We have the mistaken notion that, the more that government does for us, the more freedom that we have. If government provides our food and our housing and our medical care, then we are more free to pursue that which we really want to pursue (rather than being tied down to a job we really do not like).
The problem with a safety net is, this affects the behavior of people and makes them less productive. Let me give you a few examples:
One family which rented a home from me, was a mother, her 20 year old daughter, and her daughter’s 2 children. Government provided them a safety net. Government paid for their housing and for their food. So, what was their job? Every morning, they got up around 10 or so, sat down on their couche, and watched TV for much of the day, while smoking cigarettes, that they were somehow able to pay for. Now, you would think that two adult women, home all day, would have raised some pretty good children, and kept the house clean. Not at all. When I was there doing this or that repair, the kids ran about unsupervised. I do not recall a time when either their mother or grandmother actually got with one of the kids and suggested an activity that they do together. When they moved out, this house was one of the grossest houses I ever took back. Roach feces were literally an inch thick on top of their kitchen cabinets. You cannot imagine the smell from such roach droppings. It took about 6 spraying to rid the home of roaches.
The government safety net gave these women a choice—they could go out into the world and find jobs, or, they could sit at home and watch TV; they chose the latter. Government programs where things are given away for free affect a person’s choices.
Another woman I recently met, who came to look at one of my houses for lease, had 3 children and was overweight by at least 40 lbs. It was obvious that she had not gone hungry for a long time. Since the government paid for her housing, she was now looking for government to pay for a nicer house than she lived in at this moment. There was no indication that this woman worked, but she was well-taken care of.
Let me offer up 2 general areas where behavior is affected. When a man fathers a child, while married or out of wedlock, if that child does not depend upon the father’s finances, it is more likely the child will grow up without this father in his life. The man will not marry or stay married to the mother of his child, if he knows that Uncle Sam will step in and take up the slack. Statistically, it can be shown that far more people are in jail or on drugs who have come from a single-parent home, as opposed of those who came from a home with 2 parents. It is a mistake to try to claim that prejudice or skin color plays some part in our criminal system, because, when single parenthood is removed from the equation, there is no longer a disparity between Blacks, whites and any other race in our criminal justice system. Since there are far more Black households parented by a single mother, there are far more Black criminals. All of this is a result of well-meaning legislation which takes care of single mothers—often for decades and sometimes for several generations.
Medicare, social security and retirements were designed to give a person a few years off at the end of their lives without having to work. What has happened with many retirees is, they retire anywhere from age 50 to 65, they live for another 20–40 years without working, and they take in far more resources than they put into the system. There have been times in our history where we could get away with this—primarily when people lived about 2 or 3 years into their retirement years. Now we have people who are retired for decades, and who are not producing anything. If you are older, if you are tired of working, and if government has things set up so that you can live for the next 10, 20 or 30 years without working, then, why not? If you have some savings, some assets, and the government is going to pay you a stipend and pay for your medical care, then why work?
There are helpless people in this world, and there are people who need a temporary hand up. I have no problem with this. We live in a very generous society (the most generous on earth), and for many years prior to social security, people were still taken care of. Given the prosperity that our nation has enjoyed, I suspect that, even without all of these various government benefits, even more people will be taken care of.
On the other hand, there are a huge number of people out there who are healthy, able to work, and produce nothing because government had provided them with a safety net. Every time that safety net gets larger, the population of these types also gets larger.
In short, that is the problem with the safety net concept. People are not static. They react, to some degree, to the government programs and provisions which are offered them. The more the government gives people for free, the less many people will do for themselves.
A retired math teacher who spends most of his time exegeting the Old Testament and, once a week, puts out an ezeen.
Good post again Gary. I made a comment a few days ago the mirrored your examples; though I lack the personal connection for direct anecdotes. The system actually has policies that have enticements for people like what you describe to remain on the dole and do nothing to provide themselves a more productive life.
As they try to earn more to make for a self-sustaining life, they start losing assistance in all sorts of areas… so it’s not only that their meager earnings don’t go as far, they go negative for awhile because they lose assistance. It’s perverse.
Once in a life of assistance, these folks make the pragmatic decision to remain on the dole. Why not? Everyone they know and live around are probably doing the same. And every time someone decides to climb up and out, they watch as they struggle and pay for things that the government give them for free. This makes the climber appear to be a… sucker.
