Welfare in America (U.S.)

[Deleted472477User]

Yep yep. The welfare system is easily abused...... Want a raise? Have another child...... Of course, the right-wing conservatives decided that tax money should no longer finance abortion, so, the welfare folks that got pregnant, had their kids instead. So, instead of paying 400 or so dollars for an abortion, the state got to pay to raise another child to the age of 18. At one point, they discussed 'benefit caps'. You could only get assistance for a couple years. Wonder what ever happened to that.... rumor has it, that it passed, but, I still know folks that have been on assistance for better than 10 years.... Some of them turn down raises, or better jobs, because they would then lose benefits, that they would have to pay for, and end up with a net loss of income.... A large part of that particular problem stems from, as I see it, the greater number of single parent households we have now..... one parent just can't do the job any more.

 

Of course, now, the righties want to cut all those social welfare programs, to help "balance the budget". But, they still won't allow removing tax deductions for my private jet, or my yacht.... oh, wait, that's right, I don't have either of those, as I am not rich enough to afford it. So, while the right screams and hollers about welfare programs as entitlements, they have their own brand of welfare, in the form of tax breaks, that you gotta have a damn serious income to take advantage of. What's the difference?

 

And all this at a time when the people need those programs the most. :D Talk about timing....... I suppose that is one way to motivate folks to get out and vote. For the OTHER party.

 

The only thing I don't understand is why the same people would get an abortion (they don't want/can't care for the child) don't just have it adopted out? I have seen people who didn't do either, and now they have a child they don't want that ends up neglected or worse. I will never understand human beings on this.

 

As for the thing about the yacht and the jet etc I often feel this way about CEOs. They don't give a crap about their fellow Americans and so ship jobs overseas so they can have another yacht/bimbo/mansion.

 

Back to the welfare thing, I've never been on it, even when I needed it, because either I didn't have kids or it wouldn't have made enough of a difference to bother with all the hoop-jumping. (In my case, we were talking maybe 50 dollars a month, in food stamps, that's it, so I just never did it and let them apply that to someone who needed it more.)

[HeyYou]

I demand Roosevelt 2.0. Enough said. Let's get some socialism up in here and get the country out of the second Great Depression! Or something like that.

 

I'm with Vagrant. For every few who need the help and are actually trying to get a job, you'll find that one who milks the system. If jobs were aplenty and you were a lazy little ----, that'd be one thing. As it stands, the few jobs that are open require a high level of training that most people don't have. While I would like to see it move back to a more community-funded thing, where it was peoples generosity that covered it, not the government, but I don't think we could support things the same way we used to with donations.

 

No, we can't. The economy is too bad, and there simply isn't enough "good will" to go around. Better than 25% of the population where I live is on some flavor of assistance. Unemployment, according to government figures..... is over 11%. That doesn't include the folks that have basically given up, from what I have seen, the "real" number of closer to 20%. Those that do have jobs are making substantially less than they used, foreclosures are more common than folks selling their house willingly, property values have tanked..... Jobs have fled the area. No way in hell could any charity survive on private donations, and even put a dent in the problems we have here.

 

Work programs are all well and good, but, in order for those programs to have any hope of putting folks back to work, there has to be JOBS. There are no jobs. I suppose, we could offer folks a one way ticket to China, or India, or Mexico, or any number of other third world countries where are jobs have gone......

[myrmaad]

Pardon me, but I know something about this topic, my adopted daughter was on welfare and in school when she became pregnant with my granddaughter and because of the Welfare to Work reforms that occurred during the Clinton Administration, she was not given any additional support for the baby because she became pregnant while receiving TAN-F. (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, "TANF" has succeeded the welfare program.) In other words the new baby did not count and no additional money was given, as per the rules which are quite strict, now. As you can imagine, states don't have the money to just throw it around, and it has become very tight, with competing interests for what little dollars are available.

 

So, anyone who claims that people can "get a raise" from having an additional child while on welfare, I know better.

