survey by the Pew Research Center."

So if they are at a near historic low when was the historic low? Answer from the article: "But the trust numbers were even lower at the close of the George W. Bush administration, dipping below 20 percent." So technically they have risen since Obama took office.

"The proportion of Americans who say they are "angry" with the federal government has doubled since 2000, increasing from 10 percent to 20 percent."

What happened in 2000? Bush took office.

Once again, you can't have a conversation about Obama's administration without bringing up past administrations. I could care less about what happened under Bush. You can't change the past. This is today! The poll speaks for itself. You can be in denial if you want, but the facts are that more Americans do NOT trust the government. (almost 80%) If you want to continue to believe in them as your Saving power, go right ahead, but the majority of us know better. There are no gov. programs out there that are running financially stable.

I know math isn't your strong suit but 20% is not a "majority"

I know math isn't your strong suit but 20% is not a "majority"

Are you for real?! I said 80%. 80% of Americans do NOT trust the government.

I just re-read the article, I cant find where it says "80% of Americans do NOT trust the government." Can you point it out to me?

I saw this "Only 22 percent of Americans surveyed by Pew say they can trust government in Washington "almost always or most of the time" . But since you dont know what the other choices in the survey were you cant say that the other 80% "dont trust the government" because you dont know how they answered. I will look it up and get back to you on this.

OK the choices were "JUST ABOUT ALWAYS" 3%, "MOST OF THE TIME" 19%, "ONLY SOMETIMES" 65% AND YOUR GROUP "NEVER" 11% AND "DIDNT KNOW" 2%.

Mar 11-21, 2010 3 19 65 11 2

January, 2007 3 28 63 5 1

February, 2006 4 30 59 6 1

Mid-September, 2005 3 28 63 4 2

Mid-March, 2004 4 32 59 4 1

February, 2000 5 35 56 3 1

May, 1999 3 28 62 5 2

February, 1999 4 27 64 4 1

November, 1998 4 22 61 11 2

February, 1998 5 29 61 4 1

Here are the historical rates and you can see they pretty much stay the same. First number is "just about always", 2nd number is "most of the times" 3rd number is "only sometimes", 4th number is "never" and 5th number is "dont know" (sorry but charts dont copy and paste well here) Here is the link if you want to look at it in original format.

http://people-press.org/reports/questionnaires/606.pdf

Edited April 23, 201016 yr by LeighaMason

Huffington Post: Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America's ills, the survey found.

The findings illustrate the ominous situation President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall's elections. Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.

Released Sunday, the survey found that just 22 percent of those questioned say they can trust Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 percent say they are basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively affects their daily lives, a sentiment that's grown over the past dozen years.

Gallop poll: Trust in Government

Now a new poll by ABC News gives us a better picture of public trust in the federal government. Most polls on this issue simply ask respondents if they trust the federal government to do what is right. The ABC News poll took a different tack: they asked separate questions about national security and domestic policy. The responses are markedly different. Sixty-eight percent said they trust the government to do what's right "when it comes to handling national security and the war on terrorism." Only 38 percent had the same trust "when it comes to handling social issues like the economy, health care, Social Security, and education." .author_pub2 a { float:right; margin: 10px 0 8px 8px; display:block; height: 142px; width: 110px; background: url(/people/pub_photos/samples.jpg) no-repeat -110px 0; } .author_pub2a a { float:right; margin: 10px 0 8px 8px; display:block; height: 142px; width: 110px; background: url(/people/pub_photos/samples.jpg) no-repeat 0 0; }

Majority lacks trust in government: Poll

Nearly 80 per cent of Americans say they can't trust Washington and they have little faith that the massive federal bureaucracy can solve the nation's ills, according to a survey from the Pew Research Centre that shows public confidence in the federal government at one of the lowest points in a half-century.

The poll released yesterday illustrates the ominous situation facing President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall's elections.

Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.

The survey found that just 22 per cent of those questioned say they can trust Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 per cent say they are basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively effects their daily lives, a sentiment that's grown over the past dozen years.

There are no gov. programs out there that are running financially stable.

As opposed to how well PRIVATE corporate america is handling things:

Bear Stearns

AIG

Lehman Brothers

Countrywide

Goldman Sachs

Bank of America

Citigroup

And like I posted before: NO POOR PERSON OR GOVERNMENT ACTIVITY OR PROGRAM CAUSED MY RETIREMENT INVESTMENT TO TANK - BUT CORPORATE AMERICA DID!!!

Edited April 23, 201016 yr by Cleo's Mom

An example of hoe our government wastes money.

WASHINGTON - Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says.

The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained late Thursday by The Associated Press.

The memo says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 1/2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed.

And as far as people not having trust in the government -

1) It's an easy target

2) People have no idea what the government does or provides

3) When some crisis (like the economic crisis) happens the first thing people say is: SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE.

