McCain campaign promises to cut Medicare and Medicaid budgets by $1.3 TRILLION

[HAL 9000 96]

3 levels of generalized financial well-being:

illegals - poor Americans - legal immigrants

[mawilson 2,133]

Ah, we are talking illegal immigrant. Still no equivelancy. Interesting diversion though, I like it.

Why diversion? Think about what illegal immigrants have to go through to be where poor Americans are now.

Well, until they can legally work... they got sponsor $ to cover them quite well.

Not the immigrants I know.

[HAL 9000 96]

Ah, we are talking illegal immigrant. Still no equivelancy. Interesting diversion though, I like it.

Why diversion? Think about what illegal immigrants have to go through to be where poor Americans are now.

Well, until they can legally work... they got sponsor $ to cover them quite well.

Not the immigrants I know.

There's a bit of everything for everyone. Technically, you need to not break labor law.

Quite well = above the poverty line. Arbitrary to lots of factors, I know.

[Peikko 1,575]

In many ways, an incoming immigrant has a clean slate, no debts, no ties, no medical worries and very often a higher education level. Simply no equivelancy.

You're thinking of immigrants from the UK/Europe/Canada/Australia.

There are plenty of immigrants here from third-world countries with no education.

Legally, there are none unsuported. Not even those pesky refugees. Illegally, true, but again, they simply don't rise like the phoenix to the top of the pool (I love a good mixed metaphor) - they remain poor if less poor than they would have been back in their home land.

Edited October 7, 2008 by Madame Cleo

[mawilson 2,133]

In many ways, an incoming immigrant has a clean slate, no debts, no ties, no medical worries and very often a higher education level. Simply no equivelancy.

You're thinking of immigrants from the UK/Europe/Canada/Australia.

There are plenty of immigrants here from third-world countries with no education.

Legally, there are none unsuported. Not even those pesky refugees. Illegally, true, but again, they simply don't rise like the phoenix to the top of the pool (I love a good mixed metaphor) - they remain poor if less poor than they would have been back in their home land.

Sure, they are poor, but they are working poor, not welfare-poor.

[Peikko 1,575]

The American Poor are not static, they don't necessarily remain on welfare, but they don't often rise much beyond working poor either, not the way things stand. The 'American Dream' is the idea that simply by hard work one can rise from poverty to comfortable middle class. It doesn't happen often enough to make that reality. The most common trend is downward from middle class to poverty, and mostly on the back of inability to pay for illness.

[SpiritAlight 1]

Ah yes, there it is:

the working poor.

A growing number...