The State Board of Elections Earns Great Reviews

[Wakeforest22890]

To me, there is nothing unreasonable about using the very achievable responsibility of providing food for your family ($7.00 per day, per person) as a baseline responsibility so the kids can see that their family is responsible, capable and functional. Kids won't see a housing subsidy, or single payer health care, they'd never understand it at the young ages I'm concerned about. But every kid is going to eat and watch his family eat, and if the worst thing that happens is that one of their parents leaves the house to go to work and brings homes $30.00 bucks a day so their family can eat, then that child will see an example worth emulating. IDGAS about the $30.00, I care about kids growing up thinking that "Our (read: lesser) family eats what the government tells us we can eat. Food money comes from the mailbox."

Remind me, what is the harm from the child witnessing the habit of the expectation of work? Why does that position draw such ire? What's the worst that happens if people start working entry level jobs?

They can't get the a job and with no help they have no money and live in extreme poverty.

 

[Deacon923]

Again, your position is that as we've increased the entitlements (from the Great Society forward), and single parent homes have exploded over the same span, it's all a coincidence. We should totally look away from personal responsibility and role of hard work. It's not like food stamps are the only form of entitlements (and you know that, but it doesn't help your distortion and dilution case to include these other forms of entitlements...no, not at all).

Actually, several of the statistics I cited looked at the whole basket of welfare expenditure, not just food stamps.

Your position, as best I can tell, is that the only thing that changed in this country between 1950 and now was welfare (actually, aid to single mothers started in 1935) and that this is wholly, singly, and inarguably responsible for single family households. My position is that it is a lot more complicated than that, and like most things in a gigantic complicated economy full of human beings, flipping one switch is unlikely to make a meaningful difference. My other position is that it is better for kids to eat than not to eat if we want them to have a chance of escaping from the poverty they were born into, by no fault of their own. Research shows that simply being in poverty makes it harder to learn in school and perform basic functional tasks. I am coming to believe that the best way to get people out of poverty is to simply give them money.

It must be reassuring to tell yourself that if only we could turn off the welfare switch, all our poverty problems would be solved.

 

[Deacon923]

To me, there is nothing unreasonable about using the very achievable responsibility of providing food for your family ($7.00 per day, per person) as a baseline responsibility so the kids can see that their family is responsible, capable and functional. Kids won't see a housing subsidy, or single payer health care, they'd never understand it at the young ages I'm concerned about. But every kid is going to eat and watch his family eat, and if the worst thing that happens is that one of their parents leaves the house to go to work and brings homes $30.00 bucks a day so their family can eat, then that child will see an example worth emulating. IDGAS about the $30.00, I care about kids growing up thinking that "Our (read: lesser) family eats what the government tells us we can eat. Food money comes from the mailbox."

Remind me, what is the harm from the child witnessing the habit of the expectation of work? Why does that position draw such ire? What's the worst that happens if people start working entry level jobs?

When the economy is healthy, we get down to less than 5% unemployment, even close to 3% which basically represents people voluntarily changing jobs (see, e.g., that time known as "the 90s"). So even in the presence of welfare, people work if there are jobs. This is proven by recent experience. Right now, there are over 3 people looking for work for every available job, and that doesn't count the "shadow" unemployed who have dropped out of the labor force.

Now if you want to make a case that government policies other than welfare, such as the minimum wage, Obamacare, ERISA, OSHA, etc. etc. are removing jobs from our economy by making employers outsource and automate, I'll listen to you. But the argument that the existence of welfare causes people not to work and not to support their kids does not stand up to even casual scrutiny.

Back to you, Jim.

 

[ConnorEl]

Still waiting for some evidence that any state does NOT look to absent fathers to support their children.

 

[ConnorEl]

Man. Somehow this thread seems to need now merging with the "Banana Republic" one. Not sure where to post the following...

Anyhow, the Pubs are here to save the day...

Ruth Marcus on a food fight over food stamps

Quote:
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For all the chest-thumping about the importance of work, another piece of the Republican proposal would make it harder for working families to qualify for food stamps if their gross income or assets are slightly above the cutoff but they have additional expenses, such as child care, or assets, such as a car they need to get to work. Aren't these people we want to encourage to hold jobs -- and to help feed their families?

Thankfully, the House Republican plan will not become law, but it sets an audacious new starting point for Senate negotiations. And it offers a disturbing glimpse of the stingy, punitive mindset of a radical majority, more intent on finding phantom slackers than serv-ing the known needy.
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[WFFaithful]

http://www.christianitytoday.com/wo...lue-in-fight-over-food-stamps.html?paging=off

 

[Ball State Deac]

How has the fact that the SBE has un-screwed local decisions gone on 5 pages?

 

[ConnorEl]

Oh, we've gone far afield.