Now, who do you think they mean? WalMart? McDonald's? No, they mean the government. They want the government to solve the problems but blame it when it does. It just shows how uninformed people are.

BoycottLiberalism.com

government waste

When I created this page someone asked, "Why don't you list the money spent on the war with Iraq?" Please be advised that the primary responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. Government should do those things that we cannot as individuals do for ourselves. I could not personally take down the Taliban government or Saddam Hussein, but the U.S. Government can. This is not to say that the U.S. military should not be efficient in its spending. However, below are examples of your tax dollars wasted. The next time a government official wants to raise your taxes- think of the below list.

Our cumulative running total of government waste is:

$1,230,956,867,592.00

Liberalism Defined

Exposing Liberalism to Light

The Stimulus Plan The National Institutes of Health spending more than $400,000 in taxpayer money by paying researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk -- and just what can be done about it.

The U.S. government is spending $2.6 million to make sure prostitutes in China consume less alcohol while working. As part of the five-year study that the National Institutes of Health bankrolled, researchers are visiting more than 100 houses of prostitution to monitor their employees, designated as FSWs, or female sex workers.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a study on the use of ecstasy, LSD and other “party drugs” in Porto Alegre, Brazil. To do this, U.S. taxpayers will invest $117,876 for the three-year study, conducted by researchers from the University of Delaware, who will work in collaboration with researchers from Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period in business- or first-class airline tickets bought in violation of travel policies, congressional investigators say.

It looks like Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is going to get his wish – $2 million in taxpayer funding for a library commemorating his 37 years in the House of Representatives. The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public service will serve as a repository for his "papers," and the congressman will have his own office in the Harlem complex.

The earned income tax credit (EITC) provides $31 billion in refundable tax credits to 19 million low-income families. The IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of this amount—nearly one-third—is wasted in overpayments.

A recent audit revealed that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department purchased and then left unused approximately 270,000 commercial airline tickets at a total cost of $100 million.

Since World War II, the U.S. has spent $1.2 trillion on foreign aid to 70 countries – and all are worse off than they were in 1980, according to the U.N.

For the Department of Commerce for giving the City and County of Honolulu $28,600 in 1981 to study how they could spend another $250,000 for a good surfing beach.

For the Health Care Financing Administration for Medicaid payments to psychiatrists for unscheduled, coincidental meetings with patients who were attending basketball games, sitting on stoops, etc. -- the cost of which was between $40 and $80 million from 1981 to 1984.

The National Endowment for the Humanities for a $25,000 grant in 1977 to study why people cheat, lie and act rudely on local Virginia tennis courts.

The Office of Education for spending $219,592 in 1978 to develop a curriculum to teach college students how to watch television.

The Environmental Protection Agency for spending an extra $1 million to $1.2 million in 1980 to preserve a Trenton, NJ sewer as a historical monument.

In 2005 - $469,000 for the National Wildlife Turkey Federation in South Carolina

In 2005 - $100,000 for the Punxsatawny Weather Discovery Center Museum

In 2005 - $350,000 for the Inner Harmony Foundation and Wellness Center in Scranton, Penn.

In 2005 - $1,430,000 for various Halls of Fame, including $250,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn., and $70,000 for the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wis.;

Medicare, the U.S. health-insurance program for the elderly and disabled, erroneously paid out $19.9 billion during fiscal 2004, up from $19.6 billion a year earlier, because of mistakes, waste and fraud, a government report said. In most cases, hospitals and doctors billed for medically unnecessary services or didn't provide proper documentation to support the fees for services.

The GAO estimated that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable.

While Andrew Cuomo was HUD Secretary under Bill Clinton, the agency set up a "Creative Wellness" program that spent $1,100,000 million taxpayer dollars on “gem” bags and taught public tenants to burn incense.

The study, titled "Status/Dominance and Motivational Effects on Nonverbal Sensitivity and Smiling," attempts to find out if it's really true that women smile more than men, and if people of higher status smile less. Judith Hall, a highly respected researcher at Northeastern University in Boston, is conducting the smile study — and it is not her first. Since 1993, she has been awarded more than $500,000.

A National Science Foundation study looking at whether White House reporters have become more adversarial sounds a bit strange to reporters and critics. Even more surprising: the study cost taxpayers $180,000.

In 2001 more than $600,000 in tax money was spent on researching the sex lives of South African ground squirrels.

The head of the IRS sent out a notice to every person advising them that they would be receiving a tax refund in 2001 - the estimated cost $30,000,000.

In 1998 more than $800,000 was approved for a coal library in Pennsylvania. Defenders staed that it would provide historical insight into a very important part of Pennsylvania and history.

In 2001 the U.S.. Government gave $5,000,000 to the University of Alaska, North Pacific University, and the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation to fund the "stellar sea lion recovery plan."

