Welfare

[soopisgoodfood]

I realized today that I've never given welfare much thought. I usually just say that it shouldn't exist, but I think I was pretty ignorant.


Now I'm trying to figure out what I think about it. I know people here who don't abuse welfare but from what I see the majority of people on welfare here DO use it irresponsibly (buying expensive cars instead of paying bills or buying food).

How does welfare work? Do tax-payers pay for it?

While I try to research this, what do you guys think? Should it be more strict so I don't have to buy some guy's crack, and it can go to someone's baby food instead?

Should it be abolished because it doesn't help them, it just lets people ween off the gov't for half their lives?

edit: should this be in Oh The Humanities?

[reggie_love]

Well, most people here will tell you that welfare= "when you love strangers so much that you get the government to steal from other strangers to pay for their stuff"

It's basically government monetary support that is funded by taxpayers.

I personally don't think we should do away with it entirely, but we should reform it to the point where its only available to the geniunley disadvantaged who are willing to change their lifestyle instead of getting a free ride off the government, or otherwise physically unable.

[soopisgoodfood]

Originally Posted by reggie_love

Well, most people here will tell you that welfare= "when you love strangers so much that you get the government to steal from other strangers to pay for their stuff"

It's basically government monetary support that is funded by taxpayers.

I personally don't think we should do away with it entirely, but we should reform it to the point where its only available to the geniunley disadvantaged who are willing to change their lifestyle instead of getting a free ride off the government, or otherwise physically unable.

I agree.

Maybe say "Ok, we'll give you this much to get by. You make some effort to get yourself on track and we'll help. If all you buy is crack and a $40,000 car then you're on your own"

But part of me also thinks about people here who are struggling financially and not on welfare that would have to pay for other people who are just doing barely worse than them. Which makes me think maybe it should be funded voluntarily by people who care and who can afford to pay the extra tax.


[Sorry if I repeat things that are already in place. I'm just forming my opinion now with not really any knowledge on how it is now.]

[T-BagBikerStar]

The previous posts show many of the misconceptions about welfare, one of which is that it is forcing many of the poor to pay for people who are only slightly worse off than themselves. The truth is that the tax brackets are set up so that the wealthy pay higher percentage of their taxes on their already larger income and they are by far supporting more of the welfare costs.

Another of these misconceptions is that the system is currently easy to abuse in that the government is just handing out money to whomever asks for it. The truth is there are several types of welfare ranging from money to help fund education to food stamps, and these systems can only be spent on education or food respectively.

Furthermore the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 limited individual recipients of welfare to a maximum of five years lifetime for receiving federal welfare of all types.

The above are all examples of types of welfare that are means-tested, which means that the government checks to make sure that you would not be able to afford these expenses on your own if they did not help pay for some of the cost. Not all types of welfare are means-tested and these are usually programs that you must pay into your entire life and then receive once you fulfill the circumstances that you paid in for. Examples of this are unemployment compensation and social security. For these you receive compensation that is somewhat proportional to the amount you paid in over the time you spent working. You can only receive social security after you have retired and reached a certain age and you can only receive unemployment compensation if you have been laid off and are currently unemployed. Neither of these systems test if you have the means to support yourself before paying you back the money you had previously paid in.

I hope this all helps clarify the basics of welfare. There are many more types of welfare, but it would take days to cover them all and these are the main ones which I know best about.

[soopisgoodfood]

Originally Posted by T-BagBikerStar

The previous posts show many of the misconceptions about welfare, one of which is that it is forcing many of the poor to pay for people who are only slightly worse off than themselves. The truth is that the tax brackets are set up so that the wealthy pay higher percentage of their taxes on their already larger income and they are by far supporting more of the welfare costs.

Another of these misconceptions is that the system is currently easy to abuse in that the government is just handing out money to whomever asks for it. The truth is there are several types of welfare ranging from money to help fund education to food stamps, and these systems can only be spent on education or food respectively.

Furthermore the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 limited individual recipients of welfare to a maximum of five years lifetime for receiving federal welfare of all types.

The above are all examples of types of welfare that are means-tested, which means that the government checks to make sure that you would not be able to afford these expenses on your own if they did not help pay for some of the cost. Not all types of welfare are means-tested and these are usually programs that you must pay into your entire life and then receive once you fulfill the circumstances that you paid in for. Examples of this are unemployment compensation and social security. For these you receive compensation that is somewhat proportional to the amount you paid in over the time you spent working. You can only receive social security after you have retired and reached a certain age and you can only receive unemployment compensation if you have been laid off and are currently unemployed. Neither of these systems test if you have the means to support yourself before paying you back the money you had previously paid in.

I hope this all helps clarify the basics of welfare. There are many more types of welfare, but it would take days to cover them all and these are the main ones which I know best about.

+1

I was way off, thank you!

Part of me still thinks that it shouldn't be mandatory to help people... I think it's Dick Armey's website FreedomWorks that said one of their goals is to make welfare a charity, so that people can choose whether or not to fund it. Would there be any major flaws that you guys can see in this?

[T-BagBikerStar]

All this would do is help the selfish and make the more charitable of us pay more if the system is to still receive adequate funding. In my opinion, it is all of our duty to support those who are currently unable to support themselves, and the welfare system attempts to split up the amount we all have to put in fairly.

[Nihilist]

trashing welfare is the last thing you want to do. wanna see a crime wave? think of every mom and dad whos looking at hungry kids. if theres no safety net, ppl will revert to criminality and brutality, i promise.

and no, you cant lock them all up.

[Zman]

Originally Posted by Nihilist

trashing welfare is the last thing you want to do. wanna see a crime wave? think of every mom and dad whos looking at hungry kids. if theres no safety net, ppl will revert to criminality and brutality, i promise.

and no, you cant lock them all up.

So...the government takes your money so people who won't get jobs when there are plenty to be had, because you don't want someone else to steal it for no reason?

And yes you can lock them up ,or better yet, let people have guns to blow their brains out when they break into your house

[soopisgoodfood]

Thanks to all of you for helping me ponder this further.


Well I was discussing this with my sister today, she tried to make it sound like there are these kinds of situations out there:

Married with 2 kids, living in a shit neighborhood, have no money, and there are no jobs that will hire them because they're so poor.


This seems like a pretty exaggerated view of the lower-class.

And I'm starting to lean toward the side against taxpayer-funded welfare. When I see the "welfare neighborhoods" here there are plenty of places to work at, even if it's just cleaning up. It's up to them to get their life back together (if it ever was). I agree with taxes that go to fixing pot-holes and cleaning up the city so that I don't have to live in a shithole, but people shouldn't be forced to give away money they earned to someone else. Personally I would give to a charity to fund welfare, but it shouldn't be mandatory to give a damn.

[jamesmcm]

Originally Posted by Zman

So...the government takes your money so people who won't get jobs when there are plenty to be had, because you don't want someone else to steal it for no reason?

And yes you can lock them up ,or better yet, let people have guns to blow their brains out when they break into your house

Do you want to live in a society where you have to blow people's brains out when they try to rob you?

A society where robbing and violence is the norm?

This would just cause another violent revolution like we have seen in the past.

America is one of the richest nations on Earth, it could easily afford to support all it's citizens. It's a shame that there's people living on the streets while the governments paying billions to fight wars in the middle east.