Scrapping Welfare

[DarkLight]

We’d need a coherent system that would take care of everyone. Right now I’d say what we have is a confused mess, and there’s a lot of gaps.

• One big one is that very many people are working and on welfare. A significant proportion of retail and fast food workers are on welfare, working full time or more hours. So trying to encourage work won’t address the portion of the population is working, but whose wages do not meet the needs of the family.
• The medical system has in many ways created a preference for staying on welfare rather than investing money in people who could potentially work with medical help. Because of the lack of interest in investing money in healthcare, it pushes people onto disability who could be assisted to work.
• Frankly, given point one, that is going to be demotivating for a lot of people. Many poor don’t really have hope of working up to a comfortable life; they see the option as between welfare and long hours at a minimum wage job (that enriches corporate executives). The lack of perception that getting a job will lead to any improvement in life leads to demotivation.

 

[blackforest]

Out of curiosity, what would you replace it with?

Charity?

 

[Maximilian75]

The proto-welfare law was the Elizabethan Poor Law in about 1601, and was the replacement for the services previously provided by monasteries that were closed up in England during the last half of the 16th Century.

The Church has and should stand in the breach, along with private charity.

IMO, it’s not the government’s role to provide welfare.

 

[edwest211]

WW III.? I was there during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even then I knew my odds of survival were zero, so I didn’t worry about it then and I don’t now.

 

[Cruciferi]

I will survive and pick up the pieces…

 

[QContinuum]

Business is not always an evil, greedy, monster.

Business is fine. Knock yourself out. Just don’t pick from my pocket to pay the cost of building your lemonade stand.

I don’t care how popular your lemonade makes our street - it’s still theft.

 

[guanophore]

Giving people money doesn’t deter criminal activity, and not providing welfare does not necessarily increase the likelihood that a person will resort to criminal activity.

I agree. What reduces desperation is meeting people’s needs and finding a life worth living. Neither of these necessarily involve giving money. In fact, I would assert that the opposite is true. Resources do not need to come in monetary form, and people are better served sometimes when they do not.

You can’t just take away what people rely upon for survival just because you disapprove of lazy people and dependency on the system.

True, but the system can be reformed so that people get their needs met without supporting laziness and dependency.

Sometimes the nature of the market place really does have some people at a disadvantage.

In fact, the largest percentage of the population (seniors) now have the greatest disadvantage. Although it is illegal to discriminate based on age, it happens every day, everywhere. Seniors are working in fast food now, because it is all they can get.

There were similar thoughts then that cutting back and establishing time limited benefits would be a catastrophe. Really didn’t happen.

Perhaps you are not acquainted with the people who experienced catastrophe as a result?

I could be completely wrong, who knows. I know this will never happen

Don’t be so sure. @Cruciferi may have the primary concern (world war), which would cause it to happen. Yellowstone is also due for an eruption, which could have the same effect.

What is fruitful is discussing how to improve the current system and place limitations that prevent people from simply relying on welfare as a crutch

Actually I think the opposite is true. Public support SHOULD be a “crutch”. There should be an expectation that it is temporary, and that the recipient will return to become a productive member of society, who can support others while they are on “crutches”. What we need is reform to prevent it from becoming a way of life.

 

[Cruciferi]

Don’t be so sure. @Cruciferi may have the primary concern (world war), which would cause it to happen. Yellowstone is also due for an eruption, which could have the same effect.

Truer words have not been spoken. Well, at least not on CAF

 

[guanophore]

how to revitalize a culture that is stagnating under the weight of its reliance on government handouts

Of course I think the solution to this is Catholic faith! This is one of the outcomes of conversion and evangelization.

2 Thessalonians 3:10" For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat."

Everyone needs a spiritual motivation to work (in my opinion).

How do we fix a society that is so fundamentally broken that it believes it is entitled to what other people have earned?

Honestly, I don’t think we can. what we CAN do is bring Christ to the world, so that people learn humility and service to the greater good.

It is not “society” that believes this, but certain persons who have been reared in a deficient environment.

What I take issue with is this attitude I’ve observed where people believe that it is their right to take money from other people to support themselves.

