Welfare. (HA! That'll reel 'em in.)

Great Debates
1

(Disclaimer: Part Numero Uno is where I stick all my ambivalence. Part Numero Dos (what’s “part” en Espanol, anywho?) is the meat of my internal mind squabble.)

Part Numero Uno:
I don’t have a dog in this fight. If it weren’t for the inflammatory nature of what I’m about to say I’d stick it in IMHO (and those glorious gladiators who run this asylum are more than welcome to move it if they wish).

If you put me on a political scale you’d see me bend way left…on most things. Way right on others.

I think (may be wrong, hence GD) most people bend way right on taxes. They’re evil, the government doesn’t know how to use or what to do with them, they’re all wasted, and, as a former active duty military member I’ll be the first to pop tall and say that millions of dollars of taxpayer money goes to waste. And then I look at things like roads, schools, fire departments, and law enforcement and say that, for the most part, it’s money well spent. Welfare is evil, Social Security is a black hole, and the idea of the federal government running health care is frightening.

And then I got this temporary job, which leads to . . .

Part Numero Dos
If you knew that many millions of tax dollars were just appropriated for LIHEAP, would you care? If most of that money went to 75 year old widows who lived off of Social Security checks totalling $545 a month who had $1700/year propane bills, would you think that was money well spent, or would you think they should have saved enough money during their married years to cover that? (Which leads to, “Well, yeah. Had they thought of it in the 60s they’d have invested in IBM but they didn’t and here they are now and they should therefore …what, freeze to death?”)

What if I told you I had many clients who were single mothers, full time college students, living in subsidized housing (also paid by your tax dollars) living off of state “welfare” benefits, would you begrudge them that money, or do you think that single mother should get off her ass, get a job, and earn her own living and way through college? That color your view?

How about those who recently arrived from distant refugee camps? Do they deserve a chunk of your personal tax dollar change?

The car wreck girl. That pretty, pretty woman with two kids whose husband left her after her brain damaging accident. Does she deserve your help paying her gas bill?

And that healthy, able, 20-something white chick living in subsidized housing with small wages, large child support, who hasn’t paid her electric bill since 1998 because if we don’t pay it, the county will pay it, and if the county won’t pay it, the Salvation Army will. Does she deserve your tax dollars?

And then the kicker:

It doesn’t matter. Whatever your moral persuasion, all of the above will receive certain forms of assistance. The scammers, the widows, the college students, the families just trying to hang in there to make ends meet -–they all will get some of your tax dollars. The scammer will freeze just as solid as the widow. Does it matter? Why does it matter?

I hate GD. I mean, I really hate it here – you guys scare me. I don’t want to back up my ramblings with facts and cites; I want you to tell me why you think as you do. Persuade me. Bring me over to your side.

2

Well, a need for something does not translate into a right for something. If you will die without a heart transplant, that does not give you liscense to rip out my heart. Likewise, your need for money does not obligate me to give it to you.

That being said, I’m for welfare. We need some way of keeping the poor from murdering the rich, and giving them a hand is cheaper then machine gun emplacements.

Now, when machine gun emplacements become dirt cheap…

3

I believe that would be “parte.”

4

Hola!

QUOTE: I don’t have a dog in this fight.

Do you need a dog to help you fight this battle? I would suggest a German Sheppard or a Pit Bull, but if you need an animal to bite deadbeat grannies, I would suggest a rabid Poodle with a skin rash.

SENOR

5

As for blaming people for not saving for retirement or whatever-sometimes, said person is just barely making ends meet as it is. Or they have savings, but then something happens unexpectantly-kid gets sick, dad gets injured, and that wipes out their savings.

Would you rather let 99 good people starve to catch one cheat, or feed 99 cheats rather than let one good person starve?

I think I’m with the latter. I feel that the cheats are in the minority-they’re just less visible. I can’t see how it would benefit anyone to let people sink or swim.

6

Why not get government out of the buisness of mandating charity, and instead, return the money (through taxcuts) to us. That way, if you want to give to HUD or Medicaid, you will have more (of your own) money to give. If you don’t want to give, great.

To borrow a phrase from the Pro-Choice crowd:

Keep your laws out of my wallet!

7

We live in a BandAid TM society. We worry and fret over what to do about this poor person who finds him/herself in dire straits instead of taking a look at what might have led or permitted that same person to get to where he/she is in the first place.

The very fact of welfare is a modifying factor in the behavior patterns of millions of people. We have woven, and continue to weave, a gigantic safety net for the “less fortunate,” and we constantly expand it and extend its benefits to a class of people that grows just as quickly as we redefine its boundaries. As a society, through our government, we tell everyone who will listen that we’ll take care of them somehow.

