Welfare

Johnson's "War on Poverty" added welfare: paying people to not work or get married, and have/keep kids out of wedlock.

Johnson's "War on Poverty" added welfare: paying people to not work or get married, and have/keep kids out of wedlock. Oh and it punished people that tried to get off of the dole. Shocker of shockers, you get what you incentivize, and welfare got more people to not work, have kids out of wedlock, and it hurt the kids, families, and society at large.

ℹ️ Info

~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2019-07-01

Having done social work, it was not uncommon to hear teenage girls talking about how they were going to get knocked up to get that govt. paycheck and get out of the house from irresponsible mom's and their abusive boyfriends.

Of course the Mom's had stopped rating their partners by their ability and willingness to provide and create a stable home: they already had the check from Uncle Sam.

All those that bought into the idea that they could have a free ride, if they just had kids they can't pay for, learned too late that the lure was better than the reality, and the programs made it hard (impossible) to get out of.

Once trapped in programs hard to get out of, the dependency class resented the masses for not giving more, and the masses resented them back for being irresponsible: it drove the wedge between the classes far deeper and divided us more than ever before.

Poverty, single parenthood, gangs and crime went UP tearing the fabric of society, despite trillions of dollars poured into it. But the important part is the left won the votes of the gullible (like Chickens voting for Colonel Sanders).

Examples[edit | edit source]

Bill Clinton and Welfare - Bill Clinton fought against Welfare reform (including means testing, and time limits). Leftist sources predicted blight and ruination for all the poor souls dependent on welfare. Instead, many got off, and things got better. So Obama did his best to reverse the gains and increase the dependency class.
Income inequality - The left pretends that we're getting poorer by ignoring that our Real GDP has doubled. Our grandparents didn't have cellphones, gene-therapy for cancer, had one car, 3 generations lived in 900 sq. ft. homes, they didn't take as many vacations, the rest of the war wrecked globe wasn't competing with us (yet), and social programs and taxes/regulations hadn't driven up the costs of everything.
Military industrial complex - Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about iron triangles (government conspiring with politicians and special interests to work against the public), and coined the term "the Military Industrial Complex". The military has fallen to 1/4th the spending while Poverty Industrial Complex has grown 8x (far larger that military spending). The warning still applies, the biggest threat has changed.
New Jersey and the Economist - The Economist ran an oft quoted FakeNews story that blue states subsidize red states (via taxes/benefits). They did it by ignoring borrowing, compliance costs, and other inefficiencies. What it really showed is that if you spend $2.63 (in taxes, debt, etc) you get $.60 in purchasing power back, and some will see the $.60 (ignore what it cost) and think they're coming out ahead.
Poverty - We have the richest poor in the world. Having done a fair amount of social work (and being in many "poor people's" homes on cases). Many of our poor struggle over issues like whether they should drop their cable TV or go out a few times a week less. While much of the rest of the world's poor is struggling with buying shoes or getting up to 2 meals a day.
Poverty cause - There's of course no single causes for poverty, but there are a few really strong causes that could be addressed: Single Parenthood, Welfare, Education, Culture. Trying to admit those problems, and address them, and empower individuals with the authority and responsibility to better themselves, would help more than all the hand-outs and free money.
SNAP Challenge - Obama got more American on Food Stamps (SNAP) than any other President in history. The next step is claiming how sub-par the system is. So the left tried to get people to take the challenge and live on that budget ($132/month). It ignores that professional mooches are getting private charties, school lunches, and that the system wasn't designed to be 100% of food budget.
There are no American Poor - When you compare the U.S.'s poor to the rest of the world, they're middle class or rich. That's not to say they don't have it worse than other Americans, or that we shouldn't help. But the global median income is $2,920. A full-time minimum wage worker would be ≈5 times that amount, not counting all the subsidies and social safety nets value.
Welfare destroyed the Black Family - Since Johnson's "war on poverty", black babies born to single mom's rose from 24% to 72% (it also tripled for whites from 3% to 10%). Single moms are 90% of TANF recipients, 81% of homeless families are single mom's, only 40% have full time jobs. Income for single mother families is only one third the median for married couple families. (20% receive welfare and 40% receive food at the federal level, more at the state and local). Paying Women to help raise their kids encouraged more women to have more kids without husbands and live as dependents on the state. And we got more poverty, crime, and morally rudderless humans as a result.
Welfare trap - One of the problems is that there's traps to hold folks down. When a single mom is better off with a $29K a year job (on Welfare) than making $69K a year, you know welfare is a trap. The system as designed by the left to reward failure and punish those trying to climb out. And they will attack anyone that tries to fix that.

Poverty[edit source]

Main article: Poverty

We have the richest poor in the world. Having done a fair amount of social work (and being in many "poor people's" homes on cases). Many of our poor struggle over issues like whether they should drop their cable TV or go out a few times a week less. While much of the rest of the world's poor is struggling with buying shoes or getting up to 2 meals a day.