Here's my proposal: As a condition for receiving the government aid made available to the poor, an individual who is unemployed should be required to provide his labor in return for his aid. At every level of government, there is labor required: for government buildings, cleaning the offices, emptying the wastebaskets, washing the windows; for government roads, gathering and disposing of trash and rubbish, filling potholes, clearing clogged storm drains, repairing broken curbs; collecting garbage for disposal at the landfill; working at the landfill to spread and cover garbage; working at the recycling center to separate types of recycleable materials; etc. The unemployed could do these jobs in exchange for the government aid. That way, the bloated bureaucracies employing bloated workforces of highly-paid, unionized workers could be slimmed down. The unions wouldn't like that, but, so what?

I love it. Three years and no due date. Even elephants gestate only two years. I also see the "registered" corners, and it seems they take turns so the same bum does not work the same corner too often.

But, Liberty Belle, you are not standing on a street corner lying and stealing.

Well, I don't know, Crushmore. I don't call $50 an hour tax free poor.

The rest of it is "if you want to kill it completely, regulate it". supposedly Reagan's quote

Exactly like the bums on the Eastside (east of Seattle), except I think they roll in the dirt before going to their job begging. We might be able to get an Obama Grant to do a study to see which works better, clean clothes, or dirty ones.

They all seem to have "registered" corners now. Some bring their family and many have a dog. One young gal has been "Homeless and Pregnant" per her sign, for the last three years now. She hasn't even started to show yet.

"Communism helped men cope with poverty, but could never get men out of that poverty."

-- Will Durant, "The Story of Civilization."

I begin to have a little more sympathy for the
homeless since I see how the government drives
people out of their homes. About a year ago, the
City of Richmond put a "Condemned" sticker on
my apartment (which was part of a row house).They
claimed one of the walls was falling down (not
true; a few loose bricks). But even if it had
been, it was none of their God-d****d business.
I tried to get another cheap place; the rental
agent said he didn't have any more cheap places
like that. So now I am paying almost twice as
much rent as before. And I got some message
from Ms. Lady Bountiful, who apparently bought
the house, about some arrangement; to me it
would be like receiving stolen goods,stolen from
the former owner. She can leave me alone. I
don't really want anything to do with her.

Reminds me of grad school, ran into a friend who was the student loan coordinator at the U of Wyoming. Said, as a grad student, I could get $5000 student loan on my signature. Didn't need the money, having a great flexible job driving big trucks, but I went and signed, got the check, bought 500 oz of silver, which I still have.

I believe in economical term "if you want more of something, subsidize it. If you want less, tax it." So for example, if you want college tuition to increase give away free government insured money for potential students.

Great quote

Exactly. The real problem is not the infestation of roaches, but the people who keep feeding the roaches.

I had a friend who worked with the homeless in Boston about 30 years ago. We observed that the more enterprising ones set a target, usually about $200, and did their panhandling until they met the target. He found one of them, a girl with a college degree, a "real" job. Next day she was back on the street. "Why aren't you at your job?" he asked. "They wanted me to show up at nine o'clock in the morning," she said, "every day! I can't do that!"

I think the Stossel show where he dressed up as a bum for three hours and begged on the streets illustrates the situation well. He made over $50/hour. No taxes. No deductions. So, in Phoenix, I started to look at the "bums." Mostly, they were dressed in clean clothes, appeared to have showered before they went to work on the begging corner, were well rested and plenty of energy to walk up and down the stopped cars lane---limping in one direction and walking just fine in the other after the cars drove on.

"If you want something to grow, feed it."

Here in Phoenix the "Homeless" problem has been all over the news lately they have said that the shelters down here have seen a $400% increase. I know we see homeless people all over town, although we usually get a big increase here because of the mild winter weather, there do seem to be a lot more than we have ever seen before. Casualties of a war to gain power to control others.

I was talking with a police officer who works with the "homeless" in SOFL .... he said that many of the homeless are making $40-70 per hour collecting donations at intersections.

I was just thinking of this quote today as I walked by a man with a sign. As long as we have a media that reports the plight of the poor and how government and you should be doing more. We'll continue to have more people convinced to stay poor.