 

In our case that actually helped my husband and I take a more active parenting role with the new baby, as we are able to provide resources not provided by the state.

TANF sets forward the following work requirements necessary for benefits:

 

Recipients (with few exceptions) must work as soon as they are job ready or no later than two years after coming on assistance.

Single parents are required to participate in work activities for at least 30 hours per week. Two-parent families must participate in work activities 35 or 55 hours a week, depending upon circumstances.

Failure to participate in work requirements can result in a reduction or termination of benefits to the family.

States, in FY 2004, have to ensure that 50 percent of all families and 90 percent of two-parent families are participating in work activities. If a state reduces its caseload, without restricting eligibility, it can receive a caseload reduction credit. This credit reduces the minimum participation rates the state must achieve.

[SpellAndShield]

Wealth redistribution is definitionally immoral. It takes someone else's earnings and gives them to someone else, no matter how noble the goal may be, it cannot be justfified. People have a right to keep what they earn.

[RZ1029]

So, anyone who claims that people can "get a raise" from having an additional child while on welfare, I know better.

 

I will respectfully disagree and point that out more as the system failing those it should be helping. Unfortunately, there are those who have learned to work the system and get around things like that.

Edited August 6, 2011 by RZ1029

[HeyYou]

Wealth redistribution is definitionally immoral. It takes someone else's earnings and gives them to someone else, no matter how noble the goal may be, it cannot be justfified. People have a right to keep what they earn.

 

So, we should just cut off all welfare programs, medicare, medicaid, and let the poor folks fend for themselves? What about unemployment? That amounts to the same thing, people getting paid from other peoples taxes..... shall we end that as well?

[myrmaad]

Wealth redistribution is definitionally immoral. It takes someone else's earnings and gives them to someone else, no matter how noble the goal may be, it cannot be justfified. People have a right to keep what they earn.

 

So, we should just cut off all welfare programs, medicare, medicaid, and let the poor folks fend for themselves? What about unemployment? That amounts to the same thing, people getting paid from other peoples taxes..... shall we end that as well?

 

 

Sink or swim, we are not all simply individuals, we form a country of citizens and the weakest link makes us all weaker by decimating what has been one of our greatest strengths, our buying power.

 

Paying taxes is an honorable thing to do, certainly it's the furthest thing from "immoral". You know what's immoral? Using the resources of a people and locality like locusts, and then leaving them with nothing after you've apprehended, used up, and lain waste to their homeland. Corporations have long been given unprecedented access to the workers and buying power of a strong US working middle class, and they use up much more resources than any individual, with their use of fuel, roads, air etc that makes up our infrastructure, infrastructure that the working middle class paid for with our taxes, and they should pay their fair share for the benefits of doing business in such a paradise for corporations as America has been.

 

Don't forget that right up until the day the stock market crashed, we were told it was patriotic to own your own home, to buy a car (or a hummer) to continue with our [wasteful] way of life after 9-11 etc, the economy depended in no uncertain terms on American Consumer Credit, so to turn around and blame the people who were actually trying to do the right thing, the thing they had been told to do by government and media for decades, is the height of hypocrisy, in addition to a political sack of raw sewage.

[grannywils]

Yeah, what Myrmaad said!!!

[myrmaad]

Forgive me, but it seems unfair to add or edit after such a ringing endorsement so I'm going to post this related thought separately.

 

The real job-givers in the US and across the world are small businesses, because while they don't individually hire many employees, collectively they out-employ (it you will) the large corporations that pay no taxes at all due to offshoring their profits.

 

What do you think this does? It makes small businesses unable to compete through no other failing factors such as even economies of scale, or productive efficiency, but has everything to do with transferring wealth away from taxpayers and towards corporate owners.

[Aurielius]

Well, I'm not going to give an unqualified endorsement such as Grannywills but Myrmaad's ideas on the value of small business and the validity of corporations paying their fair share of taxes , that I can get on board with.