After A Great Deal Of Thought

Yeah, he is rich.

Complaints about the waste in government welfare programs ignore how the right responded to Johnson's war on poverty. The provisions of the welfare programs which prevent biological fathers from living with the families they have sired because they are not married to the mothers come from the right. The extraordinary amounts spent to look for welfare cheaters, for "welfare queens" are a product of the compromises which it was necessary to make with the right to enact or enhance social welfare programs. Welfare cheating is not the problem which the right always screams about, and yet enormous sums continue to be spent looking for welfare cheaters. The provisions which peg the amount of welfare to the number of children in a family come from the right, in a misguided (to be charitable) belief that that would reduce welfare costs by giving no more than the absolute minimum which would be required to support single mothers and their children. The result is that ignorant (in the sense of poorly or uneducated) teenage mothers simply have more children to get more money, thereby exacerbating the problems of the welfare system, and greatly increasing the costs. Just as with the idiotic "just say no" bullshit which was advanced as a means of reducing drug abuse, the right has steadily opposed birth control services and abortions in any programs funded by the federal government, and thereby blocking a crucial element in reducing the incidence of teenage pregnancy.

There is not a single problem of the welfare system to which the right has not contributed. There continues to be a strong racist element in right-wing objections to social welfare, with an assumption that the welfare system primarily benefits blacks, and that welfare cheaters, "welfare queens," are predominantly black. The majority of welfare recipients in the United States are overwhelmingly white and rural--they are not black and urban. I don't remember who here described a self-fulfilling prophecy, but that member is absolutely correct that the right has done all that it can to hobble and undermine the social welfare system, and then stood back to crow about what a failure it is.

You must have attended a government school
because government is not the private sector.

Amen . . . it is no accident that the expression "as cold as Christian charity" is an old and frequently used expression in our language.

Ain't that the truth!

By whom?

David Corn?

Paul Krugman?

Noam Chomsky?

Susan Sontag?

BBB?

Please.

It's a false choice and no less so because you press it.

However if you want to play an intellectual parlor game:

If someone who is mentally competent, and entirely capable of earning his or own living refuses to do so then I have to assume he or she is also capable of understanding that if society doesn't blink, he or she will die.

That's a free choice to me and I will honor it.

Finn...the streetwise intellectual diamond in the rough reverts to the neutered philosopher when pressed. I am surprised but amused.

BBB, I'm curious if you've read any of Ayn Rand's books and what your thoughts are on some of those books specifically.

I'm a product of a welfare family. I understand that w/o welfare I would not have made it as far as I have. Not to say times weren't tough, but at least my parents didn't have to worry much about how they were going to provide food for my family.

I agree with much of how welfare is currently designed (which I believe Clinton was a large part of as well).

I disagree with two parts of your post Set. One, what do you think the alternative is to the 'problem' of giving more money to families with more children. Would you propose that a family of 6 get the same amount as a family of 3?

And two, I think the racial/racist element you're throwing into this subject needs a lot more proof before being accepted as anything resembling the truth.

Of course you have criteria in mind to determine who is “mentally competent” and “entirely capable of earning” the living, right?

And I have no doubt it would be a finely honed knife that would slice that particular hunk of baloney.



Honor it!!! I would bet you would do more than that. You sound like someone who might rejoice in seeing bodies in the street.

Didn't every teenager read Ayn Rand's objectivist romances?

Not in my generation, nor those of my younger siblings.

I would suggest that a more comprehensive program would be more effective, one which subsidizes or pays for housing, which provides clothing vouchers for shoes and clothing, one which expands the food stamp program and the WIC program, and one which provides money for educational needs. The amount of the check could be reduced, if other programs were in place to make sure that families with dependent children can meet all of their needs.

My objection is not so much that families with more children get more money, but rather that a solution seemed to be just to throw money at the problem, without careful consideration of how it needs to be used. Metropolitan housing authorities in many cities have replaced lump sum assistance payments, because the prime expenditure of families on assistance is on housing. "Workfare" programs have enjoyed a modest success because people are not penalized for finding work (standard welfare programs take all benefits away if someone works, giving an incentive to avoid finding a job). There are many ways to make the system workable rather than just throwing more money at it.



