Welfare Rights

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
41

[quote]chinadoll wrote:
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

The Original Version…

The ant busts his butt in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

The New Liberal Version…

It starts out the same but when winter comes the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, and ABC show up and show pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to film of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be, in a country of such wealth that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a representative of the NAAGB (The National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on Night Line and charges the ant with “Green Bias” and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when he sings “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

The democrats make a special guest appearances on the evening news shows proclaiming that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the summer.

Finally the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act” RECTRO-ACTIVE to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and having nothing left to pay his Retro-Active taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he’s in…which just happens to be the ant’s old house… crumbles around him since he doesn’t know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV; which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant’s food, the Democrats announce that a new era of “Fairness” has dawned in America.

[/quote]

Excellent post. Thank you and all of the other QUALITY members of T-Nation for renewing my faith in this great nation.

42

[quote]wolfnuts wrote:
Hey Lincono… why shouldn’t they be allowed to vote, when in some states illegals are allowed to vote? (school board elections)… [/quote]

I think the logic is preceding in the wrong direction, but I presume you knew that…

Also, I don’t believe illegals are actually allowed to vote in school board elections in that CA county - I think this was a proposal. If it does pass, I will say only that it is a bad, bad portent.

43

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Also, I don’t believe illegals are actually allowed to vote in school board elections in that CA county - I think this was a proposal. If it does pass, I will say only that it is a bad, bad portent.[/quote]

It is worth considering that if the children are American citizens (perhaps under jus soli), they have a right to be in school. And it can be productively argued that their parents – illegal aliens or not – have a right to help select the board which runs that school.

Likewise, it can be productively argued that a welfare recipient has a vested interest in which people are in charge of the programs on which they depend, and therefore deserves the right to vote on that matter.

44

Cut the CRAP, all of you.

This is such bullshit especially coming from this web board. You all come to t-nation because they print quality articles. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and what do you see? References cited, yet you somehow manage to turn your brains off when it comes to topics like this, randomly pulling percentages out of your asses.

And what about these stories we have of seeing some “welfare queen” in line abusing the system. How is this objective at all??

Statistics from the real world…

Anyway here’s my point (notice I took 8 minutes out of my day to search google and get real statistics):

% of people on welfare less than 2 years: ~53%

% of people on welfare less than 5 years (personally I think 5 years is a bit long): 80.4

Highest % of the U.S. population on welfare was in 1993,1994 at 5.5%

As far as voting goes, are you nuts?
Do you even live in the US? Or do you just have no knowledge of western civilization/US history?

The right to vote is given to us so that we can peacefully protest any form of government opression (taxation without representation anyone?)

What if the reason people are on welfare is due to some bill causing mass poverty? What then suddenly half the nation is on welfare and also can’t vote. Obviously this is a goofy scenario but I think it illustrates my point…

But of course none of this really matters. We can ignore statistics and pull numbers out of our asses because who are we kidding, most of you don’t come here with an open mind, you come here for a soapbox.

45

By the way…

Sources:

http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/stats/6097rf.htm

People on welfare are usually black, teenage mothers who stay on ten years at a time (sources cited at bottom)

46

[quote]StrongrThanDeth wrote:
Cut the CRAP, all of you.

This is such bullshit especially coming from this web board. You all come to t-nation because they print quality articles. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and what do you see? References cited, yet you somehow manage to turn your brains off when it comes to topics like this, randomly pulling percentages out of your asses.

And what about these stories we have of seeing some “welfare queen” in line abusing the system. How is this objective at all??

Statistics from the real world…

Anyway here’s my point (notice I took 8 minutes out of my day to search google and get real statistics):

% of people on welfare less than 2 years: ~53%

% of people on welfare less than 5 years (personally I think 5 years is a bit long): 80.4

Highest % of the U.S. population on welfare was in 1993,1994 at 5.5%

As far as voting goes, are you nuts?
Do you even live in the US? Or do you just have no knowledge of western civilization/US history?

The right to vote is given to us so that we can peacefully protest any form of government opression (taxation without representation anyone?)

What if the reason people are on welfare is due to some bill causing mass poverty? What then suddenly half the nation is on welfare and also can’t vote. Obviously this is a goofy scenario but I think it illustrates my point…

But of course none of this really matters. We can ignore statistics and pull numbers out of our asses because who are we kidding, most of you don’t come here with an open mind, you come here for a soapbox.[/quote]

Good post, but I think most of the responses in this thread were entertaining, and informative. You are right about this being a soapbox, but that’s one of the tools of politics.

I remember when I was in college and an instructor asked us if we knew the real definition of statistics, most of us being young, and smarter than we thought we were, smugly spent ten minutes explaining our definition. Well, after letting us have our say, he gave us the practical definition of statistics: FIGURES DON’T LIE, BUT LIARS DO FIGURE.

Since you brought up U. S. history, when the great framers wrote our constitution, only property owners were allowed to vote. Why should someone who can’t earn a living, let alone own property, have a say in how this country is run?

