Post by RS Davis on Jan 27, 2004 0:38:45 GMT -5
I would end welfare.
I would tell people on welfare they had two years to find a job or a charity willing to sponsor them. They will continue recieving benefits, whether they have a job or not, for two years, and then nothing. The industrious will begin right away. The less than industrious will wait until the last minute, and have a harder - but not impossible - time of it. And those that cannot do for themselves will find they have been separated from the chaff, and will find their needs met more personally, more efficiently, and more effectively.
If we are going to do it, it would have to be accompanied by a proportionate tax cut. We can't have the government cutting those people loose, keeping all the money, and then expecting us to pick up the slack. They have to put that money back into the hands of the people who earned it.
As welfare recipients recieve around 40 cents of every dollar the government takes from working people, it is not absurd to envision at least a 40% increase in philanthropy, if the money is given back. And that other 60% will still be doing something productive - instead of swallowed by the leviathan beuracracy - which will increase everyone's quality of life as well.
Back in the 80's, all the liberals were losing their heads because they thought Reagan was going to cut entitlement programs. Sadly, he never did, but the effect of this perception on private charity was amazing. Private philanthropy showed an immediate and astounding increase. This is because people won't do it if the government is doing it for them - but if they think it will not be done, they will take action.
Either way, the programs we have in place are inneffective. In 1968, at the end of LBJ;s Great Society administration, 13% of people in this country were poor. By 1999, how many were poor? 12.4%. We've spent counless billions on this war on poverty, and what was the result after over 20 years? Basically, nothing. The poor are no better off.
Yet contrast that with the statistics from 1950 until the Great Society, and you will see that poverty decreased every year before 1968, starting in 1950 at over 45 million people, approximately 30% of the population. It dropped steadily for 18 years. And then it just stopped. This is not coincidence.
- Rick
I would tell people on welfare they had two years to find a job or a charity willing to sponsor them. They will continue recieving benefits, whether they have a job or not, for two years, and then nothing. The industrious will begin right away. The less than industrious will wait until the last minute, and have a harder - but not impossible - time of it. And those that cannot do for themselves will find they have been separated from the chaff, and will find their needs met more personally, more efficiently, and more effectively.
If we are going to do it, it would have to be accompanied by a proportionate tax cut. We can't have the government cutting those people loose, keeping all the money, and then expecting us to pick up the slack. They have to put that money back into the hands of the people who earned it.
As welfare recipients recieve around 40 cents of every dollar the government takes from working people, it is not absurd to envision at least a 40% increase in philanthropy, if the money is given back. And that other 60% will still be doing something productive - instead of swallowed by the leviathan beuracracy - which will increase everyone's quality of life as well.
Back in the 80's, all the liberals were losing their heads because they thought Reagan was going to cut entitlement programs. Sadly, he never did, but the effect of this perception on private charity was amazing. Private philanthropy showed an immediate and astounding increase. This is because people won't do it if the government is doing it for them - but if they think it will not be done, they will take action.
Either way, the programs we have in place are inneffective. In 1968, at the end of LBJ;s Great Society administration, 13% of people in this country were poor. By 1999, how many were poor? 12.4%. We've spent counless billions on this war on poverty, and what was the result after over 20 years? Basically, nothing. The poor are no better off.
Yet contrast that with the statistics from 1950 until the Great Society, and you will see that poverty decreased every year before 1968, starting in 1950 at over 45 million people, approximately 30% of the population. It dropped steadily for 18 years. And then it just stopped. This is not coincidence.
- Rick
