Pew Poll : Public Wants Changes in Entitlements, Not Changes in Benefits

Pew Research Center ^ | 07/07/2011

[SeekAndFind]

[God luvs America]

yes...and they also want to lose weight but eat as much ice cream cake as they desire....

[SeekAndFind]

[b4its2late]

Pew Poll huh? Something stinks.

[Paperdoll]

Well, illegal aliens have bankrupted Medicare, and they are not entitled. The day that illegal aliens stop receiving the same benefits that America have earned will be the day we begin to heal! No benefits, no jobs, no school for people who sneak into our country!

[Zakeet]

From this: The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. ... was initially known as the Times Mirror Center ... [and was when first established] part of the opinion polling operation run by Times Mirror, the parent of the Los Angeles Times. The Project is chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Freepers should keep this background in mind anytime you see anything remotely political pushed by a poll conducted by this highly educated elite group of Libtards.

[Psycho_Bunny]

So, people agree the programs have been good but have to be substantially or completely rebuilt............

People are frickin’ idiots.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Herein lies the reason why the only substantive changes were likely to see will come through a complete collapse of the system.

[TheOldLady]

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[mulligan]

Want changes but no reductions. This is called an oxymoron. People are stupid and greedy just like corrupt politicians.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

How would you like the government to give you $10,000?

________ Approve ___________ Disapprove ________ No Opinion

(This, in essence is what these polls ask and why they are so misleading.)

[WOSG]

The #1 change we need:
Medicare and social security must be made voluntary.

the #2 change we need:
Abolish the concept of a given retirement age.

The #3 change we need:
Universal Savings Accounts to encompass all major items - retirement (IRA), healthcare (HSA), education (edu IRA). Combine them into one concept that allows qualified expense withdrawals.

[chris_bdba]

Seems they never ask anyone who knows what is going on.IMHO all need to be overhauled with some ending.Entitlements like welfare and food stamps need to be eliminated or restricted.It would not be much fun if all you could buy with foodstamps were staples that you had to cook yourself.No junk no pop etc.There should never be cash payments on Welfare.Social secuirty if it was still used as it was set up to be would have the age of retirement at about 80 since our life expectancy is now 76+.I don’t even know what to do with Medicare other than to blow it up too.People should be allowed to buy their own insurance no matter their age and it niot be 65 by law.

[Major Matt Mason]

This is from Pew, it should be ignored. Pew were the ones that ginned up the campaign finance polling to make it look like there was a groundswell of support for changing the laws when in fact few people cared. The GOP was suckered into going along with the bad legislation, as we know, based in part on this phony polling. One of their people even admitted as much, openly. They are a liberal operation, period.

[Pecos]

Both are proof of the dangers of a democracy. My taste buds outnumber my waistline, but that’s a personal matter, not the total destruction of the national economy.

[Notary Sojac]

Public Wants Changes in Entitlements, Not Changes in Benefits

And a magic pony that craps M&M's.

[Loyal Buckeye]

Poll this:

1. Keep benefits the same and bankrupt the country, thereby reducing benefits to zero.

2. Amend the programs to make them sustainable.

[Vintage Freeper]

A couple Edison quotes, plus a few quotes from others, offer some insight into opinion polls:

• ""Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think." Thomas Edison

• "There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking." Thomas Edison

• "Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think."- George Bernard Shaw

• "Only very few men have the gift of thinking new and original ideas and of changing the traditional body of creeds and doctrines. Common man does not speculate about the great problems. With regard to them he relies upon other people's authority, he behaves as "every decent fellow must behave," he is like a sheep in the herd. It is precisely this intellectual inertia that characterizes a man as a common man. Yet the common man does choose. He chooses to adopt traditional patterns or patterns adopted by other people because he is convinced that this procedure is best fitted to achieve his own welfare. And he is ready to change his ideology and consequently his mode of action whenever he becomes convinced that this would better serve his own interests." Ludwig Von Mises

Are the 3-10% of people who think they think members of the media and/or faculty members of institutions of higher learning? Where do the members of Congress fit? How many Democrats actually think?

I have heard a retired physician estimate that eighty percent of all health care delivered in the United States could be categorized as non-essential for life-saving or even purposes of health maintaining. The idea being that just because people want something, does not make it essential or life improving.

I have heard an emergency room physician make a similar statement. Eighty percent of the cases he saw in the ER could be managed on a non-emergent out-patient clinic type visit. Worse, a large portion of the true emergencies were alcohol or other drug related incidents.

Where in the Constitution does Congress have the authority to establish Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid? Does the word insurance appear at all? Which clause of the Constitution grants Congress the power to insure banks? Other parts of the Constitution seem to deny these kinds of power to Congress:

• "A republic if you can keep it....When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." Benjamin Franklin

• "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams, Second President

• "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson

• "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, Fourth President, 1792

• "I must question the constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." Franklin Pierce, 14th President 1854

• "I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit." Grover Cleveland, 22nd President 1887

[DesScorp]

In other words, a majority of Americans want to have their cake and eat it too... and stick someone else with the bill.

This country may be past saving.