We don't want to be spending lots of public funds on those who "don't deserve it," right? Ronald Reagan used to talk about "welfare queens" which referred to women who had kids as a kind of profession, in order to get more welfare money and qualify for more programs. They were usually considered to be lazy and probably fat and immoral. So, let me posit this question: Should a 21 yr-old woman who has 3 kids under the age of 5, all with different last names, be given rent supports and food stamps and welfare stipends? The woman is not competent to hold down a job because she's uneducated and probably uneducable. OR, is such a woman undeserving? I am inclined to say that society should help this woman and her children. Bill is likely to think she has created her own problems and should be expected to work out her own solutions.
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Our friend Jim Thill recently addressed an issue like this on his blog, Planetary Gears:
from Planetary Gears
Dec. 12 '08.
charity
I've been volunteering at the homeless shelter for a month now. My "position" is a commitment to one 2-hour shift per week, during which time I have a good deal of freedom to do whatever needs to be done with regard to handing out books and maintaining the small library. Since the library seems to generally be in good repair (thanks, I assume, to other volunteers), I follow my natural inclination and station myself in the lobby, where people are coming and going and hanging around for social purposes. It's been a lifelong blessing/curse of mine that I tend to be the focal point of those who gather for idle chit-chat, and the shelter is no different. I sit down and people start to gather around to chat with me, or tangentially involve me in their discussions with each other. Today, during a discussion in which I was a minor participant, one resident was explaining, in his peculiar way, how he came to be in the homeless shelter. It was a sordid tale of dysfunction at every turn: drug abuse and other bad choices, extreme dependency on government programs, no concept of personal responsibility, no concept of respect for others, etc, etc. Somehow this fellow saw himself as the hero of his vile narrative, though it was plain to me that he was his own villain.
As I rode home on my bike, I considered how impossible it seemed that this character would ever become a productive member of society or be able to take care of himself. The hope in every private or public charity is to empower people to be independent and solve their own problems, but the success rate with these worst cases is apparently pretty low. Maybe a low success rate is the best we can expect with people like this. I entertained thoughts that this fellow should be totally cut off from assistance, and that the resources should be directed to someone who can make better use of them. But then I wondered if he could ever accept any responsibility to support himself, and if being cut off from assistance would simply starve him to death in the street. And that wouldn't be pleasant to watch. Anyway, I started to consider that poverty isn't a new problem, and that concerned people have been wrestling with these difficult questions since the beginnings of civilization.
If you can contribute your thoughts to this discussion, please do.
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13 comments:
I would suggest that the landlord who receives rent checks subsidized by welfare payments might consider what side of the bread his butter is on. He is a welfare queen by proxy.
We are all on the public teat to varying extents. Judging by our enormous public deficit, it seems like too many of us are reaping more than we sow.
As a bicyclist, I often encounter the argument from motorists that I should stay off the roads, an assertion which is justified on the assumption that I somehow don't pay taxes. I would be happy to compare tax returns with these people, and I would venture that in terms of taxpayer street cred, I have more than about half of them. But the deal is that we all get to use the roads equally, no matter what numbers are on our 1040 forms.
The poor are an easy target. There are certainly lazy ones in the bunch, and "welfare queens", and other professional dependents. But I don't envy the lifestyle these people lead by taking public assistance. Whatever the cause of their poverty, the truth is that many simply do not have the tools to become what we may want them to become. Hang out at a homeless shelter sometime to see what I mean. I'm not convinced that "tough love" is going to encourage people with that many obstacles to become successful. We can either provide them basic necessities or we can turn them out. The latter might save a few bucks in the short term, but I'm pretty sure most of us would not enjoy witnessing the results.
Of course, this argument has never really been about money. Millions of poor citizens would take years to eat through the money that a few large banks made disappear in a few months in 2008.
Of course, this argument has never really been about money.
I agree.
This could be a never-ending discussion. I'll try to be brief.
My first two thoughts are:
Why should 'they' (welfarians) receive something for nothing? We always hear how there are no funds to initiate or continue this or that program. So, why something for nothing? Why aren't 'they' paid to do a job or service? And, there are a blue million things that need to be done: Picking up trash, cleaning up/repairing parks, community gardens....on and on. And, there are so many simple things that need doing that could improve quality of life for everyone.
Secondly, I feel that under no circumstance should welfare money be given to someone who has (other?) money for beer and/or cigarettes. Priorities, man.
from Alice:
"We believe these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights. That among those are LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
"We are to live as brothers and sisters..." MLK and many other leaders.
We have a responsibility to take care of those who cannot for what ever reason take care of themselves. Which of us is so brilliant that we get to judge who is worthy and who is not? Sounds like Hitler, Mao, KKK etc. The scriptures in all religions teach to take care of each other in peace, love and taking care of the poor. Why is it all right for the rich to take all they can from the poor but wrong for the poor to ask for sustenance? I also thing that under no circumstances should any person purchase cigarettes and beer while ANYONE is hungry, sick and suffering. Talk about wasting resources. Priorities, man. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year of service of giving.
