I don’t have much information to contribute, but I wanted to get some feedback from you all.
I would say that welfare reform needs to happen at some point. Considering budget shortfalls seen by state/federal gov’ts., something has to give. I don’t know enough details of the welfare system to decide whether or not my proposal would work, so I can’t compare this idea to other proposals, but here goes.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. It is clear that welfare helps a number of people, and it seems clear that there is some potential for abuse. While I’m sure that there are measures in place to prevent clear abuse, I’m wondering if welfare payments should be contingent on recipient’s children doing well in school (there are probably many ways to elaborate on this, and i haven’t thought much about it yet).
Is it political suicide to propose this? Can you think of any other restrictions that might be feasible & beneficial?
I’m ignorant about different types of welfare. What other types of assistance are there other than food stamps? I certainly wouldn’t want to deny assistance over something that they have no control over, but I would want to ensure that people that spend some time not working (in the case of unemployment) also spend time insuring that their children make the most of public education.
You might want to try to learn a bit more about welfare and the people on it. I grew up on welfare, and surrounded by people on welfare. In my case, my mother was going to school- trying to get enough education to start a real career. My neighbor on the left was being raised by her aunt, who had bone cancer and could only get part-time employment- not enough to raise her and her sister’s kids. My neighbor on the right was a political refugee that escaped near certain death in his home country and needed time to learn English and recover from the medical and physical ailmentshe picked up along the way.
Most people on welfare are good honest people who some how got a bad roll of the dice in the game of life. Most of them honestly want to work, but can not feed their families on minimum wage and face a lot of issues (mental and physical difficulties, lack of education and experience, no one to take care of the kids, no transportation, even a lack of career-oriented clothing) when trying to find a real job. Just about everyone I knew aspired to a better life for them and their kids, but had so many pressing daily concerns that they had little energy left to start getting out the hole they were in.
Life on welfare isn’t easy. When your kid’s underwear get holes in them, you have to save up to buy new ones. Everything takes longer and is a lot more work when you are poor. Welfare people don’t sit around and watch TV. They raise their kids, try to cook meals out of the wierd stuff they get from food bins, take three hour bus trips across town to pay the electricity bill, spend hours at the laundrymat, and deal with all the little stupid things in life that suddenly become insurmountable without money.
Without exception, everyone I grew up around was dedicated to their kids. They truely wanted to give them the best chances at life possible. But it isn’t easy. Most of these kids were being raised by on parent because the other parent was abusive or in jail or something terrible like that. Many had things like drug-addicted uncles that would drag the whole family down. They were dealing with some of the worst schools in the state. The parents didn’t have the kind of education on their own to really help their kids out with homework. They couldn’t afford tons of books and computers and trips to museums. Everything is stacked against a poor kid getting a good education (although it does happen- I’m about to graduate from college).
Instead of punishing these kids by taking away the little money they have to live on(!) why don’t we focus on fixing the unfair education system that allows the cycles of poverty to flourish in the first place?
I grew up with gov’t assistance as well (food stamps). I would simply hate to see the alternative of drastic funding reduction that seems to be popular nowadays.
I’d like to see them eliminate all welfare for “illegitimate” offspring.
If the governments going to be handing out goodies on my dime, the least they can do is stop rewarding certain behaviors. And it’s not “punishment”, since there is no right to welfare in the first place. And it may be “discrimination”, but the government already discriminates on welfare. Thats why welfare is means tested, it discriminates in favor of low income people.
When welfare first started out, it was only for widows with children. Thats right, people who thru no fault of their own were down on their luck. When it was expanded to include “illegitimate” children back in the 1960s, thats when the “illegitimacy” rate started to skyrocket.
Oh, and I used the term “illegitimate” only because I couldn’t think of a better term. I realize that some may find it offensive. Sorry.
The problem with the OP’s proposal is that children on welfare have a battery of things against them that make getting good grades far harder for them than for the average child. You make it sound like the average child on welfare differs from the average child overall by their family’s source of income, which is obviously not the case.
Children from families on welfare tend to live in poor neighborhoods with lousy schools, crime problems, gang problems, drug problems, and family problems. They face a battery of difficulties to making it to their twenties relatively able to work, let alone accomplishing something. They’re trapped in the cycle of poverty, and what you’re proposing is to add to their problems the additional responsibility of supporting their family when they’re not old enough to work.
Not to mention the fact that, some people end up at the bottom just because they’re not that smart or hardworking or able to deal with life. To make their welfare payments contingent on doing exactly what they have failed to do for their own benefit is simply cruel.
Hmmmm. So what about people without children ? No welfare for them ?
What’s wrong with having it means-tested ? Isn’t that the whole point, that the people who have a certain level of poverty get assistance, not the ones who ccan pass a certain test or have a certain number of offspring ?
If you’re going to penalize poor parents for having underachieving children, punish middle class parents for the same reason. After all, middle class parents are also benefit by having children, in the form of tax deductions. I bet we make even more money this way.
And while you’re being unintentionally evil, don’t provide Medicare to all those old people who keep falling down the stairs. It will teach them to walk more carefully next time.
On top of the several hundred she got for her first welfare child.
Even if she only gets $90 cash, for each subsequent welfare offspring, she also gets WIC, food stamps, free school breakfast, free school lunch, medicare, Head Start, and other welfare. That $90 is only a small fraction of her total welfare.
Its not a punishment to boot someone off welfare. There is no right to welfare.
Tax deductions are not welfare. Tax deductions only allow people to keep their own money. People on welfare, on the other hand, are getting other peoples money.
Thank you Hansel for your reply. You’ve easily convinced me that such a scheme could not be implemented simply or fairly.
I’m to the left on pretty much every issue, but I frequently find myself in discussions w/ ppl on the right, and I hear complaints about welfare enough to get me thinking critically about it.
Hell, I would assume that welfare (as most ppl consider it) is a small part of our budget relative to lots of things.
Forget the idea of making welfare payments dependent on something easily influenced by numerous factors as hansel noted.
Would it be possible to make payments dependent on parent’s behavior?
You want to take the food right out of a child’s mouth just because they don’t make good grades. Seems like punishment to me. It sure isn’t a reward.
Excuse me? Tax deductions allow people to get a reduction on their taxes. Without them, they would pay what everyone else has to pay. It isn’t their money. It’s the government’s money, and they have no more right to it than a welfare check.
Um, welfare reform has already happened, back in the Clinton Administration. Said reform is, in fact “merit-based” - to get welfare, you have to be in a work program, training, etc.
And, quite frankly, welfare and Food Stamps are not a major drain on state or federal budgets these days.
What is a major drain is Medicaid. I cannot, however, see how a merit-based system can be applied to health care. If you are sick, you can’t do well in school, look for a job, or engage in other types of “meritorious” activities. And if you can’t get medical care, you can’t get better and make yourself eligible under a merit-based scheme.
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Its not a punishment to boot someone off welfare. There is no right to welfare.
You want to take the food right out of a child’s mouth just because they don’t make good grades. Seems like punishment to me. It sure isn’t a reward.
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I never said I wanted to stop welfare based on a childs behavior. I said I wanted welfare to be contigent on the parents behavior.
Removal of welfare is neither a punishment or a reward. Its not “taking food out of a childs mouth” either, since that child has no right to that food in the first place.
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Tax deductions only allow people to keep their own money.
Excuse me? Tax deductions allow people to get a reduction on their taxes. Without them, they would pay what everyone else has to pay.** It isn’t their money. It’s the government’s money, **and they have no more right to it than a welfare check.
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If you think the government owns everyones earnings, and that wage earners may only keep what the government allows them to keep, then there is no sense in arguing with you.