I think this is why ( not an original thought of mine ) we have a whole class of people who are completely dependent on the Government and they may not be happy about it, but they’ve lost the reasons to overcome it absence personal ambition or pride.
We, who are upset about the Obama takeover and Big-Government liberals, have to persuade this class of takers, that their lot in our society is harmful to them and to our country and that their daily lives have to change. THAT will be a bitter pill to swallow and not an easy constituency to sway.. that they must start to work and pay their fare share, much less take from the rest of us.
Gary, great post. Very early in my career, I was an “eviction specialist.” At the end of the eviction process, we had to go into the dwelling (usually accompanied by sheriff’s deputies who gained access when the locks had been changed, and asked the occupants to move out to the sidewalk). Then we moved all of their furniture and personal property out to the curb. Then we changed the locks.
I could tell you so many horror stories about what I saw, cleaned up and hauled out. The worst were the “Section 8 housing” rentals, where the rent had been subsidized by the state’s Department of Public Aid. The best way to get rid of roaches is diatomaceous earth. This is just fossilized algae. You have to make sure that the children and household pets stay out of the property, but it kills roaches better than any poison.
The walls were yellow from cigarette smoke.
The worst case I saw was a public aid family that literally got too lazy to take out the garbage. They were in a split-level with a two-car garage. They actually chopped a hole in the upstairs hallway floor, and dropped bags of garbage into the two-car garage, parking their clunker cars out on the driveway. By the time we got a court order for eviction, we could smell the garbage as we drove up to the house. I hauled six pickup truckloads of garbage out of that garage.
You’re absolutely right. The nanny state will destroy individual initiative. I saw the results. They won’t even clean up after themselves.
It is these “helpful” programs (and many others like it) that have destroyed the poor, and primarily the Black family-unit. We see the results in the inner cities, where they are kept by those same libs in a cage, for the other libs to witness how much better libs are than the rest of us….Placated on the most addictive drug know to man…The handout.
The libs used them as tools for political purposes, and still the libs call us the “haters”.
Wow – spoken like people who have never had to collect help from the government. I am a single mother and faced with an impending layoff (again!) Let me begin by telling you that the amount of money given or food assistance give hardly begins to be enough. Not even close. Somehow this single mother of 5 did not qualify for cash assistance and the food assistance was for 248.00 for the 5 of us for a month. Wow – I think I’ll sit home on the couch watching TV. People truly sound ignorant when they do not know what they are talking about.
There is no way people can live on what they get. They have to be out looking for jobs. There are people who abuse everything. There are those people who genuinly need the help.
ASRDSB; You have 5 children and no husband. That cannot be considered the norm. You fall outside of what any government can be expected to provide for. You need help from the local community, the churches who can help lift you while you need a hand… and your family. That is what family is for.
Unfortunately, too many people will not reach out to family for help. They refuse the help of their local churches. Maybe no support exists where you live. This is where you need to look at where you live. Maybe there is no job there, but there is somewhere else. Maybe there is a church somewhere else that will help.
It comes down to this. I don’t know your situation. I hope you find work soon, but I can’t imagine how you could provide for 5 kids at home on your own. How can you afford child care? Your situation can’t be sustained without assistance. That sucks, but you are under the gun until your kids are old enough to get to work to help out or move out and reduce the burden on you.
All us heartless folks are saying… what I’m saying is… the Government system of support is largely putting people into situations where they are dependent on the Government. Instead of being dependent on a church or family. A church or family will eventually expect you to provide for yourself and/or give back. The Government rarely does.
I hope you get the temporary help you need financially and I hope you can find a new husband to help you provide a good home for you and your children.. not in childcare everyday while you try to dig out. A single mother with 5 kids, you are bearing a burden I cannot say I’m familiar with personally, but I hope you can separate my criticism of Government handouts and the perpetual underclass from your situation. Good luck.
a safety net makes a hell of a good hammock
ASRDSB and yippie21: Thanks for your responses. Obviously some public aid families are better than others; just as some blogs are better than others, and some political parties are better than others. Conducting one’s affairs responsibly while on public aid is largely a matter of personal honor and integrity. It sounds as though ASRDSB has that level of integrity. Yes, “there are people who abuse everything, and there are those who genuinely need the help.”
