The bottom lines for welfare, in my opinion (and there's very little in the below article that doesn't back that up):
1. There probably are some folks who, despite the safeguards built into these programs, game the system to some degree. That says nothing about the people for whom programs like TANF are critical.
So the question is, is it better for the innocent to suffer so that no guilty person gets away with it? Or is it better to allow a few guilty folks through so that the innocent are protected?
2. If there were more jobs, and better-paying jobs, there would be a lot less need for welfare programs. The reverse (if there were no welfare programs there would be more and better-paying jobs) is not nearly so well demonstrated.
3. I can understand the frustration over people gaming the system, and the cognitive dissonance with the idea that, in the world's richest nation (etc.) we could possibly have poor, needy people who cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
But it seems to me that the steady torrent of vitriol against welfare — from Reagan's "Welfare Queen" myth to more recent instances — must be driven by something more than that, esp. from the folks who actually bankroll such campaigns and politicians. So, to quote the old Roman legal maxim, Cui bono? Who benefits, who profits the most from dismantling the welfare state, from the resulting tax burden reduction to the resulting peonage-level working class pool to draw from? Or, at a minimum, from setting those who have against those who have not?
And, yeah, that's probably not an non-partisan way of looking at it, but those are the questions I ask myself.
Reshared post from +George Wiman
This article overlooks the biggest welfare recipients… Exxon, Bank Of America, farmers, churches… but hey, let's cut benefits for some working woman scraping by. That'll fix everything. (Read article before commenting)
What The Right Doesn’t Want You To Know About Welfare: 9 Myths Exploded –
Would anybody like to guess who makes up the single largest group on welfare? Children. One in every four children in the U.S. receives welfare benefits.
Your question under #1 delineates for me the distinction between right and left.
You goota love racist dog whistles in the morning, they sound like rich white republicans talking.
+Shannon Turlington It seems to apply to Welfare discussions, and it's certainly something that applies to Law & Order questions. "Left" and "Right" are broad categorizations, to be sure, and both groups have their authoritarian streaks and their strident proponents of nailing the guilty, even if some innocents suffer. My perception is that's more common among Conservatives, but it's not solely theirs.