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There's a person who posts on another forum I frequent who works in a welfare office in a northeastern state. He periodically posts accounts of what goes on in that office...
Welfare fraud is rampant. There can be no denying that. I'm a very strong believer in personal responsibility and independence, but I also understand that there are times where assistance (regardless of the source) is necessary to avoid passing a "point of no return" in life. In principle, I don't have a problem with a government program for this, but the current system sucks. There's too many people using it, and not enough checks to eliminate the fraud.
I'd much rather see this kind of thing handled by 501(c)(3) charities. Private entities have, in almost every case, been able to manage large systems much better than government. There's a reason that the US Postal Service contracted with FedEx (http://www.usps.com/news/2001/press/pr01_015.htm - broken link) to move mail around the country...
As for welfare "only" accounting for one percent of the budget... That is at least ten times what it should be.
Abolish welfare and what would you have? Many of the poor would become criminals in much bigger numbers than ever before to obtain various basic needs, such as food, and then you would end up with a much bigger prison bill. More prisons would have to be built. It would just amount to an all new welfare state. But then maybe this would please a lot of bigots, since a significant percentage of the poor are made up of minorities. And putting minorities in prison this way would impress bigots as a cool way to get rid of them while bypassing civil rights laws. Anyway, it's enough to make one wonder if there's a lot of people out there who feel that being poor should be made a serious crime.
I'd really like to see some substantiation of these wild numbers people are throwing around -- $400 Billion per year on welfare? Welfare per se doesn't exist any more. The closest program I can find is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF) and that's funded at $16.5 Billion -- 0.6% of the federal budget. The Section 8 housing assistance program appears to be of comparable size.
all welfare entitlements should be severed and section 8 housing should be bulldozed. poverty comes as a result of being worthless and not able to carry your own weight. people are getting tired of others dragging down the country. if you don't want to be poor, cancel your cell phone, stop smoking, stop drinking, and most importantly, quite your freaking whining.
The fact is that most people on welfare have not had enough education and skill to make higher wages. The cost of child care also puts a burden on families who would like to work but take lower end jobs that allow them to stay at home with child.
People also are not poor due to the fact of laziness. There are many situations that can lead to welfare such as the housing crisis, health issues, a death of the main provider of the family, or due to being elderly.
To be honest, it is almost impossible for most of these people to get higher paying jobs because a lot of them don't have the skill, intelligence, or talent (and I am not trying to be offensive). They are going to get lower paying jobs and education is not going to benefit them too much. Perhaps job training with an incentive for businesses to hire people on welfare, like a yearly tax credit to the business for hiring people on welfare and training them. Of course these jobs will need to pay at least 300% above poverty level. This would be a better solution then to force everyone to pay money into a system that doesn't encourage people to go to work and is frequently abused.
My point is for those who continuously complain about welfare taking their money. You spend more on the Iraq war then you do to support welfare.
I would rather give $100 to the poor than $1,721 per person or $4,681 per household on a war.
I don't like paying for the Iraq war either but you must realize we are borrowing money from the Chinese to pay for the war. I rather not borrow from the Chinese for the war or to pay for welfare. Most of the people are against the Iraq war but the government doesn't listen to the people anymore. That in itself is another issue entirely.
So why are people still saying that people are on welfare forever. Thats why I posted the facts and you backed them up. Thanks.
You have to realize that welfare has existed for a very long time and during those times, it was "forever". That changed in 1996 which was only 12 years ago (a short time compared to the existence of welfare)... However there are other form of government subsidies and aids that do last forever which is fine with me because I think food and stuff like that is important regardless of circumstances... but there are "some" things I don't agree with like "nutritional assistance for Puerto Rico".. a U.S. territory that enjoys U.S. citizenship and federal funds but doesn't pay federal taxes... stuff like that just aggravates me... If you want the benefits then you have to pay your taxes... we have been giving them over a billion dollars every year and they don't pay federal taxes... you might ask, what is the difference? Because they live in Puerto Rico and you don't... they are U.S. citizens but they just don't pay federal taxes... there needs to be some serious reform...
Do you disagree that the face of welfare has been stereotypically black women?
To be honest, I always thought of people on welfare as a white woman... I can understand that there may be stereotypes but I think it is more of a local effect... "local effect" for instance, in some cities, the welfare recipient may be predominantly black whereas other cities, it may be predominantly white and other cities yet still they may be predominantly hispanic... I would be willing to bet that a lot of these stereotypical beliefs are held by what the larger ethnic group gets welfare.. When I think about welfare, I think on a much larger scale... a national scale... I think the stereotypes are derived from a more local scale...
Again I posted this for people to understand the exact point your making out, but like I have said before the post was to enlighten people who continue making fals claims that women on welfare have far more children. Not true.
I think when it comes down to it, people object to welfare because of its failings not because of how many children people have... the welfare doesn't "help" other than being a temporary nanny for 5 years... we need a better system to encourage companies to hire people on welfare and train them and to get rid of the fraud and abuses that will only get worse with our current system... it is broken and it needs to be fixed... nobody says get rid of it, but that we need to fix it because it simply isn't working as great... it could be better...
I'd really like to see some substantiation of these wild numbers people are throwing around -- $400 Billion per year on welfare? Welfare per se doesn't exist any more. The closest program I can find is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF) and that's funded at $16.5 Billion -- 0.6% of the federal budget. The Section 8 housing assistance program appears to be of comparable size.
Here you go, from the government... $400 billion... instead of dismissing it, might want to look into it...
I'd much rather see this kind of thing handled by 501(c)(3) charities. Private entities have, in almost every case, been able to manage large systems much better than government. There's a reason that the US Postal Service contracted with FedEx (http://www.usps.com/news/2001/press/pr01_015.htm - broken link) to move mail around the country...
Did you read this? The Postal Service is hiring FedEx to carry bulk mail on some it's planes, not deliver mail. Today they send a lot of bulk mail on passenger airplanes. Just your postal service outsourcing non-core business to reduce cost. Why fly your own planes when you can get bulk space on FedEx.
BTW the post office's costs of delivery a piece of mail is way lower than FedEx.
Did you read this? The Postal Service is hiring FedEx to carry bulk mail on some it's planes, not deliver mail. Today they send a lot of bulk mail on passenger airplanes. Just your postal service outsourcing non-core business to reduce cost. Why fly your own planes when you can get bulk space on FedEx.
BTW the post office's costs of delivery a piece of mail is way lower than FedEx.
Ok so all expenditures to state and local govts are welfare payments in your definition
Education, infrastructure, community growth and health are welfare. Now it all makes sense Evilnewbie
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owned.