The least any public aid family can do is keep the house clean, care properly for the children (after all, that’s why the state gives these families money — to care for the children), and look hard for work. In addition to the horror stories, I’ve also been in Section 8 housing that was immaculate. Looking at these homes, you never would have known that they were Section 8 housing. They were as neat as a pin.
And they were looking for work with the same diligence that kept their homes neat as a pin.
ASRDSB, good luck with your search for work.
What we are concerned about is the families that aren’t like ASRDSB. Those families are weaker from an ethical perspective. They’re easily tempted into a life of leisure. When they start taking public aid, it will be like starting to take heroin. It will degrade them and ultimately destroy them, by destroying their self-reliance.
ASRDSB, perhaps you would like to explain why you are single with five children? Are they all by the same father? Were they born out of wedlock? Where is the help that the daddy of these children should be providing in the form of child support? At what point did you decide that you could support five children? At what point did you learn about birth control?
Your response is way to vague which leads me to believe that there is more to your story than you are telling. And I would suspect that the rest of the story would include some really bad decisions on your part, which you seem to now expect others to be responsible for while you complain how what you will be receiving, due to the taxation of your fellow Americans, is not enough.
Everytime the progressives of this nation try to sell us a package that is wrapped in ending “human suffering” or being “socially just”, it always winds up being a pig in a poke that was wrapped in dishonesty. Social Security is just one of those social programs that was sold to us based on lies. Anyone ever wonder why the age for retirement was set at 65? Because you were not supposed to live long enough to collect it. The average life span of a white male in 1935 was 58; 62 for a white woman and late 40’s for a black male. A white male would have to live 7 years beyond normal life expentancy in order to collect. Most black males never collected. But the lies used to sell a Ponzi scheme that would have put Bernie Madoff in jail (oh wait, he’s in jail for the same type of scam) has been touted at the greatest thing since sliced bread, although most middle income workers today will have to live to the age of 72 just to break even on what they have paid in.
I spent over a year in Mississippi after Katrina hit, living in an RV park, paying my own way, to volunteer to help those affected by the storm. The RV park was close to Purvis, MS. where the travel trailers where taken once they were no longer being used by the victims of Katrina. I cannot tell you the disgust this created in me for the people who had been given a “hand up” by the taxpayers.
The trailers were nasty, many of them missing the stoves, refridgerators, air conditioners, toilets and anything else that could be stolen. They were filthy, animal feces stains on all the carpeting, roach infested, and were reduced to basically land fill. It was not unusual to find trash stuffed in the closets.
People were given a place to live, and they destoyed those trailers. Yet, when I would visit those trailers while people were still living in them, to try to help them find permanent housing, large screen TV were the norn, not the exception. It was not unusual to see a home with a government installed blue tarp on the roof (a year after the storm) with a brand new Humvee, or other expensive vehicle, sitting in the drive way.
I stood it for a year, but could not handle it any longer. I was paying my own way, trying to be a good American helping fellow Americans, and I returned home to Texas vowing I would never donate another dime to any social welfare charity ever again, much less volunteer.
So ASRDSB, while your story is sad, I personally don’t give a damn. They are your children. Either you can support what you should be responsible for, or give them up for adoption. I do not owe you anything.
Gary,
MORE PEOPLE ON GOVERNMENT CHECKS=MORE VOTES
You know how it works in politics now. The more people you can get on welfare of any kind the more votes you can get if you promise them more money. Another way is to hire more Federal employees and promise them higher wages if they vote for you. We now have more Federal employees than ever, and this is during a recession.
They also have an OVERALL pay and benefit package about 40% higher than the equivalent civilian job. If you want to survive the recession, get on welfare or get a Federal job.
SOCIAL SECURITY
It should have been put in each person’s name like Galveston County TX did. They opted out of SS and some of their retirees who have worked there long enough are receiving more money now than they were when they were working, and it isn’t costing Galveston County anything. SS should have been done the same way and it wouldn’t be costing the USA anything, no matter how long the retirees lived.
retire05,
You reminded me of a welfare agency (I don’t remember where) that had a policy that for you to get welfare you had to take a job. Most of the recipients figured if they had to work anyway, they were going to get better jobs than what they had, and they got off welfare.
