Reforming Welfare

[pillars]

By welfare, do you mean housing subsidies, food stamps, disability payments, or temporary assistance for needy families?

 

[pillars]

welfare used to have limits to people with children and a limit of years you could be on it
..until they did away that to where anyone and everyone could get it

reform it now, good luck

we have too many dependents on it...

Welfare still has limits on the number of years that you can receive it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/u...ift-as-recession-hit.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[Asclepias]

Welfare is necessary in a capitalistic society. Capitalistic societies need consumers. If you have a consumer mindset you feed the machine. if you have a producer mindset you get rich. Since the majority of the US are consumers invariably some will fall off the ladder due to perceived lack of opportunity, lack of knowledge, racism, laziness and finally the inability to produce.

 

[Flopper]

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

Been there and done that; we reformed Welfare in 1996 and we don't need to do it again. Since enactment of the Welfare Reform Act, the role of the federal government in public assistance has become limited to overall goal-setting and setting performance rewards and penalties. The act turned over primary responsibility for administering the welfare system to the states.

The states receive block grants from the federal government and can decide how the money is to be spent. The states create and enforce most of rules regarding welfare programs. They can eliminate optional programs and can decide on the size of the benefits. Thus, welfare programs vary widely from state to state and even from county to county in some states. The average state cost sharing is a bit less than 50%.

The results have been dramatically good or bad depending on your point of view. According to the independent Brookings Institute, the nationwide welfare caseload declined about 60 percent between 1994 and 2004, and the percentage of U.S. children on welfare is now lower than it has been since at least 1970.

Welfare Reform in the United States Requires Welfare Recipients to Go to Work

 

[Flopper]

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

Such a concept would be enormously complex whenever someone moved to another location (having an entirely different set of rules) and be completely insolvent because the poor tend to congregate in poor towns. When everyone there is poor there certainly is not going to be sufficient tax revenues to support welfare payments to the same.

Personally I think that welfare need a complete overhaul. There should be one welfare program or a small handful at worst case rather than over 70 as we currently have. They should also concentrate on getting people off it rather than perpetuate welfare. More work training and programs and less monetary. More education. Whenever possible, welfare should cover the goods directly as WIC does.

Welfare programs vary greatly from state to state, in amount of benefits, rules and enforcement, and even the existence of some programs. It's not uncommon now for people to move to neighboring states to take advantage of programs or benefits not offered in their state. This was the case with autism some years ago. Some states offer practically nothing and other states offered generous benefits. Hopefully that has changed.

 

[Flopper]

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

Ah Corvus...this is one of those ideas that sounds good...until u think about it. Welfare disbursements, including food stamps and Medicaid services are based on centralized data banks, and transferring them to local venues would not only fragment salient data but would be costly and inefficient, since counties and towns have variable abilities to deal with complex info...especially in rural areas.


Sent from my iPhone using USMessageBoard.com

I believe that if the data were made available to cities, the data would not prove a problem.

However, you make an excellent point concerning rural areas. I had not considered that. Considering most of my family lives in places without neighbors for miles, and as such I spend a lot of time in rural areas, I should have thought of that. Hmmmmmm.

Actually, if you read my OP, I mention perhaps giving control to county level governments. Although I originally said that in reference to areas that fell just outside of city limits, a county controlled welfare system would allow for the local gov't to reach rural areas and cities alike.

I believe all states have centralized data banks. There are over 75,000 state social service workers, 4,000 in California alone that administer social programs. In addition most large counties also have departments of social services. I don't think information sharing within states are a problem. However, sharing information between states can be problematic because the federal government maintains mostly summarized data.

 

[Flopper]

welfare used to have limits to people with children and a limit of years you could be on it
..until they did away that to where anyone and everyone could get it

reform it now, good luck

we have too many dependents on it...

The Welfare Reform Act of of 1996 established limits. Most recipients are required to find jobs within two years of first receiving welfare payment and are allowed to receive welfare payments for a total of no more than five years.

