If you are under 25, The US Govt will help you. If you are over 65, the US Govt will help you. If you are between 25 and 65, you are on your own, unless you are found to be physically or mentally handicapped by a Government-approved expert on such matters (To prevent trying to fraud the system). You have to be legitimately unbale to work to qualify. I don’t wanna hear, “It’s too hard!”, “My [body party here] hurts!”, or any other kind of whining excuse as to why you feel you can’t work. I’m GOING to get a job, so that I don’t have to ever take money from the system, until I’m old and gray and deserve to draw from said system.
Why don’t you try breaking this down into a few points with some better justification for each one. Basically you’re advocating new welfare programs for people under 25, otherwise it’s pretty much how things work now.
Like a program for pregnant teens, and a program that makes it easier for poor inner-city teens to get into college if they want to. Workfare programs that pay kids to clean up streets and beautify neighborhoods, those kinds of things. They need to be fraud-proof and available for everyone. People under 25 will get the help they need to get them into being successful adults, and the work they do as adults will further make them worthy enough as seniors when they turn 65 to get all the healthcare and money they deserve.
Okay, what are you lumping together as welfare? We have short term welfare programs, mostly aimed at single mothers. We have the Social Security system which provides for the elderly and the terminally indigent. We have food stamp programs for everybody who doesn’t make enough money to feed a family. We have loads of government programs designed to get inner-city teens into college. Most of that last stuff is broken up into a myriad of small locally controlled programs. So start by defining that, and doing a little research on how these programs actually work. You won’t get the details from editorial pieces.
That’s going to take a couple days. there are so many programs, I’m not sure there’s a website out there that tell me what each one is called and what they are for.
Trythis oneto start. I think you have a distorted image of government programs. You have to increase your background on the subject to evaluate the opinion pieces.
What I’m gathering now is that there is a difference between welfare programs and benefit programs.
You perhaps do not realize that the classic “welfare” hasn’t existed for a decade. Mostly what we have now are programs for poor mothers with young children and programs for the disabled.
Your approach is quite naive. Just to keep things small there are state and federal “welfare” programs, funded by state and federal monies in varying mixtures, e.g., federal programs managed by the feds and paid with federal funds, federal programs paid with federal funds but managed by the states, and state programs managed by the states and paid with state funds, just to name a few.
You would do much better by addressing just a couple of specific examples with which you have concerns and argue your position from there. This is quite a bit of misinformation out there, spread by the various sides with their own axes to grind.
It seems like we’ve heard that particular argument before.
Tell you what - I’ll trade you a welfare cut for a dollar-for-dollar cut in military spending. Deal?
This basically is how the system works now.
For the elderly, we have Social Security old-age insurance (the “OA” in OASDI), better known as its retirement benefits.
To collect under either of the SSA’s disability programs (SSI or SSDI), you have to show, to the satisfaction of a disability examiner/medical consultant/administrative law judge by objective medical evidence, that you are unable to work at any job which exists in significant numbers in the national economy on a sustained basis due to an impairment of 12 month’s duration or longer or which is expected to result in death. SSI additionally has an asset limit and an income limit.
SNAP, which is colloquially known as food stamps, is limited to three months for able-bodied adults without dependents. It too has an asset limit and an income limit.
I am unfamiliar with the operation of Section 8 or utility assistance, but I suspect they are similar to SNAP.
I suppose you could point to homeless shelters and mandatory emergency room treatment, neither of which require that a user of services have a bona fide disability or is attempting to find work. Are these the programs you’d like to abolish? Otherwise, I am perplexed as to which programs you believe do not already conform to your criteria.
Isn’t it obvious? The one and only reason why anybody in the great United States of America could possibly be poor is by choice. Everyone who is on welfare is perfectly capable of getting a job tomorrow if they wish but since they are lazy and since the system is uniformly easy to cheat in all 50 states, what incentive could one possibly have to work? The government will pay you enough money that you can sit around all day drinking Colt 45 and impregnating hood rats (or getting pregnant).
There is no “down” economy in the US that actively discriminates against people who don’t have a job. None whatsoever.
There is no racism which favors a candidate with lighter skin.
There is no criminal justice system which can ruin a person’s employment chances forever should they make a simple mistake in their teen years.
There are no health care problems amongst the poor. They are faking it to suck more benefits out of the system and the government falls for it every time. People on welfare have the best health care imaginable and they don’t have to pay a cent for it.
The OP should go on welfare himself. He has no idea what he’s missing out on.
Don’t forget the lobsters and the steaks, that go into the new Cadillac, that the Welfare Queens drive in between popping out new babies that they get more money for.
Alright, I’ll admit that there are some people who really deserve to be on welfare, but that doesn’t mean they’re all disabled either. The problem is weeding out those who need it, and those who just want a free ride, which is why I support Welfare piss testing.
That’s kind of a radical position to take. Aren’t you afraid of the “lets give money to people who don’t deserve it lobby”?
Ok, let’s go with this. Is this really a solution? Which is to say that if someone is dealing with addiction (I presume this is the reason for the piss testing), does it solve the problem in any way to remove their support? If you tell someone they will get no money from the government if they test positive for controlled substances, is that incentive enough for them to overcome their addiction and/or get a job? Or is it more likely the addict will have to resort to more crime in order to support their habit? I say more crime because I don’t think even the most generous welfare check buys one very much crack these days.
My understanding is that addiction is much more akin to a disease than it is to a conscious choice. Addressing the social problems caused by addiction will take more money, directly invested in every addict. And that is something that only the government can do. Private industry will never do it, considering the high rate of failure, miserable return on investment and general NIMBY-ism and recreational outrage that comes with anything to do with the poor and addicted. Who wants to tack their brand onto that?
In any case, while welfare fraud is certainly a legitimate concern it does not help anyone involved to make an entire class of citizens more desperate and needy than they were in the first place. And no matter how tattered the social fabric of America is today courtesy of crackheads, they haven’t done a fraction of the damage a single Wall St. investment banker can (and has) done moving around sums that are several times greater than a welfare recipient will receive in their entire lifetime.
Well, I think that for those with addiction to controlled substances, if they test positive, then they will be given something I call Welfare on Watch. They will receive welfare, but they will be monitored, and sent to addiction counselling. It can be a 3 strike system in which if a drug addict is found having used their welfare check to buy drugs 3 times, they will not receive money, but they will still go to addiction counselling.
So you would prefer addicts to steal? Or is this a morality test where only the ‘good’ people should get welfare?
It sounds like you think welfare should be given based on merit rather than need.
It’s also not clear how you think we can provide welfare to 5-year olds but provide nothing to their parents.
It is not clear to me whether we have resolved what it is that we are even discussing.
If we’re talking about welfare, that is typically considered to be the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families or TANF program. Is that the matter at hand?