My point to this whole forum was to learn about other opinions than my core group of friends and family, and for people to understand the difference between a safety net, and a lifestyle. Welfare benefits are such an incentive that people from the third world come here to reproduce and collect benefits that they are really not entitled to collect. How can an illegal alien collect benefits when they are here illegally? If you respond, please give me your opinion, not statistics.

47

As far as the statistics go, I brought those in so we can get some real facts to base our opinions on instead of speculation. Obviously statistics are subject to interpretation but it’s something…

As far as my personal opinion on welfare I’m in complete agreement with you on the safety net analogy.

The way I see welfare working is to catch people in times of need and help jump-start their careers.

I don’t see it being used for extended periods of time, especially in times of economic prosperity.

I definatly don’t like the idea of anyone staying on it for extended periods of time (anyone requesting aid for more than a year should definatly be looked at to see if they’re seriously attempting to make it on their own).

The purpose of welfare should be to bring up those in need to acceptable levels of living. This in turn helps us out in making our society a more liveable safer place. Hopefully these families can lift themselves up and return the favor by being good tax paying citizens.

Not to blather on but basicly I think welfare is a privilege not a right, and it needs to be reformed to take out any abusable loopholes.

When I brought up those statistics and found that around 5% are on it I was pretty dissapointed I would have really hoped it would be lower than this.

I apologize if i was rude with my last post, I was only trying to bring sanity and context back to the dicussion.

48

Thanks, Strongerthandeth for the excellent post. Statistics are important but we must understand them in context. Who is gathering data, what questions are they asking, etc. I would have thought five percent is too low, but I’ve been wrong before! Maybe welfare payments alone constitute this percent, then add in lunch programs, after school programs, free child care, you get the idea. In addition, if you claim to be drug dependent, you will receive SSI benefits, which is another form of welfare, or transfer payments.

Many years ago I attended a junior college that taught aviation maintenance, our group of individuals busted our butts in the first semester and did quite well in knowledge and grades. For the second semester, the bureaucratic moron that ran the program decided to seek federal money by enrolling welfare moms. Well, here comes twelve women who needed a hand, okay, we gave them a hand, tutoring, advice about life, some individuals even gave them rides to and from class. The curriculum which just the previous semester was challenging, now was dumbed down so much, a few people quit the program, and others found part-time jobs during the lab hours. Some of the welfare women even used the free childcare and didn’t come to class, but instead, would go out partying. I could go on, but how many of these welfare losers do you think finished the program, NONE. Soooo, all of us in class just wasted a semester helping people who were only interested in helping themselves to all the freebies.

These type of people are a cancer to a great society like ours, and I agree there must be reform, such as disincentives to welfare: long-term birth control, food lines at govt stores, not convenient supermarkets, welfare housing, not expensive subsidies that allow them to live where they want. The worst part of this whole issue is the sense of entititlement these people seem to have.

49

From the two aforementioned links, based upon the data:

*Total Federal Funds Available and Spent toward Welfare Benefits, Fiscal Year 2003 $17,196,346,745.00 / Total federal revenue, Fiscal Year 2003 $58,309,957,281.00 = 29.49% of total federal revenue that is paid toward Welfare Benefits/Rights/Entitlements.

*??is there any evidence that welfare deters marriage? Yes, there is. Young mothers and pregnant women are slightly less likely to marry in states with higher benefits??

Those ~5% of welfare recipients are spending almost 30% of federal revenue, to the tune of over $17 Billion Dollars. $17+ billion could go toward much more worthy programs, such as the Schools

Of course we need to vent about the problem of Welfare “Rights”, as they are called. Doesn’t the average working class Joe/Joanne have rights too? I’m sick of working myself to exhaustion, only to give such a large portion of my earnings to taxes, and see the welfare moms in my community wearing D&G/bling-bling Jewelry and their kids in spiffy designer clothing, while working people must clip coupons to make ends meet, and the schools here are so run down that there are not enough books for all the kids. One of those 20mm gold bracelets could buy books for three or four school children or replace a couple of rusted-out desks. Where’s the logic in that?? The system rewards dependence, and reams those financing it. The working class is far overlooked and overburdened by the current system. The concept of personal responsibility needs to be reestablished into society. AND the bleeding-heart liberals need to go.

Sorry, this was totally a vent.

BTW, I hate politics, but couldn’t resist this post. I lost all faith in our sucky politicians years ago.

50

One of the consequences of our interconnected global economy is that there never will be such a thing as 100 percent universal employment.

As a person who has owned a business and had to hire and train employees I know first hand that as unemployment rates go down it becomes increasingly harder to find and hire good employees. What employers have to do is offer increasingly more attractive compensation packages. The way we pay for this compensation is by raising our prices. This cause and effect relationship is called inflation. Inflation can cost us way more than a little welfare.

If we are going to have an economy that produces high paying jobs without inflation there are going to be long term unemployed.

Welfare should not prevent people from participating in our democracy and having a say in who governs them, because our gevernment does more than just tax and spend money it enacts laws. All citizens should have a say in what laws govern them.

51

Welfare recipients losing the right to vote: Stupid. This is America. We should not look for ways to take away rights from people.