 

[FA_Q2]

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

Such a concept would be enormously complex whenever someone moved to another location (having an entirely different set of rules) and be completely insolvent because the poor tend to congregate in poor towns. When everyone there is poor there certainly is not going to be sufficient tax revenues to support welfare payments to the same.

Personally I think that welfare need a complete overhaul. There should be one welfare program or a small handful at worst case rather than over 70 as we currently have. They should also concentrate on getting people off it rather than perpetuate welfare. More work training and programs and less monetary. More education. Whenever possible, welfare should cover the goods directly as WIC does.

Welfare programs vary greatly from state to state, in amount of benefits, rules and enforcement, and even the existence of some programs. It's not uncommon now for people to move to neighboring states to take advantage of programs or benefits not offered in their state. This was the case with autism some years ago. Some states offer practically nothing and other states offered generous benefits. Hopefully that has changed.

However the programs are still essentially federal. The localities do the actual administering of the programs but the fact that the money is block granted puts a large amount of power in the federal government’s hands. I was more commenting on the OP and the impression that I got – he wants the feds to have nothing to do with welfare at all.

Further, most people do not refer to welfare as a single program. I see it (and I think most people agree) as any program where the recipient has not paid for the benefits. IOW, SNAP, Medicade and TANF are ‘welfare’ programs where SS and Medicare are not. Under that guise, various welfare programs are not limited and are run by the federal government. Of course this makes a discussion on the topic rather difficult as there are a thousand different rules and sources for the various welfare programs out there.

 

[Flopper]

Such a concept would be enormously complex whenever someone moved to another location (having an entirely different set of rules) and be completely insolvent because the poor tend to congregate in poor towns. When everyone there is poor there certainly is not going to be sufficient tax revenues to support welfare payments to the same.

Personally I think that welfare need a complete overhaul. There should be one welfare program or a small handful at worst case rather than over 70 as we currently have. They should also concentrate on getting people off it rather than perpetuate welfare. More work training and programs and less monetary. More education. Whenever possible, welfare should cover the goods directly as WIC does.

Welfare programs vary greatly from state to state, in amount of benefits, rules and enforcement, and even the existence of some programs. It's not uncommon now for people to move to neighboring states to take advantage of programs or benefits not offered in their state. This was the case with autism some years ago. Some states offer practically nothing and other states offered generous benefits. Hopefully that has changed.

However the programs are still essentially federal. The localities do the actual administering of the programs but the fact that the money is block granted puts a large amount of power in the federal government’s hands. I was more commenting on the OP and the impression that I got – he wants the feds to have nothing to do with welfare at all.

Further, most people do not refer to welfare as a single program. I see it (and I think most people agree) as any program where the recipient has not paid for the benefits. IOW, SNAP, Medicade and TANF are ‘welfare’ programs where SS and Medicare are not. Under that guise, various welfare programs are not limited and are run by the federal government. Of course this makes a discussion on the topic rather difficult as there are a thousand different rules and sources for the various welfare programs out there.

There are probably no federal programs that have been more misunderstood than welfare programs. Since Welfare Reform, there are really very few federal rules related to the programs. Most of the rules are limitations on benefits, maximum length time benefits can last, and reporting requirements. Rules with regard to the amount of the participation in some programs, benefits and eligibility is left to the states. So when someone complains about generous welfare benefits, those complaints are aimed at the federal government when they should be directed to the state for it is the states that determine eligibility and benefits and enforce the rules. For example, TANF and AFDC in Mississippi is one fifth what it is in California and half what it is in Florida.

In regard to welfare programs, many of these programs are optional; that is state or local government can say no. For example the Free and Reduce Lunch Program is voluntary. No school is required to participate and some districts don't. States have broad discretion to determine eligibility for TANF and benefits and services. TANF in some states is very generous and others it provides practically nothing.

Conservatives give the impression that the states are just dying to rid themselves of the federal government yet nothing could be further from the truth. The states want those federal dollars plus they want the federal government as a scapegoat.

