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Old 12-09-2012, 10:02 AM
 
Location: Maryland
18,630 posts, read 19,355,807 times
Reputation: 6461

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Well duh but the liberals insist these programs work. Give mom a check for questionable intellectual disabilities or misbehaving in school and guess what she's going to allow Johnny to continue to be a problem at school.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/op...Z4Y3nl0hQ&_r=0

Quote:
This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.

Some young people here don’t join the military (a traditional escape route for poor, rural Americans) because it’s easier to rely on food stamps and disability payments.

Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I., a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.

Most wrenching of all are the parents who think it’s best if a child stays illiterate, because then the family may be able to claim a disability check each month.
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Old 12-09-2012, 10:08 AM
 
Location: Sinking in the Great Salt Lake
13,139 posts, read 22,734,953 times
Reputation: 14116


I guess they read the wrong version of that "teach a man to fish" proverbial wisdom thing?

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Old 12-09-2012, 10:25 AM
 
Location: Old Bellevue, WA
18,782 posts, read 17,295,851 times
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good find OP. Definitely surprises me to hear this kind of talking points coming from a Kristoff. I've been saying for years that when I think back to my school classes in the 60's nd 70's, there were only a small handful of kids who were incapable of making their way thru life independently. The number would have been less than 1%. These were the kids who were born with serious maladies and disabilities.

I like this quote from the article "The greatest challenge we face as educators is how to break that dependency on government. In second grade, they have a dream. In seventh grade, they have a plan.” "

This column could have come straight from Rush Limbaugh; it's the kind of thing that he says all the time.

Last edited by wutitiz; 12-09-2012 at 11:51 AM..
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Old 12-09-2012, 10:34 AM
 
41,111 posts, read 25,608,340 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wutitiz View Post

I like this quote from the article "The greatest challenge we face as educators is how to break that dependency on government. In second grade, they have a dream. In seventh grade, they have a plan.” "
Breaking dependency starts at home. If the parents teach their kids that they are disfranchised and that they are owed and teaches them anger then they will stay dependent and poor. Sad isn't it that they pass it on. One would think that they would want their children to do better.

We were poor growing up but my parents kept telling us we can be whatever we wanted to be. They made sure we got a good education. They taught us to keep trying. We are all self-sufficient productive, never accepted government assistance and doing pretty good. Back in a time when women generally did not work the sister overcame it all and is doing the best.

It starts at home.
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Old 12-09-2012, 10:39 AM
 
13,220 posts, read 9,839,728 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by petch751 View Post
Breaking dependency starts at home. If the parents teach their kids that they are disfranchised and that they are owed and teaches them anger then they will stay dependent and poor. Sad isn't it that they pass it on. One would think that they would want their children to do better.

We were poor growing up but my parents kept telling us we can be whatever we wanted to be. They made sure we got a good education. They taught us to keep trying. We are all self-sufficient productive, never accepted government assistance and doing pretty good. Back in a time when women generally did not work the sister overcame it all and is doing the best.

It starts at home.
I agree, but obviously that's not happening in a lot of cases. What I advocate is for people with skills and the ability to motivate go out and volunteer at one of the many mentorship programs in affected areas.

I believe if you can inspire kids early enough, they won't fall into their parents' thinking. Kids generally want to do well and are responsive to motivation.

I think anyone that really wants to see this end instead of just complain endlessly about it should seriously consider it.
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Old 12-09-2012, 10:48 AM
 
Location: 500 miles from home
33,942 posts, read 22,412,319 times
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Living and working in WV for some time - I saw so much of this in my job. YES, I do agree that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy and perpetuates itself. The ultimate welfare mentality. The parents are uneducated (some still can't read) ~ they have no drive or vision of the future to pass onto their children.

Everytime I saw a child in that type of household ~ I felt that they had a very small chance of being anything different from their parents.

And, yes, I'm a Democrat.

I'm NOT a proponent of just bagging SSI or other safety nets ~ we have to find a way to wean these folks off and into a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Perhaps educating their children is the key.
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Old 12-09-2012, 11:16 AM
 
8,391 posts, read 6,273,973 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EdwardA View Post
Well duh but the liberals insist these programs work. Give mom a check for questionable intellectual disabilities or misbehaving in school and guess what she's going to allow Johnny to continue to be a problem at school.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/op...Z4Y3nl0hQ&_r=0
My only thing is that it is very easy to project crappy values onto the poor.

Unlike middle class or rich people they don't participate in public discussions about their plight. Notice he didn't interview any poor people and ask them why they withdrew their child from that a program.

The poor aren't given their own voice in the media to explain what they think or their own situation, they have their stories reinterpreted by reporters or sociologists or etc.

He didn't "prove" that parents were pulling their children out of literacy programs to gain a check. He only showed that in his opinion an incentive exists for a parent to do it.

It is very easy to place the worst motives on the poor and say they did this or that because they wanted a check and not look at other things.

Although, to the extent that it can the government should strive to create programs that don't have perverse incentives but that goes for all programs not just the programs for poor people.
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Old 12-09-2012, 11:22 AM
 
17,290 posts, read 29,317,459 times
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Some glaring problems with the snippet you posted:

1) If someone qualifies for "disability" they would never have gone into the military. They wouldn't have been accepted.

2) Many who abuse means-testing by not marrying still often pool their resources, and live together. They just don't marry. Which means a child slated as "living in poverty" might actually not be living in poverty. Also, many states have specifically gone after fathers of children whose mothers take assistance, and make them pay.
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Old 12-09-2012, 11:27 AM
 
47,525 posts, read 69,499,949 times
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This should be required reading for every liberal.

The whole War on Poverty is a dismal failure, poverty and government dependence are only growing at a very high rate and we have more impoverished people than ever.

Yes we should help the poor -- but government programs we have are not helping them except to keep them poor and create much more poverty.
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Old 12-09-2012, 11:43 AM
 
8,391 posts, read 6,273,973 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by malamute View Post
This should be required reading for every liberal.

The whole War on Poverty is a dismal failure, poverty and government dependence are only growing at a very high rate and we have more impoverished people than ever.

Yes we should help the poor -- but government programs we have are not helping them except to keep them poor and create much more poverty.
That's not even the conclusion of the guy who wrote the article. Did you bother to read it. His basic message was that anti-poverty programs should avoid creating perverse incentives. He didn't label them all as failures or even most of them as failures
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