What disturbs me most is that we’re finding ways to broaden the scope of persons we consider to be ‘disadvantaged’ at a rate far exceeding our capacity and willingness to pay the tab. And we’re completely discounting the effect of the existence and nature of the support system on those who come to be supported.

Get a quick idea of what I’m trying to say by taking a gander at Cecil’s column for today, the one about divorce.

8

Ok Brutus. If this is the case can I have all of my tax dollars that are spent on Corporate Welfare back? From this article:

Here is another good source for articles on the ways that the American public are ripped off by huge corporations.

I see the lack of backing for welfare as anti-woman. Yup, I said it. It’s anti-woman. I believe that if men were the primary caretakers, welfare programs would not only be well funded, but widely accepted. I also believe that if men were the ones who had to worry about child care and work/school, daycare would be entirely publicly funded.

I can not believe that anyone has a problem heating the homes of the elderly and destitute, when $15 billion was spent to bail out the airlines, many of which were in trouble prior to 9/11 due to poor management.

I’m not buying this. Cite please?

9

**

I don’t see it so much as anti-woman as I see it as anti-poor. There is a perception in this country that poor equals lazy: that everyone could have the American Dream if they’d just work for it, and that the poor would rather just remain that way, collecting checks for doing nothing. It’s THEIR fault that they’re poor.

There is also the perception that the poor are immoral. “Welfare mothers” are seen as sexually loose, their husbands/boyfriends are potential criminals or alcoholics/drug abusers, and their children are deemed by some to end up the same way. No one wants to financially support such a lifestyle of immorality and irresponsibility.

We don’t like the poor. In some instances, you can see an attitude approaching disgust when some people discuss the poor. We don’t want to give them our hard earned money to help them, we don’t want them taking up valuable social services, and we certainly don’t want to live around them.

What people don’t realize are the automatic advantages that come from being born into a middle-class family. These include, but are not limited to, better schools, better nutrition and medical care, better social training, the ability to “network,” and better prospects for higher education.

Without these, the poor face incredible odds. Yes, there are some people who fit the stereotype of the “welfare bum” but a good potion of those receiving welfare benefits are in dire need. Good jobs, jobs which would support an entire family, are very difficult for the poor to get.

It’s a tough, cold world out there. Without higher education, poor people are doomed to low-paying jobs, and these jobs are usually the first to dissapear in an economic pinch. Childcare is extremely expensive, and for a lot of families, the money they bring home from one of these kinds of jobs will barely cover their childcare costs, let alone rent, utilities, etc. In some circumstances, working can actually lower your family’s standard of living.

Many poor rural families also have transportation problems. A reliable car is somewhat expensive to purchase and maintain. Getting together the money to do so may be very difficult, especially if you have no credit established, and no one wants to give a loan to a person with no job. Public transportation may not be available, and taxis are expensive.

Not to mention business clothing, and social training. Proper clothing for a nice job is out of the reach of some poor families. It’s one of thoe “You have to spend money to make money” quandries, but getting together a sum of cash to purchase clothes is difficult for a family who struggles to pay the rent. This, of course, limits you to a low-paying job in which you’re issued a uniform, or in which people don’t care what you look like.

When it comes to social interraction, many people sincerely have no idea how to express themselves politely. “What do you want?” is a perfectly valid question to ask a customer, but is politely expressed as “May I help you?” This is not an innate skill. Without training, people can lose jobs, or be severely limited in their prospects.

Without proper medical and dental care, your job prospects are also limited. Who would hire a secretary with pink eye, or one who is missing her front teeth?

No person on welfare lives in the lap of luxury. IIRC, the rules of welfare programs limits your opprotunity to leave it, in that you’re not allowed to save money, or buy a vehicle worth over a certain amount. As I said before, sometimes getting a job would actually lower the family’s standard of living.

The people I have known who were on welfare struggled every month just to get the necessities of life. They were not proud of living off of others. (One woman wept as she told me that a woman had berated and humiliated her in the grocery store for buying a cake with food stamps. It was her son’s birthday.) There certainly isn’t enough money to squander. The social perception of welfare is enough to make accepting it downright embarassing for some.

Truer words were never spoken. The money spent on “corporate welfare” makes what is spent on the poor seem laughably tiny in comparrison. The poor could live like kings for life off of the money given to corporations every year.

10

Some of the single mothers who are on welfare and going to college need to get off their ass and get a job.

Some like a former roommate of mine who went to college paid for by those of us who paid taxes, who saw her kid four times a year (Thanksgiving, winter break, spring break, summer break) and used college as an excuse to party and do drugs and invite strange men with crack back to our suite at 3 in the morning.

Others do some good with the help, so it’s unfortunate that there are people like Ex Roommate out there, because she’s the visible one people think of when they’re bemoaning welfare. Perhaps there should be some kind of incentive thing where unless the person actually attends class and does assignments and takes tests that person stops getting benefits?