Is Teaching Your Kids to Beg A Good Thing?

I live in the Austin, TX metropolitan area and it is common in the Austin city limits to see people walking along the line of traffic at stop lights asking for money. These are generally presumed to be homeless people or unemployed people. I generally have a problem with this as most of them could go to the nearest fast food restaurant and get a job. I do understand that some of these people likely have mental problems and would be best suited in a state facility. But I don't think that is the majority based on the culture of acceptance of such behavior here. If they put as much effort into finding and doing a job as they do into asking for handouts, they might be worth $10-$15 an hour. It is apparently more profitable for them to ask for money from passers by than to get a job, hence why you tend to see the same people at the same intersections day after day.

Well one thing that we've noticed on Saturday mornings is groups, such as various kids sports groups out in the medians with their parents holding signs asking for money to help them go to some tournament or some other outing with their group. I have a fundamental problem with the parents who are obviously behind this form of fundraising. Whatever happened to car washes, bake sales, and garage sales etc.? When did teaching kids that they don't really need to do anything to earn money become appropriate? I'm just as appalled at the people that give money to them for nothing. I'm more inclined to give money to a homeless person than a child growing up in a 2 income family with plenty of money to send their kid if they had to, but cheap enough to beg for it rather than pay for it themselves because they are too lazy to bake cookies for a bake sale, or wash cars in a car wash or some other activity that might require a little bit of planning and effort. Walking around with a sign is lazy and shameful. I'm willing to pay for my kid to play in this select sports group, but too cheap and/or lazy to pay or teach them to earn the money they need to go on a special trip for being on this select team. Newsflash!!! Select leagues are a way of getting more money from you and you put them in it for bragging rights. EVERYONE'S kid is in select league and there are plenty of kids not on a select team that are better than your kid. Just so you know.

Quit teaching your spoiled kids to also be lazy. Teach them the value of a dollar by making them work for it. And people wonder what's going wrong in this world. People are learning they don't need to work for anything because the government will take money from the rich and give it to them. That's what's wrong. Quit looking to the government or anyone else for a handout. It's lame and screwing up our world!!! Get off your lazy butt and do something useful!!!By doing so, you'll teach your kids about personal responsibility as opposed to depending on handouts.

Government is NOT the Answer to Your Problems

Whether you believe in creation or the big bang, government was not there to help the first people on earth gather their food, build their houses, and fix any damage to them after a storm. They worked hard to do this on their own and looked for ways to improve things on their own. How do you think we've come so far? Over time, left to their own devices private citizens have learned how to improve processes and methods to develop technology far beyond the imagination of the first people on earth. All without the help of government.

Families came together to help raise their own, not intrude on other families to insist that it be done one superior way. That's not to say children shouldn't be defended if they are severely injured or sexually abused. But a parent should be allowed to discipline as they see fit. Parents should take responsibility for raising their kids to be productive, responsible, members of society, not depend on the government to do it. And if hard times fall on a family member, the family should come together to help them out. That's not to say they should enable them to be lazy, drug addicts, or something else. But it used to be that families and churches provided the temporary help for their members to help them during the hard times that happen and celebrate with them when they make it past those hard times.

When this is left to the government, it will cost way more than necessary and they will seize your money to help someone you may not care to help whether you want them to or not. When did government become the solution? Everyone should know by now that if left to the government, things like charity, education, food, clothing, etc etc are executed in such an inefficient manner that it should be criminal how much of our hard earned tax dollars are wasted.

History has taught us this over and over and over and yet we still let politicians try to buy our votes by promising us this and that. With our money no less, with the exception of those that don't pay taxes.

We all have choices and we should be expected to live within our means rather than rely on the government to bail us out every time we make a bad decision. The same goes for corporations. They shouldn't be bailed out every time they enter in to bad decisions. And now because they did, responsible tax payers are footing the bill for it. That isn't right. Companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to fail and go away. People that make bad choices should be allowed to fail. If you don't experience failure, how are you going to learn to make better decisions the next time around? And how are you going to reassess your situation to make cut backs to live within your means if you've been taught that it doesn't matter, "big brother" will bail you out?

Personal Responsibility should be demanded of all of us, not just those who take pride in it. You can't change history but you sure can learn from it. Well you should learn from it to change the future.

Meet My Vice President

This is Riley. My Vice Presidential running mate. She's tough on security and won't hesitate to take down anyone posing a threat to America. She agrees with me that there is too much wasteful spending in the government and as president of the senate, she would vote against any bills filled with wasteful spending should her vote be needed. She will also use her voice of reason to discourage elected senators from passing bills that will waste the tax dollars of those that elected them.

She's a strong proponent of personal responsibility and will do everything she can to promote the personal responsibility of each and every American, and work to inhibit government interference in their attempts to take personal responsibility for themselves.

Together we want to help teach every American to take pride in setting their priorities straight to rely on themselves rather than the government. One way we plan to do that is to privatize social security. The government will no longer take ownership of your social security. You will own that money and it will go into an account for you to invest. It will still come out of your check every time you get paid, but you get to direct the investment of it, and if you die before you retire, the total balance belongs to you to pass on to your family. Once you reach the age of 50 or the balance is $300,000, whichever comes first, you can have access to it. You can also contribute more of your income to it each pay period if you wish. But the point is you can decide how much risk you want to take or not and you will own your money, not the government.

Another plan we have is to reduce the corporate tax rate to 10%. The United States currently has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. That's not what this country is about. We want America to have one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world to encourage American companies that have sent operations overseas, to bring them back to the U.S. which will provide more jobs to Americans that want to work. This will also encourage other countries to come and do business within our borders. This helps you as a consumer because corporations pass the cost of those taxes on to you the consumers. The lower the cost, the less you have to pay for goods and services as long as you the consumers are prudent and the free market is allowed to operate freely to compete against each other.

We'd also like to replace the income tax, that hard working families pay,with a national sales tax. This is currently known as the fair tax. We propose a few modifications to the Fair Tax to impede government growth and takeover in your daily lives and to encourage personal responsibility rather than discourage it. All you need to know now is that you pay taxes when you choose to consume. Each family will receive a prebate every month based on family size to cover the taxes on necessities like food and clothing. Those who consume the most, pay the most taxes. It also means we will now be collecting taxes on tourists, illegal immigrants, organized criminals, and anyone else not currently carrying their fair share in the tax burden. Feel free to read up on the fair tax and ask me specific questions on what I'd do differently.

Finally, we'd like to eliminate the ridiculous death tax. It's government robbery to take money that has already had taxes paid on it once. We'd like to end that horrid practice.

These are just a few of our proposed economic changes to help stimulate the economy by increasing jobs, increasing the purchasing power of you, and giving back social security ownership to the people.