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Why do so many people hate welfare?

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luanqibazao
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28 Jan 2014, 3:15 pm

The initiation of force is always wrong. Theft is theft no matter what the alleged motive.



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28 Jan 2014, 3:16 pm

AngelRho wrote:
MoonGateClimber wrote:
Aside from the disabled, the idea of welfare as a career path is very attractive to those who have made poor life decisions. In “The life of Julia” Barack Obama shared his vision of government's role in an individual's life with government completely taking the place of the family. Absent in his story was any relationship with a husband, family or church. He envisioned the state taking their place and becoming her primary relationship. These same promises have lured a number of European countries into overreaching and under-supported social safety nets.

Don't forget so-called "income inequality." The problem is that in order for everyone to have equal outcomes, they need equal beginnings…in other words, people have no control over whether their parents are already wealthy/poor, how well their teachers performed in teaching them (affluent vs. poor school districts) and what grades they were able to earn in high school, and whether their parents stayed married throughout childhood (children from two-parent families generally fare better). The only way we're going to get there is if we all START from the same point, so kids all have to be reduced to the lowest common denominator. The best answer to the welfare state and income inequality is to mandate that all kids smoke pot, play video games all day, and be denied any kind of employment prior to finishing college. Marriage will have to be outlawed to keep kids from having the advantage of two-parent families. It's the only way we can level the playing field and solve the problem of income inequality.


Or you can remain sane, and give as many kids as possible equal advantages and opportunities in school.


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28 Jan 2014, 3:26 pm

luanqibazao wrote:
The initiation of force is always wrong. Theft is theft no matter what the alleged motive.


Taxation is not theft, when that tax is leveled by representation. And we have welfare because our elected representatives understand a need to care for the most desperately poor.


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28 Jan 2014, 3:35 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
luanqibazao wrote:
The initiation of force is always wrong. Theft is theft no matter what the alleged motive.


Taxation is not theft, when that tax is leveled by representation. And we have welfare because our elected representatives understand a need to care for the most desperately poor.


America has reached the tipping point where we now have representation without taxation, and perpetuating the poor is the only way many of our elected representatives stay in office.



luanqibazao
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28 Jan 2014, 3:40 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
Taxation is not theft, when that tax is leveled by representation.


The US has a "representative" government, so I guess you never ever disagree with anything the government does, past, present, or future. I say that the tyranny of the majority is no improvement over the tyranny of a king. People in large groups acquire neither special wisdom nor special rights which they lacked as individuals.

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And we have welfare because our elected representatives understand a need to care for the most desperately poor.


We have welfare because politicians discovered that they could buy votes with other people's money.



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28 Jan 2014, 3:47 pm

luanqibazao wrote:
I say that the tyranny of the majority is no improvement over the tyranny of a king.

What alternative 'tyranny' do you offer?

It's easy to criticize; but not so easy to provide a solution.



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28 Jan 2014, 3:47 pm

luanqibazao wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Taxation is not theft, when that tax is leveled by representation.


The US has a "representative" government, so I guess you never ever disagree with anything the government does, past, present, or future. I say that the tyranny of the majority is no improvement over the tyranny of a king. People in large groups acquire neither special wisdom nor special rights which they lacked as individuals.

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And we have welfare because our elected representatives understand a need to care for the most desperately poor.


We have welfare because politicians discovered that they could buy votes with other people's money.


That buying poor people's votes is nothing but right wing propaganda. If votes are bought, it's buying the votes and money of the wealthy with tax breaks, loosening of labor laws, and shifting the burden to those who can scarcely afford it.


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28 Jan 2014, 4:01 pm

It seems to me that the great failure of public policy makers has been the tendency to institutionalize measures that are intended to be temporary.

Welfare is well conceived as a stopgap to deal with any manner of temporary circumstances: natural disasters, economic upheaval and the like. But when it becomes institutionalized, then it means that policy makers can abdicate responsibility for making the difficult choices that should be front and center before every legislator and senior official.