This is just people who are carnal, living in the flesh. Greed and entitlement are signs of an unregenerate soul.

over the life of the stadium, (25 years or more) will realize far more than it invested.

This is good to know, but why can’t the gov’t get paid back, as is the case with student loans?

Emotions are fine, it doesn’t seem fair to some, but cities put up those stadiums because of the revenue it will receive from them.

I understand, but should not the taxpayers benefit first?

Not unless we came up with a better solution that still feeds and houses the poor. The new program would need to be fully developed and ready to implement BEFORE our current system was ended.

For that reason reforms are more practical.

 

[guanophore]

The problem is there is no reports of millions of people starving to death or reports of there being no unemployment…So there must have been a safety net for them.

What “unemployed” stats do not capture is those who have fallen off the rolls because they timed out. They may not have been able to find a job while their benefits existed, so they ran out of aid, but are still not employed. “Unemployment” stats only count those who are eligible for benefits.

they decide to stop everyone’s employment benefits permanently. So that’s six million people with no means of survival.

Exactly! I was one who was “retrained” in the early 90’s and was able to get back into the work force but most of the 400 laid off from the company where I was working did not.

What do you think is going to happen in that scenario? Do you think that 6 million people are just going to quietly starve to death? Do you think that the Catholic Church is going to be able to keep a roof over their heads, pay their gas and electric, feed their families, and pay for their kids education and medical bills? Or shall we go with the more likely scenario of Civil Unrest.

No, history has proven that this is not the case with the majority. Most will return to vocational training, change careers, and join the ranks of the “underemployed” (below their ability and actual earning power).

. I think most of us would rather that the government took the responsibility of providing a safety net rather than leave it to the whim of the individual.

I agree with you, but fundamentally, the duty of caring for the poor belongs to the Church. As it happens, Christian morality has so permeated the West that England began to take on this duty when the CC was ejected from England. Puritans brought this morality with them when they came to America. This was not necessary, of course, as the Native here were already accustomed to supporting members of their communities that were unable to, in turn, support the community.

TheLittleLady:

Dems? It is usually the Red dudes I see hollering about SSDI going to lazy folks

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Business is fine. Knock yourself out. Just don’t pick from my pocket to pay the cost of building your lemonade stand.

I don’t care how popular your lemonade makes our street - it’s still theft.

I think you are saying that you are not in favor of corporate bailouts?

 

[Cruciferi]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Yellowstone Ash Simulations…

 

[QContinuum]

I think you are saying that you are not in favor of corporate bailouts?

Glad we understand one another.

 

[abucs]

As a Catholic do you support scrapping welfare in America? I mean completely removing it.

By welfare in America I assume you mean government welfare.

My answer would be no but I would oppose associated ideologies that see government welfare in terms of ‘equality justice’ and a main way of doing one’s religion.

When that happens I think we informally change our religion.

I would prefer for there to be more acknowledgement and respect for those creating wealth and for an acknowledgement that more voluntary non government aspects of welfare have the greatest role to play.

But should government welfare be scrapped - no, not in its entirety. It does have a role to play but there should always be a thinking on transferring it to more voluntary non government institutions where possible.

 

[semper_catholicus]

Yeah. Welfare just keeps people poor usually. It’s basically socialist.

 

[Augustinian]

If this is the case, doesn’t it contradict the notion of the Protestant work ethic?

Not really as the “protestant work ethic” wasn’t conceived of until the dawn of the 20th Century and was offered as explanation for the relative wealth of largely Protestant northern and western Europe as opposed to the east and south Catholic lands and the relative wealth of America vs. Latin America. It was never an ethic to live by, but just a hypothesis

 

[Axsenex]

I’m sure there is a such thing as Avarice Anonymous.

 

[adgloriam]

charity isn’t obligatory.

And I though charity is a commandment given by Jesus Christ.

 

[TheOldColonel]

Let us scrap the need for welfare.

 

[TheOldColonel]

My underground bunker is complete. Is yours?

 

[Theo520]

As a Catholic do you support scrapping welfare in America? I mean completely removing it.

Nope since there is no replacement in most communities,
the role of churches has greatly weakened over the past 50 yrs.