The Poor & Poverty: Is the Right right?

[Foxfyre]

The "Right" i.e. true Conservatives are usually the most generous in charitable giving of all sociopolitical groups, so it is incorrect to say they 'don't care about the poor' or 'we should forget about the poor.'

The bottom line for many conservatives is that charity should be a local concern, hands on, one on one, or from the heart. The government is positively the worst mechanism to manage charity as it is too big, too inefficient, too expensive--it syphons off as much as 2/3rds or more of every dollar it receives--and when the federal government is in the business of charity it is corrupting for both those in government and the beneficiaries of the charity.

So the question should not be whether 'the right' thinks we should forget about the poor. The question should be: "How does the right think the poor are best taken care of?"

Just caveat or two. Most conservative giving is support for their local religious institution, which may or may not reach out to the soup kitchen poor. Very little of that kind of charity, ie church building fund, has any real effect on alleviating the worst indignities of poverty and most religious organizations are dead set against the primary way out of poverty, the ability of a woman to have absolute control over family size without forced celibacy.

Second, the most expensive form of charity is the intensive individual approach. The absolute inability of local concerns to address the issue of the poor and the hideously expensive methods of foundling homes for their children and poor houses for the adults to clear the rabble from the streets is the very reason the federal government got involved to begin with. It is much cheaper to feed with food stamps and house in Sec 8 than it is to institutionalize those that can't find enough work or a wage to sustain them. Unless we are willing to radically change our building and residential codes.

Now, if it was up to me, I would just require sterilization of both parents to acquire benefits. This would contribute greatly to a reduction in the cost of programs. When they can afford the reversal, they won't need the programs anymore.

I have to disagree with this. Catholic Charities, the Boy and Girls Ranch organizatins, etc. etc. etc. all operate mostly without any government funding and do wonderful work with disadvantaged and orphaned children. Look at ANY soup kitchen or homeless shelter or thrift shops/food pantries etc. that are actually helping hundreds and hundreds of people each and you find those 'inefficient?' religious organizations running them or staffing them with volunteers. The only ones that are actually helping people are run through the churches or other religious groups OR handled by the local government. It is also those 'inefficient' religious who are also running most of the charity hospitals and clinics and legal services and Meals on Wheels and orphanages around the world and getting to the inner regions of disaster zones and allieving suffering and need in leper colonies and I could go on and on and on.

It is NOT cheaper for the federal or even most state governments to do these things when most of the available dollars taken from the taxpayer are swallowed up by the bureaucracy before any direct funding gets to anybody who needs it.

 

[snjmom]

The "Right" i.e. true Conservatives are usually the most generous in charitable giving of all sociopolitical groups, so it is incorrect to say they 'don't care about the poor' or 'we should forget about the poor.'

The bottom line for many conservatives is that charity should be a local concern, hands on, one on one, or from the heart. The government is positively the worst mechanism to manage charity as it is too big, too inefficient, too expensive--it syphons off as much as 2/3rds or more of every dollar it receives--and when the federal government is in the business of charity it is corrupting for both those in government and the beneficiaries of the charity.

So the question should not be whether 'the right' thinks we should forget about the poor. The question should be: "How does the right think the poor are best taken care of?"

Just caveat or two. Most conservative giving is support for their local religious institution, which may or may not reach out to the soup kitchen poor. Very little of that kind of charity, ie church building fund, has any real effect on alleviating the worst indignities of poverty and most religious organizations are dead set against the primary way out of poverty, the ability of a woman to have absolute control over family size without forced celibacy.

Second, the most expensive form of charity is the intensive individual approach. The absolute inability of local concerns to address the issue of the poor and the hideously expensive methods of foundling homes for their children and poor houses for the adults to clear the rabble from the streets is the very reason the federal government got involved to begin with. It is much cheaper to feed with food stamps and house in Sec 8 than it is to institutionalize those that can't find enough work or a wage to sustain them. Unless we are willing to radically change our building and residential codes.

Now, if it was up to me, I would just require sterilization of both parents to acquire benefits. This would contribute greatly to a reduction in the cost of programs. When they can afford the reversal, they won't need the programs anymore.

