Welfare and Putting People First
Welfare: Putting People First
1. Why do Americans want to “end the welfare system…to help, but in ways that work, not that wreck people”?
Americans believe that “welfare feeds bureaucracies and the middle class, not poor people.” They also feel that it rewards behavior that life would punish. People on welfare are “wrecked” rather than helped because they aren’t helped morally and have no responsibility when simply given money. Basically, Americans want to help in ways that work, not that wreck people, because obviously something that works is better than something that wrecks. As Sandy says “they wanted to teach people how to fish and not give them fish for the rest of their lives.” I say, why not smack them across the faces with the fish?
2. Why should we emulate the efforts of early social workers?
Early social workers felt that care and compassion was very important when dealing with the poverty stricken. According to the author, the feared “correctly, that its ‘feed and forget’ programs would crowd out and diminish private charity.” Private welfare efforts were also supposedly much more successful. “Early social workers had no qualms about making moral demands of those they helped.”
3. Why should we permanently freeze all means-tested welfare spending, and what should be done with the money saved by doing so?
This article says we should freeze all means-tested welfare because it is insane to continue to repeat the same thing over and over if it’s unsuccessful. The author recommends that we take the money saved from a welfare freeze and give all 100 million income tax filers a tax credit. The credit would let American’s take a credit for donations they made to groups that attempt to alleviate poverty that are largely unsupported by the government. This would generate something like a competition between the programs and they would develop “innovative approaches” to attract more tax credits.