Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ames.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!hplabs!ames!barry From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Welfare Message-ID: <1450@ames.UUCP> Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 00:54:30 EST Article-I.D.: ames.1450 Posted: Fri Mar 21 00:54:30 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Mar-86 23:03:11 EST References: <1724@decwrl.DEC.COM> Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA Lines: 146 From Brian Mahoney (dec-bartok!mahoney): > I don't feel Welfare should be done away but it needs to be totally >overhauled. In its present state I do feel it captures many (most) people >and keeps them their for good. I'd like to thank Mr. Mahoney for a sincere effort to make constructive suggestions for solving the welfare mess. I agree with the above paragraph. I have some disagreements with his specific suggestions, however. > 1) Place the whole of welfare under one organization. > Right now different programs are handeled by seperate organizations > and departments. This causes redundency and an easy way to work > around the system to abuse. Yes. In fact, I would go farther. Turn welfare into a negative income tax, and let the IRS administer it all. One program, one law, and one agency for welfare and taxes. If your net adjusted income is below some figure, the government pays you. I realize I'm oversimplifying somewhat (e.g., few poor people could wait to receive their entire year's income in one lump sum payment the following year :-)), but I think the basic idea is sound, and it has been proposed before. > 2) When someone enters Welfare they immediately get put into job training. > The person will have a number of choices. If they do not have a high > school eduction the first course of action will be to get them one. > When they are trained for the job then there will be job placement. > Now people obviously won't be able to get great jobs when they start > so the government will help to compensate. They gradually lose the > compensation as they move up the salary level. Say they lose one dollar > for every three dollars they make over a certain level or something > like that. The problem is cost. Many states (e.g., Massachusetts) already have programs similar to this, but the programs are expensive, and therefore unpopular with many taxpayers. Also, there have to be jobs available when the training's done. If the economy's bad, you'll mostly end up with skilled unemployed rather than unskilled unemployed - not a big improvement when you consider the high costs of these programs. > 4) Instead of the huge subsidized housing that we know have. I agree with > Reagan setup a voucher program. The government could give tax breaks > and so forth to landlords who rent at a cheaper rate also. The reason > for this is that I feel people get locked into these low-income housing > where that is the only place they can go. Once they have a job with the > voucher they can tell the landlord to either fix up the place or they > will go somewhere else. This will give incentive for the landlords to > start taking care of the apartment buildings. Only one voucher can be > used per apartment. If people live together they will be treated as > though they are married. You will get more money in a voucher though > for two people but one of them has to join job trianing. I'm not familiar with the details of Reagan's voucher proposal, but in my experience vouchers are a bad idea, for a number of reasons. Most landlords won't take vouchers, because the government pays them *after* the month is over (at best :-(), not in advance, as rent is normally paid. The net effect is to further limit the recipient's options. When I worked for LA County welfare, there were only 2 motels in the entire district that would accept the county's vouchers (vouchers were used for temporary, emergency housing only), and they were so scuzzy that I worried about catching horrible diseases when I had to make visits. Far from giving the tenant leverage with the landlord, vouchers take leverage away, and force people to live in pestholes. If the government created a more sensible voucher system than the one I've mentioned it might be tolerable, but there's a second flaw. Part of the process of weaning a lifelong recipient away from welfare is to make them responsible for their own financial affairs. The whole point of a voucher system is to insure that money meant for rent, is used for rent. This kind of Big-Brotherism will never teach anyone personal responsibility. Anyone who won't pay the rent first, and save the luxuries for later, won't stay off welfare for long. > 6) To check up on abuses there would be people who would make random > checks. They would make surprise visits to see that everything is going > alright on both ends. Such as maybe the people need something more or > maybe a boy friend has moved in. This is sort of like a parole officer. > I think there might be a better way of doing this but I can't think of > it. This seems a little dictatorial but I don't know a better way. This ain't new, either. In fact, it was SOP in most states 'til about 1970. Frankly, I consider it more than a "little" dictatorial. Welfare recipients have committed no crime, and I can see no justification for treating them like they're criminals. As with vouchers, you're attempting to force people to behave responsibly with these tactics, and unless you want to assign a permanent guard to them, this will not help them to be responsible citizens. And it does no good. Suppose your surprise visit turns up a live-in boyfriend? First off, that's not against the rules (well, it *may* be, in some backward jurisdiction, but it *shouldn't* be), but let's further assume that the boy friend is making financial contributions to the woman, and she hadn't reported it. What do you think happens? She's discontinued from aid; she reapplies at the end of the month, reporting that the boyfriend's gone. A home call is made, and, sure enough, there's no sign of his presence; and she's back on aid, having missed not a day. This is called a waste of time. And if you make the laws more punitive, you are hurting her children as much as you're hurting her. > 7) Some side notes I would bring back the school lunch subsides to the > level prior to Reagan's cut. Good idea; it's one of the best aid programs around. > Possible keep Food Stamps but make it a little harder to abuse them. > Such as have stamps for vegetables meat milk and so forth. How much > of each can be determined by the person and maybe a nutritionalist > working together. Again, you're trying to run their life for them, and that's the wrong approach. Besides, recipient abuse of Food Stamps normally takes the form of selling the stamps for cash (yes, this is illegal; it's also easy to do). Greater restrictions on what foods may be purchased with these stamps will not have any effect on this. > These is my idea for Welfare. What do people see wrong with it? (outside > of maybe being a little idealistic.) What would people add to/take away from > it? I could sum up my objections to your proposals in one word: paternalistic. This does far more harm than good. You may catch, or at least inconvenience, a few cheaters, but you will also make the "lifers" even less likely to get free of the welfare trap. If I may be forgiven a stereotype which is admittedly a vast generalization, the signal traits of the lifelong welfare recipient are apathy and dependence. They have already been conditioned to go to some government agency whenever they have a problem, and to mute acceptance of whatever the government dictates. What they need most is to realize that they can take control of their own lives, and to be given such control. Taking what little independence they have left away from them can only hurt. I'm pleased to see someone taking an interest in the question. I hope others will contribute their ideas. - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ELECTRIC AVENUE: {ihnp4,vortex,dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames!barry