The welfare workers saw they would be loosing their jobs, so they sued, saying you can’t force people to get a job to get welfare, and they won. The agency should have started a policy of paying the welfare workers to sit at home watching TV if there weren’t any welfare recipients and the office closed.
Safety nets are good BUT only if they are temporary and have strings attached.
So unemployed? Sure here’s benefit but after say 3 months if the person cannot prove they have made a decent effort to find work and if they refuse certain jobs offered by the government – then cut the benefits completely.
Should be hand up not a hand out.
Amen, Guffa, amen.
One day a fellow employee asked me to deposit her check from work, plus her welfare check, and her alimony and child support check in the bank for her (we banked at the same place). (This woman made $12.00/wk more than me). I was working 2 jobs, had 3 children (all by my husband who ran off with another woman and refused to pay child support). Imagine my surprise when I went down to apply for assistance and was turned down because I made more than $200/mo which was max back then for a fam of 4 (this was in the early 70’s). I begged for help, but all I got was “Sorry”. I went back several other times pleading for assistance, and was turned away. I finally got mad and made the following statement:
“I will not name names at this time, but I work with a black woman who has 1 child, is being paid child support and alimony, who makes more money than I do at my job, and is also on welfare. Now, do I scream DISCRIMINATION so G Damn loud they hear me in Sacramento, or are you going to help me.” Immediately, the welfare worker grabbed my file, and said “Oh, you pay child care. Well, we can deduct that from what you make. Also, being as you drive to work, we can deduct mileage. On and on and on. I finally got some assistance until I was able to find a higher paying part time job (it took about 7 months). The point I am making is that if you are white and are trying to better yourself, you get no help from the government, but if you are black or mexican, you can milk the system dry and they will turn a blind eye to it. It needs to stop. The system should be there for a helping hand up, and NOT a 24 hour ATM to be used by those who are lazy and don’t want to work.
Sorry this is so long, but it is the only way I could explain what happened to me, and what is happening to a lot of people who just need a little help.
Madalyn
Madalyn, in the early 80’s I had a friend who had two children and a dead beat husband (there was no reciprocal agreement between Missouri and Texas on child support back then; there is now). This lady was an independent contractor who was making pretty good money and was wisely saving a good portion of it. But she got cancer, and had to have surgery. She spent a lot of her money on her medical bills and paid up her rent for six months in order not to worry about it, but she was left broke with no money for groceries or utilities.
She showed up at my house crying her heart out because she had gone to the welfare office (in Katy, Texas) to ask for help. They gave her an emergency voucher for $9.00 in groceries but told her that because her rent was paid, she was not eligible for any other help and suggested she seek help from the local churches. By this time, she was living in the dark with no electricity (as it had been cut off).
She had been also told by the welfare worker that there just wasn’t much help out there for “white” people and that the system was basically designed to help minorities. Well, you can imagine her shock at that statement. Nevermind that she is 7/8th Cherokee and has never played the “race” card.
So she got absolutely nothing but a $9.00 voucher. Her friends (her parents were dead by then) helped her through the tough times, not the federal government.
I will no longer donate to any charity. When they call now, I simply tell them that over half of Americans voted for Obama and from now on, they can ask Obama to help them out with the taxes I am required to pay.
well Gary at least YOU did Ok with having a nice Section 8 rental paying the mortgage. And Aid ForDependent Children (welfare) is a very small percent of the Federal Budget. Total Federal spending is about (in billions of dollars) 3,720. “welfare” for families is about 100 billion or less than 3% certainly you don’t want poor children STARVING to death, so how much would you like to see cut ? Is there abuse ? sure. Should we penalize kids ? I think not. Maybe you are suggesting increasing abortion ????????
@John
The ‘relative’ poor have responsibilities too – like getting a job, ensuring they don’t have so many children which they cannot afford etc. To use children as an excuse for the behaviour, irreponsibility and neglect of their parent is a poor one. That’s moral blackmail and only encourages the abuse. If children are in situations where they are in danger of starving or neglect – the government has a responsibility to take those kids off the parents – rather than shower the parents with money. Tough love.
