On Sat, Apr 29, 2006 at 01:34:29PM -0700, Steve Lamb wrote: > Andrew Sackville-West wrote: > > Nice way to avoid the point. > > Nope, didn't avoid a thing. As you admit your case was constructed. > Furthermore it did not address what I said. > > > You said, and I quote: > >>> The short, short form is that EICs are issued for people being > >>> irresponsible (like, having kids while well below the poverty level), > > Your constructed example was that someone who had kids *then* lost their > job. My case is the more common no job or single, low wage job, have a kid > because the nanny state will take care of it or they can't figure out how the > darn things are made. That's two completely different cases. read your quote above: ...EIC's are issued for people being irresponsible.... THAT is what I'm talking about. This kind of general statement is innaccurate and inflammatory. I attempted to provide an example of how someone could qualify for and receive EIC's without being irresponsible. Obviously, I did not do a good job of communicating that, but that was my intended point. It is similar to saying "worker's comp exists to pay people who fake injuries". This is obviously not true and neither is your statement. I was not trying to make any judgement about EIC's in any way just pointing out that conflating all EIC recipients into a group of irresponsibles is wrong. > > > My point was that lots of people end up qualifying for EIC's due to a > > variety of factors outside their control. > > Uh, no, a lot of people qualify for factors entirely in their control; > having a child is a choice not a biological inevitability. Most people don't > have a kid then fall on hard times. Most people have a kid and do well or > have a kid to hell with their situation at the time. Furthermore my example > was to show when a person gets money sent to them for not paying anything into > the system. You are aware that EICs are not just for the poor and there are > cases where households with an income far in excess of the poverty level get > EICs as well. The reason I specified what I did was because at least those > households, in theory, are contributing something into the system in the first > place. Granted they often get it all, and more, back but for a time the money > was contributed. I said LOTS. I did not say MOST. It is true that a lot of people qualify for reasons within their control, but that does not exclude that a lot of people qualify for reasons out of their control. > > > That is not being irresponsible. That is being unlucky. > > So? There are ways to mitigate bad luck like planning for hard times. > Savings, sadly, is a dying breed in this nation of instant gratification > credit lines and a tax system which discourages actual savings. > > > I am only > > pointing out how you have classified an entire group of people in one > > sweeping generalization that has little or no bearing in reality. > > No, you set up a strawman to knock down. I never said someone who already > has a child and loses a job. I said someone who is below that line and > decides to have a child. One is after the fact, the other is not. Correct you did not say that. You said that EICs were for irresponsibles and then went on to provide an example in someone who chooses to have a child they cannot afford. I provided a counter example where someone Responsibly has a child and then ends up getting EIC's later without choosing irresponsibility. Your classification of all EIC recipients, or qualifieds, as irresponsibles is just wrong. its simple. thats all it is. [snipping parts where we both wander from my original intended point] > Constructed? Nope. That's me from '02 to present day. EICs taken 0. Of > course I doubt I qualify based on the fact my dependents are a chihuahua and a > calico cat. So please, before you start with the handwaving about matters out > of people's control realize you're talking to someone who's been there, who's > faced the hard choices and didn't take the easy road out. mee too. > It was hellish for > a while there. Toughest choice was moving from Long Beach to Las Vegas, > having my wife quit her job as it was the only security we had left on the > chance she could get a job here before we went completely under. We still > hadn't exhausted our resources. We still had friends and family that would > have helped us as best they could. Something you left out of your constructed > fantasy. There's always things people can do. They may not be easy choices. > They may not be what the people want. I certainly didn't want to sell my > bike as it was my only transportation but I would have. And I was willing to > fight until the last, even face harsher bankruptcy laws, so my creditors > weren't shafted for my problems. So realize that when I talk about all of > this it isn't from some lofty comfortable position of luxury. I've been > there, thank you. > I agree that the hard road is that, hard. I repeat, for the sake of summming this up: I am only saying that it is inaccurate to call someone who qualifies for EIC's "irresponsible". That was my original point. Obviously, I did not communicate that in a clear way. But that was my only intent, to call you on your sweeping and inaccurate generalization. > A
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