Posted on 12/16/2011 7:45:27 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Welfare workers are constantly trying to figure out how to make their jobs effective, how to do something to actually combat poverty. Their jobs are very high-stress, so they often meet after work on Fridays, when happy hours encourage them to philosophize.
If only the clients had to look for work -- no, they're already under such a requirement. If the government built more public housing so the slumlords didn't grab every increase in benefits -- no, that's been tried. If food stamps and cash assistance were combined into one check -- no, that resulted in a class action suit, and threatened the criminal economy. There must be some way the welfare system can actually assist the poor.
Happily, there is an answer: shut it down. No, don't just suddenly chain the doors of the welfare office closed, as some workers suggest at the end of happy hour. Do a gradual shutdown that eliminates the system and its whole bureaucracy over a period of eighteen years -- a shutdown that salvages logistical resources and allows people to learn to take care of themselves at a rational pace.
First step: recognize that the entire concept of state and national public assistance is a mistake. Just like bilingual education, the War on Poverty is a beautiful theory that just doesn't work in reality. People are better off getting local assistance for verifiable emergencies, but to improve their general lifestyle, they are much better off if left to suffer the consequences of their behavior.
Just as children learn a target language more quickly on the playground with speakers of that language than they do in structured classes, people living in poverty learn to get away from it -- if they want -- much more quickly by suffering its disadvantages
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Just to be clear, we’re only talking about welfare for poor people, right? Not foreign countries, farmers, and corporate giveaways?
Ping
My husband has a MSW and worked as a welfare specialist in Detroit. Now he’s a trainer in Lansing for Human Services. To this day he blames liberals for the whole mess of a system and the destruction of black families. By refusing to give short-term assistance to married couples, that policy destroyed minority families in one generation. Now you have millions of people who don’t have a clue as to what a real father is; they have “baby daddies” and half-siblings. The new “normal” has a incredibly high price we are all paying for.
oh the poor, let’s pick on them, it’s so much fun to pretend we are so different from them You can’t believe how many people start down this well worn path and I have shut them down with just the same arguments Wolfie has expressed. Wolfie is right, foreign aid, corporate and farm subsidies, non-performing federal agencies is what we need to shut down over the course of 18 years.
And if those “welfare workers” hate and despise and resent their clients so much they should find another job and let people who actually want to assist the hapless do the job.
First, Change the requirements for new applicants. Those already signed up would be “grandfathered in and phased out over time. Stop mailing checks. Make them go stand in line each week. Drug test monthly and randomly. If you become pregnant while on public assistance, you loose your benefits. After all, if you can afford to raise a family, you shouldn’t be on public assistance! If you are healthy, benefits will be reduced over time so your discomfort level increases, encouraging you to find a job, or learn something that will increase your learning potential. Food assistance or food stamps would only cover bare necessities. Bread, milk, toilet paper, lunch meat. No steak, no soft drinks or junk food.
One by each, one by each.
The real problem is not federal agencies that don't perform. Its a bloated government that is trying to do too much. The second point is that some agencies are doing exactly what they were designed to do (I.e.) destroy the family, free markets, private enterprise and our spiritual life...And you don't need 18 yrs...I think you could cull them in 18 weeks...or less
You focus is in the wrong place, Boiling Point. These poor damaged people are not your enemy. Believe me, they would rather be working, but in the hole of the urban donut there aren’t any jobs. God has been shut out by the liberal agenda, so there aren’t any values. The liberal agenda has aggrandized sex over anything else, so there is all kinds of random sex, with opposite and same sex, with children, these people are lost, objects of concern and caring, not hate like your prescription recommends.
This is endlessly tiring. It is possible to shut 80% of it down in about 6 month time.
If the political class ( who benefit from people being helpless and dependent on g’mint) really wanted to.
Plus, you definitely don’t want to start with the big campaign donors.
eh?
It’s extremely easy to do....simply enforce rules, regulations, laws and physical inspection requirements of anyone on welfare.
The majority of welfare recipients are “on the dole” because it’s too easy to defraud the government and get money. Furthermore, if they had to work they would lose welfare bennies that weigh far in excess of the money they would get if they actually worked.
The key to the whole thing is to ENFORCE the regulations on the books and require AN UNANNOUNCED PHYSICAL INSPECTION of their assets and living lifestyle every quarter. The key is “unannounced inspections” for they would not be able to prepare for it and many interesting things would pop up.
If they are honest they have nothing to worry about.
Another thing is that some type of stigma should be attached to welfare recipients. A simple one is to have separate checkout lines in grocery stores labeled “Paying Customers” and one labeled “Welfare Customers.”
If my lifetime observations of welfare cheats is correct, I would say that an average of 75% of all on welfare are cheats.
I don't believe you. My opinion is forged through life experience. When governments fund, incentivize and encourage vice and self destructive behavior there will be an increase in these activities. When they punish virtue (progressive taxes) there will be a decrease in virtuous behavior.
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Yes. Vote the Democrats out of office.
Not 18 years, 18 seconds!!!
Either make your own way in this world or lie down in the street and die!
my opinion is forged through working with them. People are so proud when they have a job saving them from the ignominy of being on the dole.
You haven’t convinced me with your hunches of how government affects things. The social programs are probably one of the few things that are helpful. The agencies, foreign aid, corporate subsidies, health care deform are the problem
There is a stigma.
I am appalled at all of you “Freepers” who want to pick on the “poor” during this current economic crisis. I am NOT like you. You make my blood run cold. It could be you next week, don’t you see that?
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