I have to disagree with this. Catholic Charities, the Boy and Girls Ranch organizatins, etc. etc. etc. all operate mostly without any government funding and do wonderful work with disadvantaged and orphaned children. Look at ANY soup kitchen or homeless shelter or thrift shops/food pantries etc. that are actually helping hundreds and hundreds of people each and you find those 'inefficient?' religious organizations running them or staffing them with volunteers. The only ones that are actually helping people are run through the churches or other religious groups OR handled by the local government. It is also those 'inefficient' religious who are also running most of the charity hospitals and clinics and legal services and Meals on Wheels and orphanages around the world and getting to the inner regions of disaster zones and allieving suffering and need in leper colonies and I could go on and on and on.

It is NOT cheaper for the federal or even most state governments to do these things when most of the available dollars taken from the taxpayer are swallowed up by the bureaucracy before any direct funding gets to anybody who needs it.

Catholic Charities USA gets 65% of it's funding from government sources. source that hates government charity

Catholic Charities offers housing counseling.

The government offers public housing.

Catholic Charities will refer me to Medicaid.

It's not even in the same ballpark.

And Granny, when I'm paying for the babies, I get the final say so. When the woman is paying for them, she can have as many as she wants.

 

[editec]

What would happen to the poor and rich in America if we eliminated all social programs tomorrow? Would it end up costing us more, or less?

Anarchy in most of our cities would be my guess.

Followed by something looking very much like that police state that BOTH the far right and far left very much fear.

Now there's really only 4,000,000 people, mostly women and children, on WELFARE, but there's about 40,000,000 on FOOD STAMPS and HEAP who would ALSO be immediately affected.

Then too there's the millions of aged living in government subsidized housing who'd be turned out, too

A rather huge percentage that of 40M (who are working but not making enough) are likely depending on the food and heating assistence so they can continue to pay rent and other utilities, so it also seems likely that in rather short time we'd see the number of homeless grow exponentially, too.

And of course if there's 40 million living on these welfare programs, there's got to be another 40 million people whose incomes depend on providing that food that the government is buying and that oil that the government is buying for them.

If they have no customers (or just not enough now that the government isn't paying for their customersO they too are likely to end up going down, too.

So off hand I'd say that if we eliminated all the WELFARE in this nation we'd likely see about 40% of the population effected dramatically within a few months.

Plus, I suspect that the whole damned society would suffer as the ripple effect of that money no longer going into the economy every month worked its way through the economy.

I think it's probably not pushing it much to say that at least 150,000,000 people would be in rather dire straits within a year of such an event.

And , FWIW, most of the people who suffer are NOT welfare recipients, either.

They just happen to live near, or have livelihoods which directly or indirectly benefit from the fact that 40,000,000 Americans are getting some kind of social services.

 

[The Rabbi]

What would happen to the poor and rich in America if we eliminated all social programs tomorrow? Would it end up costing us more, or less?

Anarchy in most of our cities would be my guess.

Followed by something looking very much like that police state that BOTH the far right and far left very much fear.

Now there's really only 4,000,000 people, mostly women and children, on WELFARE, but there's about 40,000,000 on FOOD STAMPS and HEAP who would ALSO be immediately affected.

Then too there's the millions of aged living in government subsidized housing who'd be turned out, too

A rather huge percentage that of 40M (who are working but not making enough) are likely depending on the food and heating assistence so they can continue to pay rent and other utilities, so it also seems likely that in rather short time we'd see the number of homeless grow exponentially, too.

And of course if there's 40 million living on these welfare programs, there's got to be another 40 million people whose incomes depend on providing that food that the government is buying and that oil that the government is buying for them.

If they have no customers (or just not enough now that the government isn't paying for their customersO they too are likely to end up going down, too.

So off hand I'd say that if we eliminated all the WELFARE in this nation we'd likely see about 40% of the population effected dramatically within a few months.

Plus, I suspect that the whole damned society would suffer as the ripple effect of that money no longer going into the economy every month worked its way through the economy.

I think it's probably not pushing it much to say that at least 150,000,000 people would be in rather dire straits within a year of such an event.

And , FWIW, most of the people who suffer are NOT welfare recipients, either.

They just happen to live near, or have livelihoods which directly or indirectly benefit from the fact that 40,000,000 Americans are getting some kind of social services.

Again revealing the Leftist fear and mistrust of fellow citizens. U.S. citizens are really just animals below the surface, requiring the government to buy them off with benefits.
The conservative position is that people are basically good and moral and will do the right thing given proper incentives. End social services and you will see neighborhood groups sprout up to take up any real need. People who have been sucking off the government will be too embarassed to do that to neighbors and friends.