The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
Why are the poor, poor?
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: seriouscrayons on May 02, 2008, 11:08:04 am ---State administration would also create instability of various kinds as welfare recipients in states with limited programs flood across the borders of neighboring states with more generous programs.
--- End quote ---
There is a great potential for interstate conflict here. What's to prevent states with numbers of urban poor, say, in the Rustbucket Northeast, from buying those poor folks bus tickets to Texas and Florida just to get rid of the problem? Seems to me I remember reading accusations of that sort of thing happening already.
I suppose you would address this by creating some sort of residency requirement for assistance, so then we would just have numbers of poor people getting kicked out of one state with nowhere to go.
Reminds one of the old English Poor Law, where the poor could be forcibly chased from parish to parish until they returned to the parish where they were born, which was held to be responsible for supporting them.
Artiste:
Merci seriouscrayons !
Very interesting are the facts and myths about welfare !!
Thanks !!
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 02, 2008, 08:24:48 am ---Lotta trouble with that article.
I'd like to see these "various govt reports' referenced.
My favorites are the 'owns TV, air conditioners and cars'. Yeah. How do they define an "air conditioner"? I've grown up around things they could call an air conditioner. A small metal box that if you poured water into it and turned it on, you'd get cool air cranked out - but only if you stood in front of it and only for about 15 minutes, then you had to pour more water into it. Is a 'fan' called air conditioning? They don't say these people have central air. The poor people across the street from my mother "owned" about 4 cars...only 1 worked. They traded batteries around every morning trying to find one that would help start the one car that might work. And it goes without saying that they didn't have the money to run their one car legally - no insurance, no tags, inspection etc.
And this Yet, although work and marriage are reliable ladÂders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains hostile to both.
You do know that marriage has a failure rate of about 50%? So what if a poor person marries? There is a good chance they'll be divorced soon and right back where they started. So much for that "reliable ladder".
--- End quote ---
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/upload/bg_2064.pdf
Earlier, I had posted only the executive summary. Here is the original article as a 19 page PDF file with dozens of charts and direct referential links to the reports in which you have an interest.. So, knock yourself out! :-*
this is article is by the same scholar whose study of the economic and social impact of illegal immigration stopped the rush to pass the Kennedy McCain amnesty bill in its tracks last year. this guy ain't no light weight crack pot. his work is taken very seriously in think tanks across the US. :)
with dozens of charts and direct referential links to the reports in which you indicated an interest.
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: injest on May 02, 2008, 08:32:31 am ---
(and you have to consider the source...the Heritage Foundation is a front for the Moral Majority refugees. They consider REAGAN to be the Messiah "the greatest most successful President since Lincoln" ::) ::) ::) )
--- End quote ---
That comment is sadly lacking in an understanding of the Heritage Foundation and indicative of the lack of serious scholarship on this issue under discussion. I won't further engage in a discussion that shows a lack of the basic knowledge of the problem in question, and relies on anecdotal commentary and emotional appeal. Why should I waste my time with that level of discussion of a very serious problem that will in fact be resolved in the political process one way of the other over the next decade?
http://www.heritage.org/
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on May 02, 2008, 09:15:30 am ---Some time I wish you would take the time to explain why you have such faith that the states would, in fact, take over the burden if the federal government got out of the picture. This, in a nutshell, is the problem I have with your "federalism" approach. State governments--state legislatures--are even more responsive to their constitutents than Congress. Any Pennsylvania state representative from, say, Mifflin or Juniata County, in the center of the state, who advocated raising taxes across the state--and don't kid yourself or try to kid anyone else, you take the federal government out of the picture, state taxes would have to go up to fill in the gap--for poverty programs in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or Allentown or Reading would be voted out of office so fast his head would spin right around like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist.
I apologize if I'm offensive, but I think what appears to me to be your faith in the states--and the people in them--is unfounded at best and naive at worst. But, for what it's worth, I do believe your convictions are genuine. I would not say that about all conservatives.
--- End quote ---
I am not the least bit offended. You are attempting to enjoin me in a serious conversation about federalism, a continuation of a conversation which we have intermittently engaged in since I first started logging on to Bettermost some 11 months ago.
As far as the questions as to whether the states will assume the entire burden that the Federal gov assumes at this time. That will depend upon the state. After a vigorous debate within the state in question over the state's role in welfare, states will try many different solutions. How do you know that a reduced plan of spending on welfare needs is not the best solution? How do I know that an increased plan of spending on welfare needs is not the best solution? Neither of us know this.
What I do know, is that the best arena for this debate is at the state and local level. The programs which spend the taxes coming out of the state and the localities which fund those welfare programs need to be debated by the citizens, the local officials and the state officials. I am confident that if the people thru referenda, constitutional amendment, or just plain ordinary elections vote for those welfare plans or those who advocate an increase in spending, then those enhanced programs will become reality. The converse is also true. This is the essence of democracy, and this is what is lacking in the present welfare system, there is no accountability to the tax payer and the voter.
The magic of the federal system is that states are individual laboratories and given time and experimentation, we shall learn what works best for the tax payers money. But, we will never learn this until the Federal gov gets out of the way.
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