Felix,
According to the Department of Human Service, only 4.5% of welfare recipients abuses drugs or alcohol. Rethink your stereotypes, man.
Abuse? Who's talking abuse. I'm saying if you have money for drugs or alcohol or cigarettes, you have money for food and clothing and rent. (I'd also say that the percentage of welfare recipients who USE alcohol or drugs or cigarettes is much, much higher than 4.5)
Well,
I'd say that if your smoking, drinking, and or drugging so much that your spending the equivalent of rent, that might qualify as abuse.
Also, welfare recipients are required to report their earnings and if a person is receiving that much income that they are simply choosing to party up rather than put toward the rent, they won't be on the dole for long.
Additionally, many welfare recipients do work. It's just that their crap-ass employers won't pay them a living wage. So they do what they have to do. I mean seriously, who really wants to sit around waiting for crumbs to fall from the table of the rich? Welfare living ain't as great as you seem to think it is.
About two or three years ago, our governor in MN proposed that welfare-recipients be compelled to enroll in quit-smoking programs. It didn't get anywhere as a law, but at the time, I thought it was a wonderful idea. Since then, I have learned a little about poverty, and have changed my position on this.
When I look at any person's lifestyle (including my own), I can usually point to numerous ways that money is wasted in an unhealthy or frivolous way. For example, I have been getting around almost exclusively by bicycle for almost five years, including in the worst weather of Minneapolis winter. As far as I'm concerned, for any able-bodied person, a gallon of gas is a frivolous purchase, especially for a cash-poor person who receives public assistance. Same goes for new clothing (or new anything), junk food, low-density housing, or anything that could be obliquely classified as an entertainment expense. All are luxuries, vanities, and vices with undesirable side-effects.
As a general rule, I don't want to have politicians and bureaucrats imposing controls on one specific segment of the population. Smoking and drinking are as legal as junk food, new clothes, low-density housing, or gasoline. To cherry-pick and tell someone that one or the other of these is unacceptable seems petty and mean-spirited to me. In my opinion, we can use education and encouragement to help poor people have better, healthier lives, but we cross a questionable ethical boundary when we restrict them from an activity that is permitted for everybody else.
To Margaret:
Interesting. Who said that the money spent was going to be equivalent to rent money? I'm saying I shouldn't have to buy your food with my money if you're buying cigarettes with yours. Your kids should have clothes and food before you have beer. I'm pretty sure I've never said anything that would lead somebody to believe that I believe that welfare living is great. I never said that all welfarians smoke or drink or do drugs. I just said that if you receive free money, you should have to spend it on the necessities.
Two things and I'll leave...
Bonuses and retreats are legal and permitted for everybody. So, why the outcry when 'our' bailout (welfare?) money was spent on these completely legal things?
I've lost the right to certain things (welfare money) because I make too much money. Why is it wrong to lose the right to certain things if you make too little?
It seems to me that the argument about how people spend their money is NOT about money, as was mentioned earlier. It comes back to the theme: making moral judgments about who should or who shouldn't be excluded from ordinary human care.
Some are suggesting we exclude those too weak to look after their own best interests. Those who are addicted. Those who are stupid. Those who are nuts. But, if you are stupid, addicted, weak, immoral, and pathetic, you still get everything you need IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY. Maybe it's daddy's money. Maybe it's a lucky inheritance, but at least you've got money. How can we make that distinction -- it seems so unrighteous!
When I see someone who is taking advantage of a support system like welfare, it always raises my hackles, but why should it? Maybe this is my problem, not theirs.
Margaret makes the point that people with money are forgiven for the methods they use to get it. The wealthy and well-born may be more dishonest and conniving and manipulative than any poor guy with a cigarette in his mouth, but that wealthy thief is absolved of guilt by the law. He's entitled to anything ...
Felix:
The bail-out is a different argument, and I won't accept it as a straw man in a discussion about sustaining the poor. I also don't accept that you've somehow "lost the right" to welfare money by being well employed. In that's the case, I've lost my right to a cot at a homeless shelter because I own a nice house. I deserve compensation for this loss!
My earlier point was simply that we shouldn't make policy out of arbitrariness and spite. The idea of holding welfare recipients to chemical-vice purity strikes me as arbitrary and spiteful. Why not hold past and present attendees of public school to a similar standard? After all, we paid for their educations, and we don't want them to squander that benefit by being unhealthy or foolish. It's harder to make this case in mixed company because public education is universal enough that we turn on the blinders to the "welfare" nature of it. It's hard to demonize it when almost everybody we know has enjoyed this benefit.
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