I'm not throwing a racist element in this, i'm pointing out that many conservatives promote racist stereotypes about welfare programs. When a black man was elected the mayor of Columbus, Ohio, even letters to the editor during the campaign suggested that the new administration, if he were elected, would be giving the store away to welfare queens. It really doesn't matter to me if you believe it, i've heard it all my life. With Obama's campaign and election, the right-wingnuts are coming out with the same bullshit that this is an administration which will enshrine entitlement attitudes. The very term "entitlement culture" is crypto-racist.

In a country with as much as we have...EVERYONE should have enough to live.

Then what remains can be fought over so that the people who have got to have much more than others in order to be happy...can get the extra.

Nothing is lost in that.

We have much, much more than enough to go around so that the needs of everyone can be met...and the amount left over is staggering.

Fight over the rest.

Use the rest to motivate people to produce.

Use the fact that everyone has enough...to keep people out of the work force who actually decrease productivity by being there.

Capitalism can pull this off. Of this I am certain.

Free enterprise and initiative SHOULD get a person plenty...but nobody in our country should ever NEED anything...food, clothing, shelter, medical attention, education, transportation...even entertainment. EVERYONE...able or not so able; lazy, productive, smart, stupid...EVERYONE should have enough...in fact, everyone should have plenty. We have much more than enough to have plenty for everyone.

Jesus H. Christ...why is that so tough to understand?

It isn't hard to understand at all. However the evidence suggests that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to do. Certainly no country in the long history of human life has ever done it.

I suspect it is the details, such as, 'how much is enough in terms of the basic entitlement'?; as well as issues arising from human nature - greed, envy, resentment, exploitation, etc. that have made it impossible.

The egalitarian social/political models we have seen all ended up, despite their self-serving rhetoric, as authoritarian tyrannies that crushed the human spirit; murdered their internal opponents; and delivered more or less uniuform, drab poverty for everyone.

I agree with many of your concerns here, George. They certainly are concerns of mine.

I just think America...and its capitalistic system...can conquer them.

I am not even pretending it will be easy. Perhaps, human nature being what it is....what you said about it and what I agree to...perhaps it is impossible.

But I see no efforting to even challenge the possibility.

And I have another reason, besides humanitarian interests in proposing investigation and serious consideration for this.

We really are running out of good paying jobs, George. It makes less and less sense to pay humans a decent wage to do the kinds of things humans can do.

The problem of meeting human needs...without humans having to "EARN THIER LIVING" is something that should be on the front burner right now.

The demonstrable fact is that it is the Western capitalist system (which Bear in his opening remarks implicitly condemned) that has come closer than any alternative yet implemented to fulfilling your goal.

Any conceivable system would still require that someone actually produces the goods and services that sustain everyone else. How this is motivated and the efficience with which it is done appears to be the key. I believe it comes down to individual freedom vs authoritarian tyranny (however well motivated it may be in theory); and whether one believes that Plato's philosopher kings can actually be found.

Bear presented us a clearly false dilemma - either accept whatever (largely unstated) alternative he may have in mind or demonstrate your willingness to see people starving in the streets. Highly charged, emotional rhetoric, but basically without meaning.

I even agree with that, George.

But we've got so much further to go...and I wish we would make "going further" a priority rather than something that might happen.

The problem I mentioned with jobs is a key ingredient in why I think this must be tackled right now...rather than waiting until it becomes an almost insurmountable problem.

No argument there. I think the question is how to do it. Is an improvement more likely to come through government intervention or the actions of free people in a somewhat regulated capital market?

People aren't spending and banks aren't lending because they fear things may get worse. This feeds on itself. History suggests it will take a decade or so to see a reversal in this climate - no matter what the government does or doesn't do.

I have studied the House "Economic Stimulus" bill in some detail. Basically it uses Federal deficits to provide grants to State Governments to replace their expected loss of tax revenues, and fund favored Democrat environmental, infrastructure and social programs in the Federal budget at higher levels than previously. In short it is much more about government taking care of itself than it is real economic stimulus. The future borrowing required to cover the deficits will suck the air supply out of future capital investment, and all we will have to compensate for it will be more government. Not pointing fingers here - the Bush administration was just as bad at this.

Sadly, there are no philosopher kings and Aesop's mice are still unable to bell the cat.