A majority of people who use government benefits do not use them in perpetuity if they have a choice.

Unemployment Insurance is actually a vital tool implemented by the government and funded by employers to reduce the incentive to lay people off and to keep the economy going/from falling apart completely due to stagnation/stagflation arising from massive freezing of the flow of money. After all, if the consumers stop buying the businesses stop selling. Big business won't be so important if they fold due to not making a profit. Also, what do you propose the government do when people can't find jobs when the job market needs don't meet the demand of the job seekers? Tell them screw you because you don't have a job? Wait, that's what business wanted to do when they started refusing to hire people who didn't currently have jobs. 

The concept of people collecting welfare checks in perpetuity is a throwback to pre-1996 welfare programs. The current welfare program is designed around enabling people to support themselves w/o welfare and providing them assistance while they get physically, medically, or vocationally rehabilitated. 

People always complain about people collecting food stamps thinking that they are a mooch on the economy and the tax base when the reason food stamps exist in the first place has absolutely nothing to do with helping poor people get food, that's simply a side benefit of the program. It was created, and still exists, to ensure that the american agriculture base has a demand to meet their supply so the agricultural infrastructure doesn't collapse like it did during the great depression. So yeah, recipients of these benefits will likely vote democrat, likely reason...they realize that democrats will extend their collective hands and help people get back on their feet and self-sufficient. After all, isn't that what this country was founded on? 

Helping each other through the hard times without expecting anything in return but knowing that should we ever need it, the same help we gave to others will be there for us. It's sad that so many people only care about about their own short term interests and care nothing about the welfare of each other and the interests of the nation as a whole. You don't win Football games by the lineman avoiding blocks because they don't want to get hurt and leaving the QB to fend for himself. Hell, you can't win a wrestling dual by training all you need so you can win and then leaving your teammates to train on their own because you're tired and and want to go home; you make the sacrifices you need to for the betterment of the team and because the team succeeds your succeed. 

There is a reason why the WWII generation is referred to as The Greatest Generation, everyone made sacrifices and contributed what they could to the effort because it simply was what needed to be done. The only difference between now and then is that instead of the threat being in uniform and carrying the flag of a foreign country, the threat is ourselves. As Lincoln stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand". 9/11 should have had the same unifying effect that Pearl Harbor did, but it hasn't, it's absolutely pathetic that partisan politics took that thought and tore it to shreds. It seems that people care more about their party than their country. So much so that their cognitive dissonance allows people to ignore facts in favor maintaining political allegiances. 

How many times did we hear people complain that Bush and his right wing Republican policies were to blame for high and rising gas prices? How many times have we heard that Obama and his leftist policies were to blame for the high and rising gas prices? 

How many times have we heard that Bush was responsible for the continuing and rising unemployment? How many times have we heard the same said for Obama? 

How many days can we turn on the cable news channels to see MSNBC ridiculing some republican official for doing something and then come back a few days later defending a democrat for doing the same exact thing? Fox News is no different in that regard either. 

Case in point, Fox News and the GOP are ridiculing Obama for invoking Executive Privilege while MSNBC and the Dems are rationalizing Obamas action and saying that it's ok because it's only his 1st invocation of Exec. Privilege and he went longer than any Pres. in the past 30 years without using it and has used Exec. Privilege less than those presidents. Go back to the Bush Presidency and you had MSNBC and the Dems ridiculing Bush for invoking executive privilege while FOX News and the GOP the Presidential stock quotes for the legal justification for invoking Privilege while citing how bush has used Privilege less than preceding presidents. It's as if the political mantra going from the political elites all the way down to the voters is simply, "I'm right, so if you do something then you're wrong, but if I do the same thing then it's ok because I'm right." 

To quote one of my favorite passages from the New Testament (Yeah you heard me right, a Jew who has go to passages from the New Testament, get over it!), 1 Corinthians 13:11 "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." Isn't it about damn time that we, as a nation and as individuals, put these childish ways behind us? And make no mistake, this shit is fucking childish; our words… childish, our thoughts… childish, Our reasoning… childish. In fact it's worse than childish because a child is ignorant ans they know not what they say. 

In kindergarden our kids are taught to be kind to each other and treat each other as equals; meanwhile our politicians stonewall each other and disrespect each other. Not too long ago the Michigan state legislature censured and silenced a female representative for using the word vagina in a debate on abortion. Not too long before that the US congress convened a panel, also on the subject of abortion, comprising of nothing but men and the panel only allowed male "experts" to testify on the issue. Even our judicial system allows the endangered party to defend themselves and speak on their own behalf yet it appears you get no such luxury in legislature. Even a child could tell you that these actions are wrong. I've yet to figure out why we are even wasting time on this issue — There are FAR more important things to worry about.

It doesn't stop with abortion or Republican stupidity, the other day I saw a news article about Representatives of the LGBT community who were invited to the White House for a Pride event held by The President of the United Fucking States, the first even of it's kind in American history and they were posing in front of a portait of Reagan with their middle fingers extended facing the painting. I have no idea if the pictures are real or not, but regardless it's pathetic: Option A: The pictures are real and these representatives are embarrassing themselves and disgracing the community which they were charged to represent. Option B. Some bigot took the time to doctor pictures in order to defame a group of people who are simply trying to get the same rights that the bigot enjoys. As I said, it's pathetic either way. Again childish

Ohio Republicans redistricted the electoral precincts to make it effectively impossible for the democrats to win a majority in the state legislature for at least 10 years until the next census. Can anyone justify stacking the deck to ensure that you win and have the perpetual advantage? If so, can you do it while Congress wastes absurd amounts of time and the courts press charges against Athletes for using steroids in privately owned athletic leagues and potentially lying about it while being targets of a which hunt, respectively. 

And one more shining example of Americas political maturity. I'm sure we can all remember the debacle that was the Wisconsin crusade on public workers and the subsequent recalls and the Democratic senator walkout? The entire establishment, both Republicans and Democratic were acting like children who couldn't get what they want so the GOP said, "We don't give a damn what you want, we're going to do what we want, when we want, and we don't care what you have to say about it." and the Dems just said, "Oh yeah? well too bad, you can't do it with out us there." and I can't help but picturing the Dems sitting on the state border sticking out their tongues with their collective thumbs to their noses with fingers extended and wiggling back and forth. This debacle isn't much different than the stalemate in US congress because no one wants to sacrifice or compromise. 

Here's an Idea...let's grow the hell up and start acting like adults. Lets learn from the best aspects of generations past. Generations such as The Greatest Generation who stood together as one nation indivisible and said with one voice, "WE ARE DIVERSE AND THROUGH THIS DIVERSITY WE ARE STRONG! WE ARE ACCEPTING AND THROUGH THIS ACCEPTANCE WE ARE MANY! WE ARE THE TIRED, THE POOR, THE HUDDLED MASSES AND WE ARE RESILIENT AND IT IS BECAUSE OF THIS RESILIENCE THAT WE WILL PERSIST!" Like they did in the past, let us all stand together and say, in one unified voice, that, "We will not fail; we will not falter; we will not go quietly into the night for we Americans!"