When communities are caught in a permanent state of underemployment, the maintenance of parsimonious entitlement programs does nothing to bring those communities out of that state--it merely puts the problem off to another date--usually never.

But it seems to me that the public's dislike for political laziness should not extend to the program or to its beneficiaries. Third generation welfare families are--for the most part--getting by the only way that they know how. They do not, in my view, represent a class of people who are abusing a system, because for the most part they have no alternatives.

Government should be tackling cyclicality and entrenched poverty head on. It should be pouring money into improving educational outcomes for students in low income districts. It should be creating living wage policies for low income earners (though there are a multiplicity of policy options for how you could bring that about). It should be overtly, deliberately and clearly taxing citizens with the express purpose of putting that money into communities where it can do some good.


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28 Jan 2014, 4:04 pm

visagrunt wrote:
It seems to me that the great failure of public policy makers has been the tendency to institutionalize measures that are intended to be temporary.

Welfare is well conceived as a stopgap to deal with any manner of temporary circumstances: natural disasters, economic upheaval and the like. But when it becomes institutionalized, then it means that policy makers can abdicate responsibility for making the difficult choices that should be front and center before every legislator and senior official.

When communities are caught in a permanent state of underemployment, the maintenance of parsimonious entitlement programs does nothing to bring those communities out of that state--it merely puts the problem off to another date--usually never.

But it seems to me that the public's dislike for political laziness should not extend to the program or to its beneficiaries. Third generation welfare families are--for the most part--getting by the only way that they know how. They do not, in my view, represent a class of people who are abusing a system, because for the most part they have no alternatives.

Government should be tackling cyclicality and entrenched poverty head on. It should be pouring money into improving educational outcomes for students in low income districts. It should be creating living wage policies for low income earners (though there are a multiplicity of policy options for how you could bring that about). It should be overtly, deliberately and clearly taxing citizens with the express purpose of putting that money into communities where it can do some good.


Amen, and Amen.


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28 Jan 2014, 4:14 pm

Fnord wrote:
thewhitrbbit wrote:
I don't think most people hate welfare, I think they hate welfare abuse. I have no problem with helping a person who is down on his luck, but when you hear about third generation welfare families, there is a problem. When you hear about a family on welfare living it up better than a family that's working, that's a problem. Welfare is there to help us out when we are down, not to be a permanent solution.

This covers just about everything.

It's one thing to have a genuine disability that keeps you from earning a living, but it's something else entirely for an able-bodied person to not even look for work and expect the State to support them.


If this is actually true, then the right needs to stop trying to defund and cut programs like SNAP and focus on proper administration. No?


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28 Jan 2014, 4:17 pm

Fnord wrote:
What alternative 'tyranny' do you offer?

It's easy to criticize; but not so easy to provide a solution.


How about a government devoted entirely to protecting individual rights, and not to violating them? It was attempted once, however imperfectly, and the century which followed saw the most dramatic increase in general prosperity that the world has ever known.



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28 Jan 2014, 4:40 pm

luanqibazao wrote:
Fnord wrote:
What alternative 'tyranny' do you offer?

It's easy to criticize; but not so easy to provide a solution.

How about a government devoted entirely to protecting individual rights, and not to violating them? It was attempted once, however imperfectly, and the century which followed saw the most dramatic increase in general prosperity that the world has ever known.

... The British Imperial Century (1815-1914)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_em ... .931914.29

EDIT: Another candidate: Post Civil War United States from 1865 (with the Reconstruction Amendments) to 1965 (where the Jim Crow laws were definitively defeated)?



Last edited by GGPViper on 28 Jan 2014, 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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28 Jan 2014, 4:42 pm

MoonGateClimber wrote:
Aside from the disabled, the idea of welfare as a career path is very attractive to those who have made poor life decisions. In “The life of Julia” Barack Obama shared his vision of government's role in an individual's life with government completely taking the place of the family. Absent in his story was any relationship with a husband, family or church. He envisioned the state taking their place and becoming her primary relationship. These same promises have lured a number of European countries into overreaching and under-supported social safety nets.



