what is the cost for incarcerating a crook?
who cares? Do we let them walk free because it isn't worth it?
So let murderers walk free as well, after all, the person is already dead and sending them to prison saves us nothing more. I'm sure he didn't mean it????

I do actually agree with not sending a general cash card
But I can see the problems there as well, you may want to allow their rent to be paid, electric bill? phone bill? what if they need a plumber? how about a car repair? they certainly need at least some cash for gas, for tolls, pizza? car insurance? the list starts to get very long. I like the thinking but I can see the problems already.

Faxmonkey wrote:Problem with that is that what you want would mean a huge increase in bureaucracy (which i believe you hate) which in turn will lead to skyrocketing costs.

In some cases, it would impact costs very little. Let me give you an example, one of the more common forms of welfare fraud is for a woman to claim she is not getting child support. If the father is a "deadbeat," the State often makes up the difference and goes after the father. Fine, right?

However, sometimes the mothers lie. They are getting the support and, in effect, getting it twice--from the government AND the father. So, do they go after the mother for filing a false report? Nope. Generally, they won't even make her pay the money back.

Fact is if you have a system of wellfare you have people who will abuse it, same way you have people who don't pay their taxes.

True, but the sad truth is that we have a system that too often disincentivizes work. If you start making money beyond a minimal threshold, they cut your welfare. The goal should be to encourage people to improve their lot, not to make them dependent upon the slave. That is the problem with government housing.

Last Saturday, I was speaking with an African-American woman about "heritage month." She told me she is saddened by a number of people in her extended family who simply scheme to get more money from the government, not looking to get off public assistance.

We need to have a safety net. We also need to make sure it is not a snare, holding people back from improving their lots in life.

GMTom wrote:what is the cost for incarcerating a crook?
who cares? Do we let them walk free because it isn't worth it?
So let murderers walk free as well, after all, the person is already dead and sending them to prison saves us nothing more. I'm sure he didn't mean it????

I do actually agree with not sending a general cash card
But I can see the problems there as well, you may want to allow their rent to be paid, electric bill? phone bill? what if they need a plumber? how about a car repair? they certainly need at least some cash for gas, for tolls, pizza? car insurance? the list starts to get very long. I like the thinking but I can see the problems already.

I guess it comes down to the basic question of what is government responsible to pay for. I don't see any specifics in the US Constitution other that a General Welfare. I don't think that applies to specific people getting payments and others not getting payment.

I have a business associate in chicago [sic] who always gives his change to people on the street who ask for "spare change"

I say good for this guy. It is someone who chooses to do good with his money. It is a personal choice. I do the same when I see need. We should all be allowed to give out of that personal choice, not have money taken from us via the government to fund others.

I have a nephew who is scamming the govt (legally) for all he can as well. He has a kid and never married his girlfriend because they get more money by being single. They moved in with his Mother and Father so have no real need for rent but they get their share and sock it away!

steve

We need to have a safety net. We also need to make sure it is not a snare, holding people back from improving their lots in life.

Totally agree.
How do you incentivize and provide assistance at the same time, effectively? (Which means both reducing fraud and increasing the numbers who move off assistance.)
More importantly, how do you break the generational cycle of poverty?

The second, through access to good quality education, and good decent health care. The first... is more difficult. I don't think there's any approach that is ever wholly successful. Thats why focussing on the second is perhaps vital.
You may never rescue the parents, but the young, given a fair start, can improve their lot.
There wil always be the poor. But given and education and health children born poor needn't stay poor.

rickyp wrote:steve

We need to have a safety net. We also need to make sure it is not a snare, holding people back from improving their lots in life.

Totally agree.
How do you incentivize and provide assistance at the same time, effectively? (Which means both reducing fraud and increasing the numbers who move off assistance.)
More importantly, how do you break the generational cycle of poverty?

Give them two years on welfare if not disabled. Rolls will be reduced, and the cycle will be broken.

Next! Now serving number 17! Number 17!

Doctor Fate wrote:
In some cases, it would impact costs very little. Let me give you an example, one of the more common forms of welfare fraud is for a woman to claim she is not getting child support. If the father is a "deadbeat," the State often makes up the difference and goes after the father. Fine, right?

However, sometimes the mothers lie. They are getting the support and, in effect, getting it twice--from the government AND the father. So, do they go after the mother for filing a false report? Nope. Generally, they won't even make her pay the money back.

Sure thing, the obvious and easy to detect fraud should be checked for, i would assume that it has a pretty good cost/benefit ratio if you add especially if you add the preventive aspect. However at some point the cost of fraud detection will just outpace any gain you make in prevention or decreased welfare payments and then it becomes kind of stupid.

Doctor Fate wrote:Fact is if you have a system of wellfare you have people who will abuse it, same way you have people who don't pay their taxes.

Doctor Fate wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:True, but the sad truth is that we have a system that too often disincentivizes work. If you start making money beyond a minimal threshold, they cut your welfare. The goal should be to encourage people to improve their lot, not to make them dependent upon the slave. That is the problem with government housing.

I'm not disagreeing. Welfare should help people get their act together and start over. However it seems it's not easy to construct it in an unexploitable way. If you continue paying part of welfare if people take low paying jobs, it disinsentivises employers to increase wages etc ...

GMTom wrote:what is the cost for incarcerating a crook?
who cares? Do we let them walk free because it isn't worth it?

Of course you do if it's of no use to incarcerate him. This is a bit of a different discussion, but of course the fact that the US incarcerates a bigger number of people for longer terms than any other western country would merit some close scrutiny, especially in times were money is tight.
Is it truly effective ? Could the same be done with less money ?

