Imagine, 63 years ago someone saw this coming.
Now we have over 50 million people on Welfare.
Now we have over 50 million people on Welfare.
Ode to the welfare state
- Thread starter Dick MacKenzie
- Start date
Just my unqualified opinion, but it seems as if in promoting this current "welfare state" we are adding to the "divide" between those who have and those who don't. By "we" I refer to "Big Government".
My only experience in this is in the local rental market. Some years back I transferred a home I purchased back in 1981 to my oldest son. He has since moved to KC and now once again I take care of that property for him. He makes the call on who lives there, etc. and recently he leased the home out to a young lady who is on "Section 8", which is a government sponsored program that provides financial support to those in need. In this case, the women has no income and three children, no father (or fathers). So I'm over there one day doing some repairs and I overhear the tenant talking on the phone to another person, making the statement "If I had another baby, the government will pay me $370 more each month".
Think ahead of what that child's life might be like, and the chances they might have to pull themselves out of this vicious cycle of poverty. And how can anyone raise a child on that amount of dollars per month? And just how long do we, The People, need to support such decisions that we have no control over?
I don't have a solution to the problem, but I can readily imagine that she is not the only person thinking in this fashion. Multiply that times the cost to support a child and we can begin to see how costs might add up, how we have little to no control over the process. And how this fails to motivate any individual to improve themselves. I would venture to guess that we will be asked to continue to support the offspring those exacting benefits, and that the long term horizon for success looks bleak indeed...
I would be all for drug testing, paternity testing, and the shifting of responsibility over time to the individual benefiting from such support. Perhaps we could out source these types of programs to commercial interests?
TomK
My only experience in this is in the local rental market. Some years back I transferred a home I purchased back in 1981 to my oldest son. He has since moved to KC and now once again I take care of that property for him. He makes the call on who lives there, etc. and recently he leased the home out to a young lady who is on "Section 8", which is a government sponsored program that provides financial support to those in need. In this case, the women has no income and three children, no father (or fathers). So I'm over there one day doing some repairs and I overhear the tenant talking on the phone to another person, making the statement "If I had another baby, the government will pay me $370 more each month".
Think ahead of what that child's life might be like, and the chances they might have to pull themselves out of this vicious cycle of poverty. And how can anyone raise a child on that amount of dollars per month? And just how long do we, The People, need to support such decisions that we have no control over?
I don't have a solution to the problem, but I can readily imagine that she is not the only person thinking in this fashion. Multiply that times the cost to support a child and we can begin to see how costs might add up, how we have little to no control over the process. And how this fails to motivate any individual to improve themselves. I would venture to guess that we will be asked to continue to support the offspring those exacting benefits, and that the long term horizon for success looks bleak indeed...
I would be all for drug testing, paternity testing, and the shifting of responsibility over time to the individual benefiting from such support. Perhaps we could out source these types of programs to commercial interests?
TomK