When my legs stopped working last January and I was forced into a medical leave, I had a lot of help from people--acquaintances from work, school, etc. I was really surprised.

However, when it became clear that my legs were not going to start working again and that I would not be returning to work anytime soon, all my 'friends' vanished.

Nobody wanted to be in a position where I might ask them for money or food, or shelter...

My family is dead, I don't belong to a church, and like a lot of people on the spectrum, I find close, long-tern relationships far too stressful to maintain. Once my casual friends bailed on me, my personal safetynet was gone.

Thanks to a bit of personal savings and a lot of student aid I was able to survive until my SSDI claim was processed. I worked and saved and paid into the SSDI system for more than twenty years to EARN the benefit I'm getting from them for now...

I am very glad I was offered that deal, THAT RELATIONSHIP with my government. I suppose that under your system, my inability to maintain close relationships would doom me to homelessness or worse. I'd think I'd rather eat a bullet than try to live on the streets as a paraplegic.


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28 Jan 2014, 5:50 pm

luanqibazao wrote:
Fnord wrote:
What alternative 'tyranny' do you offer?

It's easy to criticize; but not so easy to provide a solution.


How about a government devoted entirely to protecting individual rights, and not to violating them? It was attempted once, however imperfectly, and the century which followed saw the most dramatic increase in general prosperity that the world has ever known.


Sure, the right to say or write whatever you want, or to assemble with whoever you like are invaluable - but those rights mean nothing if you can't eat, or have shelter. And if there isn't a support group of family or friends to help the needy, it's up to a responsible government to do it.


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28 Jan 2014, 6:17 pm

visagrunt wrote:
Government should be tackling cyclicality and entrenched poverty head on. It should be pouring money into improving educational outcomes for students in low income districts.

If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved

My performance in school is largely credited to my parents' involvement. Low-performing schools are full of students who have much bigger problems to deal with than their schoolwork, stressed and addicted parents have children who will not do well in school. Add to that, some 80% of inner-city poor children born were born outside of a married family. Most countries do not even have a 40% illegitimacy rate. And in most cases, those kids grow up in a two parent family where the parents of the children actually care about how their kids are educated.
GoonSquad wrote:
When my legs stopped working last January and I was forced into a medical leave, I had a lot of help from people--acquaintances from work, school, etc. I was really surprised.

However, when it became clear that my legs were not going to start working again and that I would not be returning to work anytime soon, all my 'friends' vanished.

Nobody wanted to be in a position where I might ask them for money or food, or shelter...

My family is dead, I don't belong to a church, and like a lot of people on the spectrum, I find close, long-tern relationships far too stressful to maintain. Once my casual friends bailed on me, my personal safetynet was gone.

Thanks to a bit of personal savings and a lot of student aid I was able to survive until my SSDI claim was processed. I worked and saved and paid into the SSDI system for more than twenty years to EARN the benefit I'm getting from them for now...

I am very glad I was offered that deal, THAT RELATIONSHIP with my government. I suppose that under your system, my inability to maintain close relationships would doom me to homelessness or worse. I'd think I'd rather eat a bullet than try to live on the streets as a paraplegic.


My comment stated disabilities aside. I refer to second and third generation welfare recipients. Teenagers, who have no education and no prospects, having kids. What chance does that kid have to escape the cycle of welfare? American’s do not seem to value education as much as they value emulating Miley Cyrus.



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28 Jan 2014, 6:26 pm

Fnord wrote:
This covers just about everything.

It's one thing to have a genuine disability that keeps you from earning a living, but it's something else entirely for an able-bodied person to not even look for work and expect the State to support them.


+1

Around these parts, there are a good number of people who are "generational welfare recipients." It's a way of life.

Worse is that attorneys make money trying to help people get on disability so they don't have to work.

The system has abuse...which only hurts those who legitimately need it.