[quote="GMTom"
So let murderers walk free as well, after all, the person is already dead and sending them to prison saves us nothing more. I'm sure he didn't mean it????[/quote]

Yes Tom, every crook is a murderer and of course i want them to run wild,

green

Give them two years on welfare if not disabled

You really think people enjoy living on welfare? There are lots of people, employed for decades, who've been out of work for two years. Why do you think its easy for someone staring at the end of welfare to suddenly find a job? In a tough employment market, they have the least job skills and talents.
SImply putting a two year limit on the dole doesn't put a two year limit on poverty.

For many people on welfare, single mothers for instance, all the loss of welfare would do is break up a family - forcing the parent to give her children to the state and live on the street...

RickyP,
I don't know what you do for a living, but I see this sort of stuff EVERY DAY at work. I deal with people on Gov't assistance all the time.

Are there people who lose a job and find another in less than 2 years? Plenty of them. What makes them different than those who stay on Welfare for their entire lifetime?

Is it the government's job to provide EVERY need for anyone who asks? If not, what is the Government's duty, and provide the supporting law that says what the government's responsibility is.

green

Are there people who lose a job and find another in less than 2 years? Plenty of them. What makes them different than those who stay on Welfare for their entire lifetime?

I suspect there are significant differences.
But decreeing that welfare is only going to last two years is unlikely to uniformly change category B into category A.

green

Is it the government's job to provide EVERY need for anyone who asks? If not, what is the Government's duty, and provide the supporting law that says what the government's responsibility is

I'll answer this generally and not specifically about the US.
It is not the governments responsibility to provide every need.
I'd say that the government should provide a level of medical care and access to education for those who academically qualify. Otherwise society owes protection to children born to poor families in order to provide them an opportunity to change their generations fortunes.
For the ongoing poor... subsistence with an ongoing opportunity to climb out of subsistence living if they apply. And as Steve pointed out that's the difficult task. Rewarding those on welfare who make the effort to improve their lot. Current welfare laws in many jurisdiction actually punish those who make the effort.
Why subsistence you ask? Why not just toss them on the street to beg? Because once society has improved the lot of most, we improve society as a whole by improving the lot of the poorest.
There are substantive rewards for that effort. Crime rates decrease. Disease and illness is lessened throughout the whole populace. A labour force is available to respond to elastic demand. (Which enables companies to respond to market demands. ) And costs of incarcerating and policing go down. Often costs to infrastructure maintenance go down. (Public transit is often abused by the homeless)
In some case, its easier to attract outside investors and tourists...
There may be more.
The point is, we don't provide for the poorest simply out of a sense of Charity, but because there are rewards to society as a whole.

rickyp wrote:green

Are there people who lose a job and find another in less than 2 years? Plenty of them. What makes them different than those who stay on Welfare for their entire lifetime?

I suspect there are significant differences.
But decreeing that welfare is only going to last two years is unlikely to uniformly change category B into category A.

Recognizing there may be differences between those on welfare and unemployment, I think this story tells us something about the nature of government assistance and the reflexive response to it:

Denmark has long held the title of the best place on earth to be laid off. With an expensive, generous welfare state, and the world’s most lavish unemployment insurance scheme, virtually no one falls through the cracks upon losing a job.

But the government unveiled an unpleasant surprise in June, when it halved the country’s whopping four-year unemployment benefits period to help mend its finances after the financial crisis.

The reason: Danish studies show that the longer a person goes without a job, the harder it is to find work. Many people get a job within the first three months of entering the system, but many more wait until just before benefits expire to take anything available.

“So you need to have a period of unemployment that is as short as possible,” Claus Hjort Frederiksen, the finance minister, told me recently in Copenhagen.

Read the story. It might make a capitalist out of all but the most socialist reader. It seems handouts with an expiration date actually provide motivation.

rickyp wrote:I'll answer this generally and not specifically about the US.
It is not the governments responsibility to provide every need.
I'd say that the government should provide a level of medical care and access to education for those who academically qualify. Otherwise society owes protection to children born to poor families in order to provide them an opportunity to change their generations fortunes.
For the ongoing poor... subsistence with an ongoing opportunity to climb out of subsistence living if they apply. And as Steve pointed out that's the difficult task. Rewarding those on welfare who make the effort to improve their lot. Current welfare laws in many jurisdiction actually punish those who make the effort.

A government runs on rules. I am all for the government ensuring that nobody is prohibited from anything based upon a protected class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class

To give benefits to some is discriminatory. If the government gives a subsidy to a family to go swimming in the public pool based upon financial need, should everyone get that same stipend? Same with welfare. If some get welfare based upon financial need, then all should be allowed to get it. This conundrum can be solved if you show me where the US Federal Government allows discrimination based upon financial need.

That is fair. To say that a family cannot swim in above pool because of the color of skin is reprehensible and discriminatory. I would be strongly against that.

I think skin color does matter at the public pool. People with farmer's tans and their shirts off should be disallowed, charged extra, or something.

Laid-off Danes who have worked 52 weeks over the previous three years are eligible to receive 90% of their average earnings for up to four years. In some states in the US the unemployment benefit is about 27% of past wages.

Now thats a pretty substantial benefit in Denmark, and to me excessive, benefit. However it doesn't seem to actually attract that many Danes to it...
The unemployment rate in denmark is about 4% So how big is their problem? Not very.

http://tradingeconomics.com/Economics/U ... symbol=DKK

Besdies Steve. We're talking about welfare rates in the States.... How much does someone get on welfare in your town?