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Currently, taxpayers lose half their paychecks to pay for so-called "entitlement" programs. Those on welfare get a subsidized private apartment; food stamps (which can used to buy fattening junk food); a check to buy cigs, beer, and lottery tickets; money enough to have cable TV and Internet; they get extra money for having more kids they can't support; many just sit around all day or get into trouble (gangs, drugs, crime), and the cycle continues for generations. Those in homeless shelters wander the streets of the city all day randomly.
So I have a solution. You set up essentially camps in the country. Everyone has everything they need: food (communal dining; only healthy diets), shelter (same-sex bunkhouses, trailers for families), and everyone works on the farm all day growing vegetables, raising livestock, perhaps making marketable craft items. No one sits around idle. Reasonable health care is provided, as are opportunities to get a GED and job training.
If they want better, they can do better ("poor" isn't an immutable state, as many seem to think); if not, continue there, where they are self-sustaining and not a drain on society. Seems like a decent life to me.
In the 1930s, we had the CCC, and those men say it was the best time of their lives. They had all they needed to live and were productive. "Something for nothing" demoralizes both the giver and the receiver.
Taxpayers lose half of their paychecks to pay state, property, Medicare, social security, federal taxes and often ridiculously expensive Health Insurance with high deductible. I think half of the federal tax pays for the defense budget. The portion that goes toward the entitlements programs is probably 1/8 of the paycheck or so. It offers some minimum safety net that allows poor not to starve.
So you are proposing a system of Forced Labor camps? Great idea if you want to live in North Korea. US still has this little thin book that is called "Constitution".
Uh, I go to work every day to support myself and pay my bills. Why isn't that "forced labor"? As I said, educational opportunities/technical training would be made available (actually, they already are [free] to the poor, but where's the incentive to pursue it if all of their needs and most of their wants are provided free in the comfort of their own homes?). If they want independence, let them work for it like I do. Meanwhile, they're pulling their weight, not contributing to the crime rate, and not growing morbidly obese (necessitating even more free medical care) sitting around eating fast food all day. If you can text all day, you can do data entry. If you can talk on the phone all day, you can do customer service. Even most "disabled" people can do something, and they'd be healthier and happier for it. Just my opinion...
The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee a free living if you consider yourself too good to work, as far as I know, although many seem to think so; even the Bible says, "If a man will not work, let him not eat."
I propose workfare in place of welfare. Vote for me.
The only real way out of poverty is Education. Unfortunately we have Betsy DeVoss in charge of that now so be prepared to watch the poor population grow in size as college becomes even more unattainable.
The only real way out of poverty is Education. Unfortunately we have Betsy DeVoss in charge of that now so be prepared to watch the poor population grow in size as college becomes even more unattainable.
Lazy comes in all colors and classes, by the way.
Not "education" as in a four-year degree in women's studies; JOB TRAINING. But you have to want it or perhaps be "encouraged" to want it. People do what is in their best interest to do; is this rocket science?
I would have them come in once a month for a mandatory birth control shot. If they don't show up - no money for you.
Twice the dosage if they come from down South. It makes me angry to not have children because they are too expensive and then I have to pay for other people's poor choices. I often stand in line at the store behind families with 4 little kids, paying with food stamps in the middle of the day, mom AND dad present. Don't have kids if you cannot afford them!!!!
I was on welfare at a point in life. I was a clueless kid in a bad relationship with a guy who could not hold down a job to save his life. I did not know how to get by without his help, though. They had cut my hours back at my minimum wage "starter" job. I'd gotten pregnant when protection failed, and we really struggled. I walked through the worst neighborhood in the Cincinnati area, with which anyone who has been there will be familiar, to a mission to pick up free bread, pushing my kid in his stroller through the heat of a summer that killed people. I tried to get help, I qualified for WIC and that was it. No food stamps. No check. No help with housing, or childcare. No cable TV, no internet. I am normally 120 lbs, at a healthy weight, and I got down to 98 pounds within a month of giving birth, because we didn't have enough food and I was putting all of my nutrition and fat into nursing that baby. I was not, lest you think it, on any sort of drugs or alcohol.
Later, we moved to Des Moines. Got our start there in a roach infested hellhole. My husband at the time (now my ex) had his gut rupture from diverticulitis and almost died. He lay in bed with a temporary colostomy doped up on Morphine, and his surgeon refused to give us a letter saying he could not work so that I could get any help. He proceeded to tell me he did not help people get handouts. ALL I wanted was help paying for daycare so I could continue working my job to pay our rent, and not leave my 2 year old with a man who was loaded with pain meds and had a hole healing up in his belly from the incision. No. Without that letter, and him not actively seeking work, we qualified for NOTHING. I finally told them we'd fought and he moved back in with his mother (I lied, yes, but this was quite a long time ago) and they immediately said "Oh, in that case, you qualify for this and that and the other...food stamps, medical, a check..." and I refused, because ALL I NEEDED WAS HELP WITH CHILD CARE temporarily. I actually had to argue with the case worker about this.
The system is a mess. If you need help it is really hard to get, if you game it to make the numbers work and "qualify" you can end up getting more than you need. And some people get into a situation where getting a job means they will lose more value in benefits, than what they gain in a job. That should NEVER be the case.
Now this was nearly 2 decades ago. More recently I knew a woman who was in an abusive relationship and forced to stay at home, not allowed to work, for all her adult life. She was escaping with her kids. She relocated to the city, and got on assistance, which was difficult and took time...and they had her going to classes on life skills and job skills and self esteem and a bunch of other stuff. Finally they placed her with a job at Goodwill. I would say that this is a system that is set up to work better than just giving a bunch of handouts and letting somebody sit and enjoy them. She tried to apply at local retail and food establishments before this, but no one would hire a woman in her early 40's with no job experience.
I hear a lot of critical people painting pictures of what they imagine a person on welfare looks like. I don't think that they are realistic pictures. You aren't telling anybody's story, just regurgitating the angry talking points about those lazy bastards who steal your tax dollars. The reality rarely looks like that. Sometimes life happens. I am more than willing to pay my (very significant nowadays) share in taxes, to give a temporary hand to people who are in hardship.
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