As far as the welfare system, there is a lot wrong with it. A major problem is fraud. I don’t know if this is still true, but over half of the welfare budget was used to prevent fraud.

An overhaul of the system would be great. How about implementing a life loan, similar to a student loan. Immediate funds, with the people paying it back later. Many who would not accept welfare would take such a loan to help them get through a short term financial problem.

Beyond that, let’s redesign the system to not only prevent people from starving, but helping them to move on to bigger and better things. What if qualifying gave one simple grant, paid over time, which was fixed, and had a specific cut off date?

If you went to college the amount increases, and so does the length of time of the grant.

Also classes to help some of these people to better understand money, and how to control it.

Now as far as just giving away money, why doesn’t the government simply trade employment for the funds? People could simply work 15 to 20 hours a week for the government to earn that check.

One of the big problems with welfare is that there is no incentive to work. If you get a part time job, you lose almost an equal amount of benefits, so why work? (At least that is the way it used to be.)

Here is the flaw with welfare. It makes life too easy. If you know you are going to run out of food in the next week, you will get your ass to McDonalds and get a job. If your not willing to do even that, then you have other problems.

52

this is a short one pager i recently wrote up about medicare and social security waste. All facts are taken from the governments own figures.

Social Security Waste

? In FY 2002, SSA identified and reported 1.6 billion in overpayments in the Old Age, Survivors Disability Insurance Program (OASDI) and 2 billion in overpayments in the SSI program for a total of 3.6 billion in overpayments.

? According to SSA stats, the agency collected about 1.9 billion in overpayments for FY 2002, with 514 million in being waived, and 506 million deemed uncollectible.

? Example: 1 million was initially awarded based on alleged physical and emotional disorders, hyperactivity, and ADD. This was all based on 66 cases of individuals from an extended family of 181 SSI recipients. It is now believed that most of these claimants initially qualified by feigning a disability.

? The SSA recorded over 226,000 double check negotiations totaling about 104.7 million during the 2 year period ending March 21, 2002. During the most recent year, they identified 8, 375 individuals who negotiated both their initial and replacement checks from 3 to 12 times in the same year resulting in overpayments of 16.7 million.

Medicare/Medicaid

? Medicare payments for 24 leading drugs in 2000 wee 887 million higher than actual wholesale prices available to physicians and suppliers and 1.9 billion higher than prices available through the Federal Supply Schedule used by VA and other federal purchasers.
? Medicare pays too much for certain items of medical equipment and supplies because Medicare reimbursement rates for these items are based on charged submitted to the program in 1987. Prices bear little resemblance to prices currently available in the marketplace.
? VA median prices ranged from 31 to 88 % less than Medicare prices. Medicare prices were or than the median retail price for 10 of the 16 durable items covered. If Medicare based reimbursement on such lower prices the program could save an estimated 84 to 958 million a year.
? Medicare could save approximately 100 million per year by eliminating maintenance payments and instead paying only for repairs when needed.
? Improper payments under Medicare fee-for-service system totaled and estimated 13.3 billion during 2002 of 6.3 percent of the 212.7 billion in fee for service payments processed.

53

[quote]The Mage wrote:
Welfare recipients losing the right to vote: Stupid. This is America. We should not look for ways to take away rights from people.

As far as the welfare system, there is a lot wrong with it. A major problem is fraud. I don’t know if this is still true, but over half of the welfare budget was used to prevent fraud.

An overhaul of the system would be great. How about implementing a life loan, similar to a student loan. Immediate funds, with the people paying it back later. Many who would not accept welfare would take such a loan to help them get through a short term financial problem.

Beyond that, let’s redesign the system to not only prevent people from starving, but helping them to move on to bigger and better things. What if qualifying gave one simple grant, paid over time, which was fixed, and had a specific cut off date?

If you went to college the amount increases, and so does the length of time of the grant.

Also classes to help some of these people to better understand money, and how to control it.

Now as far as just giving away money, why doesn’t the government simply trade employment for the funds? People could simply work 15 to 20 hours a week for the government to earn that check.

One of the big problems with welfare is that there is no incentive to work. If you get a part time job, you lose almost an equal amount of benefits, so why work? (At least that is the way it used to be.)

Here is the flaw with welfare. It makes life too easy. If you know you are going to run out of food in the next week, you will get your ass to McDonalds and get a job. If your not willing to do even that, then you have other problems.
[/quote]

Good post, but is it possible that Americans have too many rights?

54

[quote]lincono wrote:

Good post, but is it possible that Americans have too many rights?

[/quote]

To the extent that there is a “right” to “entitlement” payments, yes.

But really, voting should be extended to all citizens, with certain qualifications such as age. Now, if you want to start talking about qualifications other than economic ones – like, say, literacy, or actual demonstration of citizenship credentials, then I think our standards are far too lax.

And before someone goes off and gets her panties in a bunch about historical abuse of literacy tests, there is nothing inherently wrong with a single test for basic literacy, both reading and of our political system. The problem with the old tests appied by southern states were that they gave different tests to blacks and whites, and grandfathered in a bunch of people who didn’t have to take the tests at all – in other words, discriminatory application was the problem.