<p>A balanced budget (in part due to raising taxes) is a step in the right direction. But in California’s case, it is the equivalent of saying, “Whew, now I can resume payments on my broken down car.” More specifically, it will allow CA to retain its ranking as the #1 welfare state in the country.</p>
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<p>I can understand where it comes from (even though I don’t agree with it). See post #85.</p>
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<p>Yes!</p>
<p>“As others have noted, this is a success story of the system. This boy will stop the public assistance track in his family and get off of it because he is going to be well educated. I cannot understand any of the talk of him paying the state back. He was a minor who lived in a poor family requiring assistance so he could live and go onto a better life. He will pay society back in other ways.”</p>
<p>I am a rock-ribbed conservative and agree with this. I do not think that I’m entitled to a break on my taxes because my parents paid in far more than they ever got out; likewise, this kid doesn’t owe society anything except to be a productive, contributing member thereof. </p>
<p>Most conservatives have a problem with welfare because it perpetrates a cycle of poverty: parents teach their kids how to milk the system. It is seen as a right, an entitlement, a way to screw the man or whitey or whomever. It also brings out a lot of ugliness in human nature, and the way it is set up (with very steep reductions in benefits for small increases in income) create incentives to stay in poverty. </p>
<p>I would hope that we can all agree that there are real problems with our welfare system without thinking that this kid is a poster child for those problems.</p>
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<p>I think he is in fact the opposite: NOT the poster child for the problems of our welfare system. It could be valuable to dissect what it is about his life that enabled him to be so successful in spite of being raised on government assistance.</p>
<p>He’s successful “in spite of being raised on government assistance”?</p>
<p>Given his family situation, the alternative for this boy would have been dire poverty or reviving the orphanage system.</p>
<p>Well, only on CC could you find people actually snarking at a feel-good story about a kid without privilege who worked / studied hard and got great college opportunities as a result. I don’t know how some people live with themselves.</p>
<p>momfromme,</p>
<p>Yes, in spite of being raised on government assistance. What point are you making? Do you not agree that very few children raised in poverty end up admitted to HYPSM? This boy beat the odds, and it could be very worthwhile to figure out what is was about his situation that enabled him to do so.</p>
<p>Agreed, Pizzagirl.</p>
<p>I’m also struck by someone being startled that anyone could support policies that raise their own taxes. </p>
<p>As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”</p>
<p>We need to have taxes to support a society that ultimately benefits all of us.</p>
<p>In any case, my hearty congratulations to this young man!</p>
<p>Bay, My point and, admittedly it could have gotten lost in the comment’s pithiness, was that the government assistance was necessary for this kid to have done as well as he did.</p>
<p>Without it, we’d have a situation like third-world countries, where families live in deep poverty from which they suffer and have no way out.</p>
<p>It is hard for poor kids to do as well as middle-class kids in the U.S., to be sure. But it’s far harder when the poor live in countries without government assistance.</p>
<p>^Okay, but I think that goes without saying (that a kid living on some form of income is better off than a kid with no income at all).</p>
<p>It is a shame that some view the success of this hard working person as an indictment of social assistance, or even worse a vindication. It should be neither as that part is utterly irrelevant. It is a story of a young man emerging from his dire conditions. Something that is remarkable because of its … rarity.</p>
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Bay, please re-read what I said (and you quoted) - I said that this child is not the poster child for problems in our welfare system. You disagree because you think that this child is NOT the poster child for problems in our welfare system.</p>
<p>Sometimes, CC-ers really irritate me - it’s like, you can read what I said, and it plainly says what you said, but you disagree. It’s not normal conversation wherein you’re arguing over what I said - it’s right up there, then copied again in your quote. Amazing.</p>
<p>^
I don’t read Bay’s post as disagreement with your post. Your post says we should not consider him as poster child, Bay tacitly agrees and takes it a step further. That’s my read.</p>
<p>It’s rare that the kid will end up at Harvard. It is not all that rare for the offspring of poor parents to grow up to get a college education, and become productive members of society – it’s just that it is far more likely that the poor kid’s post-high school path will begin with community college, then onto the state u. and perhaps post-graduate education with a career focus. </p>
<p>Yes, some kids are not able to break free of the cycle of poverty as they grow, but I think that this kid overall is following a very common pattern for the children of immigrants. It’s just that he’s done well enough to qualify for admission to Ivies as opposed to the state university (which also admitted him).</p>
<p>bovertine is right about the intent of my post.</p>
<p>“Opposite” and “a step further” are fundamentally different concepts, IMHO.</p>
<p>Mangled grammar; oh well.</p>
<p>“Opposite” refers to the notion that he IS the poster child, not to the quoted post’s opinion that he is not. It is perfectly clear to me, whether the sentence structure is perfect or not. Some folks just choise to be offended I guess.</p>
<p>This kid only got a **34 **on his ACT? </p>
<p>I’m calling foul, this kid could surely form the basis of a discrimination case brought by all the 35-36 ACT students rejected from those schools who are obviously more qualified than he is.</p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>Representing the Valley! I know a kid who got suspended for selling candy like that… Twice!</p>
<p>Interesting but not surprising to me that this area has a lower than average admission rate. I bet there is a lower than average application rate as well. The article says 234 students applied. That doesn’t seem like very many if you include all the Sacto suburbs.</p>
<p>BTW, it was 108 degrees around here on Saturday…</p>