[quote]rainjack wrote:
I said all that to get to this story, which I think sums up the welfare system.[/quote]
Your experience sounds like my mother’s experience while my father was overseas during Vietnam. The primary difference was that my mother just didn’t know she qualified for the programs, which is another failure in the system.
Unfortunately, your story doesn’t sum up the system. What it sums up is the mentality of many welfare recipients, which OUGHT to piss you off – because they neither value nor appreciate the government’s assistance.
I don’t deny that there are bad people on welfare, or that people defraud the system, or that people are ignorant and do stupid things like buy steak for dogs. I do, however, deny that it is the system that has made them this way.
The welfare system is designed to help people who are actively trying to become self-sufficient. Unfortunately, many welfare recipients have no intention of becoming self-sufficient. The system is not designed for them; they should have a different system, preferably something involving a swift kick in the ass.
But the system fails in only a few specific ways, most of them being in a lack of availability. Owing to the large number of undeserving recipients, benefit amounts are low, and waiting lists for most programs are obnoxiously long.
It’s clear to me that we need to address the problem of undeserving recipients, and I think the easiest way to do that is by progress – if you are unable to reduce your dependence on welfare each year, that dependence should be reduced FOR you.
Essentially, welfare payments should exist on a sliding scale based on your income, and you should be REQUIRED to raise your income by at least one bracket each year. So after a given number of years, regardless of your progress, you’re off welfare for a waiting period (at least one year).
It took me about two years to go from homeless bum to salaried professional. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect anyone else to make the same kind of progress within five years.