Welfare should be abolished

Post Reply New Topic

For those of you not from the States, welfare is a program by which the government actively forces everyone to provide food and shelter for worthless rotters who spend all their time trying to break into my car. This is the United States of America, and I thought that in the USA the economic doctrine we lived by was "what you put in = what you get out." Apparently somewhere along the line it was changed to "what you put in = what you get out OR put in absolutely nothing and live for free at the expense of hard-working individuals." I don't know about you, but to me this seems wrong. I don't mind giving a little food to the starving if they look like they might recover themselves, but we are all being forced at the point of a gun to funnel a percentage of our income which WE WORKED FOR into the worthless white trash trailer park denizens of America. This is an injustice of the highest caliber. I'm not out there busting my ass 12 hours a day just to feed an obese, lazy moron who sits in a crumbling duplex all day watching nascar. Call me cold, but I believe that if you don't work or produce in some way then you don't eat. Instead of funneling so much money into the symbols of human ignorance, we should instead have a program which gives people an oppurtunity to recover. A second chance, but not a free one. They will be given jobs, and if they can't do that job right then tough s**t. Go live on the streets, you worthless incompetant. If you can't hold a job flipping burgers or washing dishes, then why do you feel you deserve to be a part of society? To be a part of society, you have to help it in some way. Otherwise you're just a leech. I refuse to give a leech a single red cent which I worked for. There will be no justice in the world until welfare is abolished.

Well, that's me rant this morning. Thoughts? Comments?

What if you can't get a job yourself? Does that mean you should be out on the streets too? Only a very small minority of welfare recipients are ratbags. I don't mind if some of my taxes go towards welfare because who knows, one day I might not be able to work and I'd like to think society would have enough compassion to look after me.

Please define "can't get a job yourself." Do you mean like people who don't have any arms or legs or something? What, besides not trying hard enough, prevents an able-bodied person from getting a job?

No, welfare should not be abolished. Some law abiding citizens who can't get a job in their area, or are ill/disabled genuinely need government support.

Career criminals and working age adults who actively think that they can leech off the state as a way of life, however, should not have access to welfare.

This excludes medical care and education, however, as they are essential services, and let's face it, everyone needs them.

I agree about the people who are critically disabled, but what do you mean people who can't get a job in their area?

A) Why did you settle down there if you weren't sure you could get a job?
B) Why don't you relocate to a different area? If it's because you have family/housing/etc in the area, see A.

If I was an unemployed rural citizen...

A) Because my employer went out of business, and there are very few other rural jobs, or I was born there, but now I can't find a job.
B) Because I don't have the money to move, and I have lots of family and friends where I live.

Obviously, I was just speaking from an emulated POV, not my own. Unemployed people should be given help in finding jobs, there could even be a relocation scheme to ensure that everyone can get a job.

I am a hardened right-winger, and am for minimal government and taxes/spending. But I dont have a problem with minimal safety nets, like welfare.

Most welfare programs in the US are being turned into Workfare programs, where people must work menial jobs for less than minimum wage through the Workfare office. I have read stories of people losing their jobs, being put on Workfare, then working the same job for less pay and no benefits because their employer decided to get cheap labor through Workfare.

The federal reserve sets interests rates at a rate to maintain a certain level of unemployment in the economy to prevent inflation.
Which means the government is trying to keep alot people unemployed to keep bond(US bonds) holders happy. The federal government created the concept of permanent unemployment. So until it develops a new economic theory it will have to continue to pay the poor a token sum.

Let me know when they give a s**t about homeless, starving, freezing, poor people to begin with and I'll vote. Been watching the stock market? Have a clue why it's hit the pits? Can you spell homeless people? There will be no justice in the world until welfare of the people is taken care of. We are only as strong as our weakest member. Think about it and stop bull sh**ing around with prefab thoughts. Canned spam bull s**t. By the way, spam in a can and rice and cheese used to be "welfare" food. Got a problem giving away the surplus or you need to make a buck? Go buy a nintendo and ignore it. And let me know when your safety net falls through, I'll cross the street and ignore you. Just pretend your taxes are buying bombs and not going to the trailer trash you seem to know about. It isn't hard, you seem to be in a fantasy world already. God of all the damn sites in the world to see this s**t, a place where we see people having a tough go of it for reasons that you should very well understand. Not to have the safety net firmly in place, plus more, socialize medicene, how'd you like that one?