I’m still waiting to hear back from ASRDSB for the “rest of the story”. Every time the subject comes up about welfare and handouts, the anecdotal sob stories get trotted out. You heartless bastards, how can you begin to think of disparaging the safety net society, when I’ve got 5 children, all from different fathers whom I don’t know their names or I’d be getting child support because I couldn’t keep my legs crossed, and don’t expect me to turn to my church ’cause I don’t believe in God, and I don’t have any relations I can turn to because I was a self centered brat that they disowned because I wouldn’t go to school and study and just because I disrespected my parents you shouldn’t hold that against me.
whew…. that was a mouth full and I’m sure I left out numerous other irresponsible behaviors.
I’ve lived a few years and I’ve noticed that those people that are responsible, try to do the right thing and occassionally fall on hard times are almost NEVER left without a hand up by someone. First line is their family, then their church, then their community. The only good that comes from government safety nets is the institutionalization of poverty.
I had no family in the area. I was in CA and my fam was in the mid west. I was so humiliated to be on welfare, I couldn’t wait to get off. I don’t give to charities anymore either. Shortly after my divorce, I was diagnosed with cancer. I called my ex and asked if he could take the 3 kids when I went into the hospital, and his response was “Those are your kids now, I have my own family to take care of”. Totally blew me away. Anyway, I had to wait from Sept (diagnosis) until Feb to have my surgery because I had to wait until my mom could take a leave of absense from her job to take care of my kids. My only other option was to put the kids in foster care (NO WAY!!). I was in intensive care for 2 weeks, then put in a private room for 2 weeks. The Dr said I could go home only if I had 24 care at home. I called visiting nurses (thru United Way) and they said it would cost me $75.00 per shift with 3 shifts per day. How in the world could I afford that, so my mom had to stay a total of 6 weeks until I was back on my feet. As bad as this sounds, I am still embarrasses to have been on welfare, but it was the only way my kids were able to eat and have a roof over their heads. That I am not ashamed of. My kids are my world.
It is the lazy parasites that suck off the government for generations that I am opposed to.
Madalyn
I’ve been a landlord 17 years. I’ve rented houses and apartments, to Section 8 tenants, college students and ordinary working people. I still rent to college students and ordinary working people but I withdrew from the Section 8 program. No more. Never again.
Picking tenants is a gamble – some fool you. But my experience has been that tenants who move into a place with nothing at risk have no personal committment to the place.
College students here on Daddy’s Dime are risky because they know they can bust up the place with impunity. Section 8 tenants who have no deposit are risky because they know they can leave the place squalid.
The best tenants have been college kids working their way through school or working stiffs who have a job to pay the rent. They are enormously more likely to treat my property with respect.
Of course there are outliers in any generalization. But I’m in a business where guessing wrong means I lose months of rent while I evict and repair, not to mention the cost of repairs and clean-up. The mortgage doesn’t stop during those months, it comes out of my pocket and that means my family doesn’t go on vacation this year, or delays the new car, or eats in more nights. So guessing right is critical to me and that means I play the odds.
Section 8 tenants – as a statistical group – have proven themselves too risky for me to consider. Nothing racial about it. Nothing discriminatory or hateful. Just plain risk.
.
John Ryan,
I have 2 small apartments in a poorer section of town, and one thing which is apparent in this part of town is, no one is starving. For the most part, people I have met who are on various kinds of welfare are overweight. Whether this is from eating junk or having no reason to get up and move about, I could not say. But, there are very few starving children.
It is also fascinating how these poor starving children are fed breakfast and lunch at schools, free to the parent, and yet, somehow, when they go home over the summer (fewer than 10% of students attend summer school), somehow, they do not starve.
Walk into a grocery store in a poor section of town at the end of May or early June, and what you will see, is many women buying 5 or 6 boxes of cereal.
Being raised a liberal, I had nothing against food stamps (or, a food stamp card); but now, about 10% of the people in the United States received food stamps. In schools, 50% and more (in some schools) get a free breakfast or lunch or one which is subsidized.
Maybe I am getting cranky in my old age, but if a parent will not feed his own child, he or she should have his children taken from him. I know the kind of work my father did in order to put food on the table, and it was hard and thankless. As a child, I took it for granted, of course. But in retrospect, I know that he endured a job that he hated for decades in order to take care of his family.
When someone takes on help from a church or from a private organization, they tend to get on the ball in order to find work, because private organizations are not going to pay your bills month after month after month. But, if it is the government, they will pay your bills and, if necessary, they will pay the bills of your children as well, for as long as you want.