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I like your approach -- we rarely talk about getting rid of the abuse. It seems either someone is advocating for the existing system or trashing it all together.
DAM - -we are the USA can't we find away to reduce the amt. of abuse and, therefore, make the programs more effective.
Safety nets are good for those that need them and use them as a net and move on...but it is inevitable welfare programs become so cumbersome and big and difficult to administer that they are ready for abuse. And they often become not safety nets but systems and it is hard to get off those systems.
We have seen that with public housing, etc.....
Can't we do better.
Sure we can do better, we can quit micromanaging the money we spend on programs for the poor and give them the equivalent in cash and they can get by on it for a month or go hungry. Here's what happens now. A mother and 2 kids on TANF gets an average of $300 in cash benefits and about $500 in SNAP. Subsidized housing is so hard to get that it's not even worth considering, only a quarter of the poor get housing subsidies that those are usually the disabled or elderly.
So, right now a parent with two kids gets the equivalent of $800 in benefits. In a place with a low cost of living they might be able to rent a weekly room in a motel for $400 a month, or maybe rent a small mobile home for that. But they don't have enough cash so they have to commit 'fraud' and sell $200 in food stamps for 50 cents on the dollar to get the other $100 they need to pay their rent, and they still don't have money for clothes or transportation. If the parent tries to supplement welfare by working part time they usually have to pay for childcare and get their welfare benefits, so the system disincentivizes work.
Do the math yourself...if they got a check for $800 and were able to supplement that with work rather than lose it, they would have enough to pay the rent, buy food and have money for bus fare and clothes. But instead we treat the poor like idiot children and wonder why they never get ahead.
I am not "advocating" you anything.
I am explaining you the REALITY of things.
How they work in REAL life, not in your imagination, how you'd like to see them fit.
( But in all honesty, if I'd START advocating anything here in US, I'd start advocating "redistribution of funds" on a more aggressive scale and total end to illegal immigration (possibly cutting on legal as well by the way,) just because I see so many troubling signs in US economy/social fabric of the society.
And the external outlook is not as bright as it used to be.
Sure we can do better, we can quit micromanaging the money we spend on programs for the poor and give them the equivalent in cash and they can get by on it for a month or go hungry. Here's what happens now. A mother and 2 kids on TANF gets an average of $300 in cash benefits and about $500 in SNAP. Subsidized housing is so hard to get that it's not even worth considering, only a quarter of the poor get housing subsidies that those are usually the disabled or elderly.
So, right now a parent with two kids gets the equivalent of $800 in benefits. In a place with a low cost of living they might be able to rent a weekly room in a motel for $400 a month, or maybe rent a small mobile home for that. But they don't have enough cash so they have to commit 'fraud' and sell $200 in food stamps for 50 cents on the dollar to get the other $100 they need to pay their rent, and they still don't have money for clothes or transportation. If the parent tries to supplement welfare by working part time they usually have to pay for childcare and get their welfare benefits, so the system disincentivizes work.
Do the math yourself...if they got a check for $800 and were able to supplement that with work rather than lose it, they would have enough to pay the rent, buy food and have money for bus fare and clothes. But instead we treat the poor like idiot children and wonder why they never get ahead.
Because that is how they deserve to be treated. They have shown the inability to make decisions in life, thus come to rely on handouts to get by. Handing them cash will guess what, leave them in the same state or even worse because now there is no constraints on their spending, and they will give in to the infantile urges that landed them in their positions in the first place.
I am however for those to receive direct payment like that in accordance to how much they paid in taxes, meaning if someone was making say 50k a year for 10 years, got laid off, they can receive a max payment, whereas someone who never worked or only made 12k a year, would get a minimum or no payment, but overall point is to demonstrate contribution into society, versus kicking it back on a drug binge and getting pregnant ever other year expecting Joe Taxpayer to assist in living expenses.
Because that is how they deserve to be treated. They have shown the inability to make decisions in life, thus come to rely on handouts to get by. Handing them cash will guess what, leave them in the same state or even worse because now there is no constraints on their spending, and they will give in to the infantile urges that landed them in their positions in the first place.
I am however for those to receive direct payment like that in accordance to how much they paid in taxes, meaning if someone was making say 50k a year for 10 years, got laid off, they can receive a max payment, whereas someone who never worked or only made 12k a year, would get a minimum or no payment, but overall point is to demonstrate contribution into society, versus kicking it back on a drug binge and getting pregnant ever other year expecting Joe Taxpayer to assist in living expenses.
Because that is how they deserve to be treated. They have shown the inability to make decisions in life, thus come to rely on handouts to get by. Handing them cash will guess what, leave them in the same state or even worse because now there is no constraints on their spending, and they will give in to the infantile urges that landed them in their positions in the first place.
I am however for those to receive direct payment like that in accordance to how much they paid in taxes, meaning if someone was making say 50k a year for 10 years, got laid off, they can receive a max payment, whereas someone who never worked or only made 12k a year, would get a minimum or no payment, but overall point is to demonstrate contribution into society, versus kicking it back on a drug binge and getting pregnant ever other year expecting Joe Taxpayer to assist in living expenses.
I think that might be a BIT too harsh. I don't think it is fair to blame the poor for living in such a way as they have been taught to live by too liberal politician "do-gooders" who actually have done, in my opinion, much more harm to the poor than good.
However, I do not support UBI, and I do support some kind of FDR-era programs in which people do something to benefit their community in exchange for their benefits IF they are capable of that. (I do realize that some people cannot work.)
But Trump cut corporate income taxes by 3 times the size of the food stamp program. It's hard to make up 150-200 billion dollars in the budget. He has to go begging to the Fed to pay for the tax cuts and increased defense spending. To parrot the argument against welfare and food stamps, they made poor decisions in life and have to go begging to the government to give them money in the form of stock options grants and then get tax breaks for the free handouts.
The more hungry kids in school, the better! Go Team Red!
I have no doubt the 84 other taxpayer funded anti poverty programs will have it covered.
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