In the year 2001, Congress appropriated $340,000,000 in federal tax dollars to PBS (Public Broadcasting Services).

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for a Mississippi research project on "manure handling and disposal".

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1,500,000 million to promote silk production in Laos

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1 ,000,000 for the "eradication of Brown Tree Snakes" (Hawaii).

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1,000,000 to "develop and train Alaska natives for employment in the petroleum industry."

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for water taxis in Savannah (Georgia)

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $200,000 for a transit center for the Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball team.

In 1999 $1,200,000 million to subsidize a park on the Galapagos Islands.

In 2000 the U.S. government spent $100,000 to study the causes of sediment buildup at a Santa Cruz, New Mexico dam.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in San Luis Obispo, California.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $400,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute to improve the profitability of the state's sheep industry.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $273,000 for the Blue Springs (Missouri) Youth Orchestra Outreach Unit for educational training to combat Goth culture

In 2003 the U.S. government spent $1,000,000 appropriation for the Center for Public Service and the Common Good (a think tank) at the University of San Francisco.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $400,000 for manure management research at the National Swine Research Center.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,100,000 for the MountainMade Foundation in Thomas, West Virginia for business development and the education of artists and craftspeople.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $4,000,000 to implement the forest and fish report of the Washington State.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for exhibits on the Sullivan brothers at the Grout Museum in Waterloo, Iowa.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $61,000 for the State Historical Society to archive the history of Iowa workers.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,200,000 for the Ohio Arts Council to expand international programs.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,900,000 for the Mountaineer Doctor Television program at West Virginia University;

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,000,000 for an educational mall at the Raleigh County Commission in Beckley.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,000,000 for West Virginia University to establish a Center on Obesity.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $260,000 for asparagus technology in the stae of Washington.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,200,000 for music education at the GRAMMY Foundation

In 2000 the U.S. government spent $50,000 for the development of a Welcome Center Facility City for Enumclaw, Washington.

In 1997 - $4,000,000 for the Gambling Impact Study Commission.

In 1997 - $330,000 for Stellar Sea Lion research of the North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Consortium.

In 1997 - $785,000 for bluefish/striped bass research by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In 1997 - $2,700,000 added by the Senate for the Animal Resource Wing at South Dakota State University

In 1997 - $4,000,000 added in conference for the Discovery Center of Science and Technology.

In 1997 - $19,600,000 added by the House for the International Fund for Ireland, a program that tries to aid the peace process in Ireland by paying for golf videos, pony trekking centers, and sweater exports.

In 1997 - $16,369,000 added by the Senate for public library construction.

In 1997 - $9,469,000 added in conference for Migrant Education programs including: $7,441,000 for the High School Equivalency Program; and $2,028,000 for the College Assistance Migrant Program

In 1997 - $3,100,000 added by the Senate for the National Writing Project.

In 1997 - $8,200,000 for a new classroom building at the Rowley Secret Service Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland, which is the district of House Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations subcommittee member Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and the state of Senate appropriator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.).

In 1998 - $220,000 added by the Senate for lowbush blueberry research in Maine.

In 1994 - $221,000 for lowbush blueberry research at the University of Maine in the state of Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME).

In 1998 - $150,000 added by the House for the National Center for Peanut Competitiveness.

In 1998 - $127,000 added by the Senate for global marketing support services in the state of Senate appropriator Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.). According to testimony, the goal of this research is to identify “potential foreign markets for Arkansas products….”

In 1998 - $32,000 added by the Senate for the Center for Rural Studies in the state of Senate appropriator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). A portion of this grant money is used for analytical reports to guide the development of Vermont retail shopping areas

In 1998 - $500,000 added by the House in the district of House appropriator Richard Durbin (D-IL) for the construction at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Illinois, of Chalres Corneau’s house, a neighbor and friend of Abraham Lincoln.

In 1998 - $10,912,000 added by the Senate for foreign language assistance.

In 1994 - $200,000 for locoweed research at New Mexico State University in the state of House appropriator Joe Skeen (R-NM). Since 1992, $716,000 has been appropriated, and there is no expected completion date for this research.

In 1994 - $1,000,000 added in the Senate for the Multispecies Aquaculture Center in the state of Senate appropriator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)

In 1994 - $19,600,000 added in the House for the International Fund for Ireland. The conference report “restores language stricken by the Senate and appropriates up to $19,600,000 for the International Fund for Ireland.” In the past, this program has used American taxpayer dollars for a golf video and pony trekking centers.

In 1993 - $19,704,000 for the International Fund for Ireland requested, according to committee sources, by House Speaker Thomas Foley (D-WA).

In 1993 - $9,170,000 added in conference for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission in the district of House appropriator John Murtha (D-PA)

In 1992 - $2,000,000 added in conference by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) for a New York Bight Center for undersea research.

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