 

[HackinJack]

o.k.

 

[CorvusRexus]

o.k.

To what?

 

[kylelavito]

i dont believe that usa should pay for medical care

 

[Flopper]

i dont believe that usa should pay for medical care

So you think hospitals and clinics should be run by volunteers?

 

[emilynghiem]

Heard Ben Carson on the radio, talking about the microeconomics system for which Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Prize, and applying this toward sustainable help instead of handouts that create dependence.

Normally, it's the liberal progressives who talk about microlending and the Greens/labor activists are the only ones I know actively teaching and setting up independent currency based on labor on a sustainable basis.

So here, if Carson and Obama can actually agree on microlending (which Obama mentioned in his Cairo speech and never brought this up again) maybe we can get somewhere instead of dividing and fighting for political points between hostile parties.

Another way I would suggest to get these reforms going
is to lend against the debts owed to taxpayers for govt and corporate abuses.
If we credit back the taxpayers for costs that were not authorized or ethical by govt
standards, and charge the costs of reimbursement back to the wrongdoers who profited at taxpayer expense, those credits could be used to finance the reforms needed.

Then I would invest in educational systems of training people professionally to provide the health and social work, so it covers educational loans, internships and licensed training at the same time as providing public service and supervised training to maximize resources.

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

 

[sameech]

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

Such a concept would be enormously complex whenever someone moved to another location (having an entirely different set of rules) and be completely insolvent because the poor tend to congregate in poor towns. When everyone there is poor there certainly is not going to be sufficient tax revenues to support welfare payments to the same.

Personally I think that welfare need a complete overhaul. There should be one welfare program or a small handful at worst case rather than over 70 as we currently have. They should also concentrate on getting people off it rather than perpetuate welfare. More work training and programs and less monetary. More education. Whenever possible, welfare should cover the goods directly as WIC does.

The practical solution is in the middle--allocate X number of dollars per state per person. Let the states decide what programs are most effective (basically block granting) for the conditions on the ground there. For instance, in Virginia, they could take the per capita receipts for all the wealthy/upper income people in the DC suburbs and reallocate it to the rural areas that are not nearly as densely populated if they so desired.

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

Such a concept would be enormously complex whenever someone moved to another location (having an entirely different set of rules) and be completely insolvent because the poor tend to congregate in poor towns. When everyone there is poor there certainly is not going to be sufficient tax revenues to support welfare payments to the same.

Personally I think that welfare need a complete overhaul. There should be one welfare program or a small handful at worst case rather than over 70 as we currently have. They should also concentrate on getting people off it rather than perpetuate welfare. More work training and programs and less monetary. More education. Whenever possible, welfare should cover the goods directly as WIC does.

The practical solution is in the middle--allocate X number of dollars per state per person. Let the states decide what programs are most effective (basically block granting) for the conditions on the ground there. For instance, in Virginia, they could take the per capita receipts for all the wealthy/upper income people in the DC suburbs and reallocate it to the rural areas that are not nearly as densely populated if they so desired.

I'm surprised at how reasonable this thread is for the most part. It's a wonderful change of pace!
No one is blaming apartheid in South Africa on minimum wage laws. You guys rock!

For the most part, I think these ideas sound reasonable. It's just a matter of details.
The devil is always in the details.

Let's start with some basic goals.

Basic goal: Provide a safety net for people who are either born to poverty or who fall on hard times.
Problems:

This safety net must continue to exist despite arguments against entitlements. This safety net will have to be tied to a moving standard like the poverty line, and much of it currently is. The minimum wage should also be tied to a moving standard like the poverty line because this will end the tiresome debates on increasing it to match inflation.​

We do have a subculture which now exists in this safety net seemingly in perpetuity. Does this mean that we provide no safety net? And what happens with problem cases that won't get out of the safety net? Is this what people mean when they say "welfare fraud"? Because that is not "welfare fraud", but rather a person with some severe psychological deficiency that we might characterize as lazy or ill.​