And my rant for the day

Last edited by postpaleo on 15 Aug 2007, 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Like even welfare would help me?
I'm about to be thrown on the streets
for inability to do things - like find a place.
Or a job.

I really do need some sort of help, but
there doesn't seem to be anything which
can. I'm not particularly poor, and could
work a job, no question - but I'm not sure
that I could keep one.

Hell. f*****g MS, and I still can't DO anything.

I wouldn't abolish it completely, but if I had to choose between ending it altogether and leaving it in its current state, then I'd abolish it. But I mean, some people genuinely can't make ends meet, even though they're trying full-out.

So, I think the current system needs to be drastically reformed so that it's not an incentive to not work and to crank out more babies to receive more free* money.

(*My and other working people's money.)

Last edited by Ragtime on 15 Aug 2007, 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It seems like some people are under the impression that we in the USA live in some kind of meritocracy, where the people working the hardest get paid the most. That is hardly what I see on my TV and in my community!! !! Given that in actuality the laziest people are the richest, and the most hard working are the poorest, I don't see how anyone can continue to view our society as a meritocracy! I think ones ability to work at all and ones ability to have a livelihood depends a lot more on luck and class than on merit. I don't mind one iota if my taxes go towards feeding people who were dealt a crappy hand of cards in this life.

What if someone gets fired, not of his own fault, but because of a reconstitution in the company where he has worked for 30 years, and afterwards he can't get a job elsewhere because of his age?

I think there should be a minimum safety net, precisely because of these kind of cases. I also think that the extent to which a country provides for its unemployed, might be a sign of the civilization - of the refinement - of that country. Not because I believe that bums who are too lazy to work should be provided for by hard-working tax payers (which obviously I do not), but because in many cases (probably the majority) some other issues play a role, like the example above. I think most of the time the situation is a bit more complex than someone unemployed just being a lazy bum.
(most of the time; not always)

but public education and welfare and other programs that have a wealth redistribution effect improve the quality of life for those higher up the socio-economic ladder (better public health and safety and a better quality of human resources available to the country).

Is America a nicer place to live than any other country with no welfare? Would the crime rate be higher with no welfare? Could the level of welfare be increased? I think so (but as you know, I'm not American).

Welfare is a horribly designed program as it is, I agree with Ragtime that if I had to choose between the current system and no system then I would pick no system. I am probably less concerned than some though as I do not think that modern poverty is quite the evil that past poverty was, and if such is the case then welfare should be less necessary now than in the past. The current system definitely has poor incentive structures though.

I think the meritocracy idea prevails for a few reasons, first there is the traditional cultural push, and also there is the idea of wages being related to the importance of one's contribution. I think you misinterpret merit though, as merit can often have hard work receiving a high reward, but hard work is not the only issue of merit. Frankly, there is an issue of proving the actual merit that you haven't gotten into, as a lazy genius could be considered more meritorious than a very hard-working person with less intelligence, and a similar example can be given with almost any trait from risk-taking, to innovation, to well liked, to almost anything that can be valued. Finally, at the end the real question is never one of your decision, it is of the decision of all people. You are not calling for your money to be spent on the poor, you are calling for everyone's money to be spent on the poor, less people hate charity than welfare.
How do we define fault? I think you define it as that they were good at their original job, but I think fault is better seen as being a matter of not being prescient enough to adapt in some cases, which leads to an issue of what can be adapted for and what cannot.

Really though, I do not think that people on welfare are necessarily lazy or evil, but there is a difficulty in determining what people truly deserve, and there is a matter of whether or not they are merely too prideful to take the next best opportunities or whether or not they look forward or adapt with the times.