orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (03/11/86)
Guy gives the following personal account: > > Now for my meaningless personal report. I know a person who is totally > dependent on government aid for her support, no children, and who > runs out of food stamps early sometimes. I'm not sympathetic. > Why? Am I just a cruel Reaganite? No, I'm a compassionate Reaganite, > like most of us, but I know what she does with her money. Largely > it is wasted on consumer goods. She exhibits no frugality and as > such I think that her problems are mostly her fault. Now let me give my own personal account. When I was working my way through school I worked in the college cafeteria. The cafeteria was largely staffed by blacks who were descendants of the slaves of plantations in the Tidewater Virginia area. Their pay, even after years of working was just above the minimum wage. Several of the workers that I knew personally worked several jobs, one of them worked *two* fulltime jobs at 40 hours a week. They *had* to do that to survive and raise a family and have any kind of disposable income at all. They worked hard, and they were not lazy. These are precisely the sorts of people hurt worst by Reagan's budget ax. They have *not* benefitted from Reagan's tax giveaways: their taxes have increased proportionately more than any other income group. To the extent they may have been eligible for benefits under previous administrations who did not say you had to be absolutely without an income to obtain benefits they have also been hurt more than any other group: their benefits, whatever they may have been have been drastically decreased. (I will post statistical substantiation of this later) I agree that the welfare system needs reform. But please explain to me how crippling the *working* poor and providing no incentives to work by continuing to receive some minimal benefits after earning some income from a job helps anybody. tim sevener whuxn!orb
cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (03/14/86)
> Guy gives the following personal account: > > > > Now for my meaningless personal report. I know a person who is totally > > dependent on government aid for her support, no children, and who > > runs out of food stamps early sometimes. I'm not sympathetic. > > Why? Am I just a cruel Reaganite? No, I'm a compassionate Reaganite, > > like most of us, but I know what she does with her money. Largely > > it is wasted on consumer goods. She exhibits no frugality and as > > such I think that her problems are mostly her fault. > > Now let me give my own personal account. When I was working my way > through school I worked in the college cafeteria. The cafeteria was > largely staffed by blacks who were descendants of the slaves of > plantations in the Tidewater Virginia area. Their pay, even after > years of working was just above the minimum wage. Several of > the workers that I knew personally worked several jobs, one of them > worked *two* fulltime jobs at 40 hours a week. They *had* to do > that to survive and raise a family and have any kind of disposable > income at all. They worked hard, and they were not lazy. > > These are precisely the sorts of people hurt worst by Reagan's > budget ax. They have *not* benefitted from Reagan's tax giveaways: > their taxes have increased proportionately more than any other > income group. To the extent they may have been eligible for > benefits under previous administrations who did not say you had > to be absolutely without an income to obtain benefits they have > also been hurt more than any other group: their benefits, whatever > they may have been have been drastically decreased. > (I will post statistical substantiation of this later) > > I agree that the welfare system needs reform. But please explain > to me how crippling the *working* poor and providing no > incentives to work by continuing to receive some minimal benefits > after earning some income from a job helps anybody. > > tim sevener whuxn!orb For once, I agree with. (Fire a thousand shells -- one of them may hit the target.) You said earlier up that the "working poor" aren't lazy. I would agree. One study of "working poor" cut off from welfare benefits found that about 10% gave up their jobs and went onto welfare. This is pretty impressive. However it isn't the working poor that is why Americans have voted in Presidents like Reagan -- it is because of people like the one Guy describes at the top of this posting and of the type I have described in several of my postings. I have a friend who is on welfare. She has two small children, and it would not be cost-effective for her to work and pay for child care at this time. Unfortunately her husband is a drug addict and "rock musician" (what a wonderful excuse to not hold down a steady job). Before she had kids, she worked at a steady job for over five years so he could pursue being a musician. She has left him once, and she will leave him again in the near future -- probably for good. The welfare system has, up to this point, made it possible for him to shirk his responsibilities to his wife and kids. Talking to my friend is interesting. By her estimate, about half of the people she knows on welfare should be cut off -- the welfare payments are basically making it possible for druggie husbands and boyfriends to avoid reality (and to a lesser extent for druggie wives and girlfriends). She also votes Libertarian quite consistently. (She isn't the only Libertarian I know on welfare -- to find someone who hates welfare, you usually only need to talk to people who feel trapped by the way welfare encourages flakiness.) When I was growing up, the idea of a Welfare State to help those unable to help themselves sounded like a good idea. It still sounds like a good idea in the abstract. Unfortunately, the system is easily abused, and the way that our Welfare State is structured creates powerful incentives for the system to not police itself. People that work in government assistance agencies are interested in preserving their jobs. Congressmen from extremely poor districts are interested in keeping people happy -- even if the long term effect isn't good for the poor people involved. Labor unions want a Welfare State to protect their workers from competition for the low-end jobs. (Remember when labor unions used to prevent blacks from joining?) Because the system is unwilling or unable to police itself (maybe I should you about my sister's experiences working for Los Angeles County as a case worker), those of us who have worked our way up from poverty get frustrated paying a big chunk of our paychecks to support people that in many cases need a little hunger to incentivize looking for a job. (Certain groups have converted this frustration into racially motivated hatred -- and that's simply not accurate. Most of the welfare caseload is white, not black.) I can't support a *governmental* welfare system anymore because, having taxing authority, it tends to grow to unacceptable levels of corruption. Private charitable organizations have limited funds, so they have an incentive to be a little more careful about seeing that only the truly deserving are assisted. (Let me point out also that, at least for the charitable organizations I support, far more of the money gets spent on those who are suffering than the governmental system.) A compassionate Welfare State, committed to helping those who for whatever reason have been reduced to tremendous poverty, is a lofty goal, although perhaps inefficient. A system that encourages laziness and a feeling that "I'm owed a living by the rest of you" is what has actually been built.