Basic goal: Get people off welfare and into productive careers. That's good for the GDP, good for reducing crime, good for everything and everyone.
Problems:

Not everyone can be employed fulltime, like the disabled.​

Many low-end jobs don't want one person for 40 hours, they want three people at 15 hours each. This reduces the possibility of overtime pay and eliminates any requirement to provide health care. That means a low-end worker who honestly wants to work full time needs to ride around and do three different jobs. I have no numbers to better illuminate this phenomenon. How frequently does this type of situation arise? Will eliminating basic worker protections like overtime pay and healthcare really be beneficial to the American people on the whole? It has not been, historically speaking, a good plan to actually reduce the standard of living of the American people as a whole.​

Basic goal: Reduce the complexity of the welfare system.
Well, yes. Let's just do that. Simply because we have this long history of legislation and simply because we have a do-nothing congress are not excuses for avoiding such a common sense reform. Congress is the source of the inertia. That's not the fault of people on welfare. That's the fault of this strange government we have now... inertial-ocracy? friction-archy? Blame whichever side you want, none of them are budging.

Basic goal: Centralize welfare authority, disbursement and eligibility

I think decentralizing the system is not a good idea given that this limits mobility. I'd like a more centralized system such that if a welfare recipient could be weened off welfare if given an opportunity in another state, then why not encourage the welfare recipient to move on to greener pastures?​

An argument exists that the system cannot be decentralized because a poor person in New York City has a higher cost of living than a poor person in Binghamton , New York.
So why should the poor person in New York City not move to Binghamton? No really, I'm asking. Is living in the Big Apple on the government dole a right?​

 

[Peach]

Why do people obsess over welfare? Why not obsess over jobs moving overseas? Or corporations (money) controlling elections? Or business keeping money hidden overseas? Or the import of foreign automobiles made by union workers who have socialized medicine and embargo American cars? Or why nothing is made in America? Or closing factories in America and moving them to cheap? Or poor wages that make life hard and hardly trickle down wealth? Should I go on?

And as far as the biblical shaming of people in need why not bring back the Old Testament religion with stoning and death for all wrong doers? We could bring back stocks and for she who sinned by losing a job exported to China have her locked in for a few days. That'll teach em.

Quote from p24 'Assault on the Middle Class' in 'The Betrayal of the American Dream' authors, Barlett and Steele.

"Yet by 2011, the Chinese had taken over the market: by then, more than 50 percent of the solar photovoltaic panels installed in America were made by Chinese companies. Chinese solar imports jumped from $21.3 million in 2005 to $2.65 billion in 2011.

What happened? In the last decade, the Chinese government set out to capture the market for manufacturing solar panels. It pumped the equivalent of billions of dollars into the country's nascent solar industry in low-cost loans, subsidies to buy land, discounts for water and power, tax exemptions, and export grants. Government aid to subsidize an export industry is illegal under global trading rules, but the Chinese forged ahead and soon cornered the world market on solar photovoltaic panels. China's exports of solar cells and panels to the United States rose a phenomenal 350 percent in just three years, from 2008 to 2010.

As massive volumes of Chinese government-supported solar cells and panels surged into the United States, prices in the domestic market collapsed. The Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing, in an October 2011 trade action, explained the consequences:

The resulting price collapse has had a devastating impact on the U.S. solar cell and panel industry, resulting in shutdowns, layoffs, and bankruptcies throughout the country. Over the past eighteen months, seven solar plants shutdown or downsized, eliminating thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs in Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania." Excerpt page 234, 'The Betrayal of the American Dream' Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele

"Pam Sexton, a market researcher and engineer with two college degrees, described her version of the American dream like this: "The American dream is that you can work hard and be rewarded for your hard work. You'll be able to have a home and family and prosper and have medical care and nor have to worry about expenses and bills. This is a country of opportunity." But Pam, along with thousands of others, lost her telecommunications job in 2009, and the dream died: "I feel like the last few years that's all disintegrated or evaporated." It is a refrain we've heard across the country." Ms Sexton lost her job because ATT shipped it to India. p246 'The Betrayal of the American Dream' Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele

That is a concern to me also; welfare properly spent goes into the US economy. Harsh punishments for welfare cheating will help resolve the problems. I do know of a few people of adequate income (actually more) that BUY food stamp cards, and a few that CLAIM they pay welfare recipents "under the table" for work, at below minimum, or usual, wages. Cut abuse by all individuals that participate in fraud, and impose tough sanctions. That will help clean things up. But that takes trained goverment workers, and will cost more than recovered, in the BEGINNING.

 

[Flopper]

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

Such a concept would be enormously complex whenever someone moved to another location (having an entirely different set of rules) and be completely insolvent because the poor tend to congregate in poor towns. When everyone there is poor there certainly is not going to be sufficient tax revenues to support welfare payments to the same.

Personally I think that welfare need a complete overhaul. There should be one welfare program or a small handful at worst case rather than over 70 as we currently have. They should also concentrate on getting people off it rather than perpetuate welfare. More work training and programs and less monetary. More education. Whenever possible, welfare should cover the goods directly as WIC does.

The practical solution is in the middle--allocate X number of dollars per state per person. Let the states decide what programs are most effective (basically block granting) for the conditions on the ground there. For instance, in Virginia, they could take the per capita receipts for all the wealthy/upper income people in the DC suburbs and reallocate it to the rural areas that are not nearly as densely populated if they so desired.

I don't think block grants would make much difference in how the money is spent. Welfare programs are run by the states with the states paying nearly 50% of the total cost. Most eligibility requirements are established by the states so the states have quite a bit of control on where the money goes.

 

[FA_Q2]

There is no debate necessary: welfare is a system that needs cleaning one way or another. I believe one way it should be reformed is to transfer control of welfare to city or county level governments. It is of my opinion that each individual city/county would be better equipped to deal with welfare fraud than the Federal Government, hundreds of miles away. In order to pay for that, the government could put cities in charge of certain taxes, at least enough to cover the added expenses of funding welfare. In addition, anyone found guilty of welfare fraud would be banned from receiving it- for life.
Will anyone refute my claims?

Such a concept would be enormously complex whenever someone moved to another location (having an entirely different set of rules) and be completely insolvent because the poor tend to congregate in poor towns. When everyone there is poor there certainly is not going to be sufficient tax revenues to support welfare payments to the same.

Personally I think that welfare need a complete overhaul. There should be one welfare program or a small handful at worst case rather than over 70 as we currently have. They should also concentrate on getting people off it rather than perpetuate welfare. More work training and programs and less monetary. More education. Whenever possible, welfare should cover the goods directly as WIC does.

The practical solution is in the middle--allocate X number of dollars per state per person. Let the states decide what programs are most effective (basically block granting) for the conditions on the ground there. For instance, in Virginia, they could take the per capita receipts for all the wealthy/upper income people in the DC suburbs and reallocate it to the rural areas that are not nearly as densely populated if they so desired.

For me, block granting is NEVER a solution. That is something that completely destroys the power of the state and transfers it to the federal government. If we are allocating x dollars per person and taxing x dollars per person the real and practical solution is simply to have that state tax those dollars and collect rather than the federal government.

It seems asinine that the feds tax monies from state residents and then return those same monies back to the state – take out the middle men.

 

[Steven_R]

The welfare system as it exists today falls somewhere between politicians buying votes with taxpayer monies to being a danegeld. We're never going to get rid of the safety net, and I don't think we should, but for far too many it has becomes the proverbial hammock.

You want rid of welfare, then make two changes to the system and you'll see people drop. 1) It requires some kind of work to get a check. Pick up trash, paint over graffiti, count hairs on a caterpillar, time just how long it takes paint to dry, something besides sitting at home. 2) Suspension of voting rights while on the dole.