Welfare and Poverty

[barfbag]

Allow churches to provide welfare services because it doesn't matter how the money is raised.
Minor mothers must live at home and identify the fathers for the sake of welfare determination.
Provide tax credits to promote home ownership in distressed areas.
Provide tax incentives and vouchers against homelessness.
Maintain federal funding for Social Service Block Grants.
Maintain federal funding for TANF Block Grants.
More federal funding for low-income energy assistance.
Expand enterprise zones.
Require work of 20 hours each week to receive welfare benefits.



My first point is that it shouldn't matter how we raise money for the poor or where the poor get their money. If you were a homeless person who received a service or gift of money would you turn it down simply because it comes from a church? When minors are pregnant, I believe it should be required by law to identify the father in order to determine how much support from the state she really needs. If the father turns out to be a doctor in his 40's for example, then he should be the one providing child support as opposed to the tax payers for example. Home ownership can always be encouraged especially in distressed areas and my plan is to give tax credits to those who buy homes in distressed areas. Also, providing vouchers and tax incentives for home buyers fights homelessness by encouraging home ownership as opposed to the streets. Those who are poor shouldn't starve as I've stated about food stamps and I wouldn't be completely against the state governments providing some energy assistance to be used towards electricity for those in poverty. As for Social Services and TANF, the federal and state governments should share in the costs of these programs. In order to prevent welfare fraud and mooching off of the tax payers, welfare recipients should be required to work at least 20 hours a week. I feel my proposal to fight poverty to be a happy medium between parties.

[Redalgo]

Deliver a basic income to every individual without strings attached - the sizes of these payouts fixed to bare minimum cost of living estimates from one state, county, or municipality to the next. Subsequently abolish TANF, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc. Allow lower tiers of government to design and implement their own welfare policies as they want provided the basic incomes are in no manner reduced, means-tested, withheld, or converted into non-cash forms of payment.

Abolish corporate and payroll taxes, require all businesses operating within the U.S. to become either worker cooperatives or sole proprietorships (criminalizing corporations and partnerships), establish a social insurance scheme for health care and mental health services, increase income taxes across the board, constitutionally guarantee citizens primary and secondary education as well as access to electricity and communications technologies, offer public debit card services, transfer all land and economic capital to the People, and then provide terms by which individuals may (conditionally) claim properties to exclusively control and manipulate within the bounds of law.

I am also partial to reviewing policies in search of ways to cut through red tape, promote efficiency and competition in markets with minimial state intervention, diminish the hassles associated with regulatory compliance, and to delegate most rule-making responsibilities at businesses from bulky government bureaucracies to the workers of each respective firm.

[Person Man]

Allow churches to provide welfare services because it doesn't matter how the money is raised.
Minor mothers must live at home and identify the fathers for the sake of welfare determination.
Provide tax credits to promote home ownership in distressed areas.
Provide tax incentives and vouchers against homelessness.
Maintain federal funding for Social Service Block Grants.
Maintain federal funding for TANF Block Grants.
More federal funding for low-income energy assistance.
Expand enterprise zones.
Require work of 20 hours each week to receive welfare benefits.



My first point is that it shouldn't matter how we raise money for the poor or where the poor get their money. If you were a homeless person who received a service or gift of money would you turn it down simply because it comes from a church? When minors are pregnant, I believe it should be required by law to identify the father in order to determine how much support from the state she really needs. If the father turns out to be a doctor in his 40's, he should be in prison for example, then he should be the one providing child support as opposed to the tax payers for example. Home ownership can always be encouraged especially in distressed areas and my plan is to give tax credits to those who buy homes in distressed areas. Also, providing vouchers and tax incentives for home buyers fights homelessness by encouraging home ownership as opposed to the streets. Those who are poor shouldn't starve as I've stated about food stamps and I wouldn't be completely against the state governments providing some energy assistance to be used towards electricity for those in poverty. As for Social Services and TANF, the federal and state governments should share in the costs of these programs. In order to prevent welfare fraud and mooching off of the tax payers, welfare recipients should be required to work at least 20 hours a week. I feel my proposal to fight poverty to be a happy medium between parties.

[barfbag]

Deliver a basic income to every individual without strings attached - the sizes of these payouts fixed to bare minimum cost of living estimates from one state, county, or municipality to the next. Subsequently abolish TANF, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc. Allow lower tiers of government to design and implement their own welfare policies as they want provided the basic incomes are in no manner reduced, means-tested, withheld, or converted into non-cash forms of payment.

Abolish corporate and payroll taxes, require all businesses operating within the U.S. to become either worker cooperatives or sole proprietorships (criminalizing corporations and partnerships), establish a social insurance scheme for health care and mental health services, increase income taxes across the board, constitutionally guarantee citizens primary and secondary education as well as access to electricity and communications technologies, offer public debit card services, transfer all land and economic capital to the People, and then provide terms by which individuals may (conditionally) claim properties to exclusively control and manipulate within the bounds of law.

I am also partial to reviewing policies in search of ways to cut through red tape, promote efficiency and competition in markets with minimial state intervention, diminish the hassles associated with regulatory compliance, and to delegate most rule-making responsibilities at businesses from bulky government bureaucracies to the workers of each respective firm.

I'm ok with leaving social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps to the states. They'd do a much better job at managing them in terms of spending anyways. A lot of right wingers would accuse you of socialism based on suggesting the government provide a livable income, but you know what? If all the government did was provide everyone with a livable income and abolished general welfare services, then our debt wouldn't be a tenth of what it is now. However, public education has already put us further in debt. The problem right now is that there aren't enough college degree jobs for every single person out there. If we're all professionals or highly paid, then who would work the smaller jobs? The perfect economy is balanced and in the perfect economy, not everyone does well. You're right about red tape. It has to go.

[barfbag]

Allow churches to provide welfare services because it doesn't matter how the money is raised.
Minor mothers must live at home and identify the fathers for the sake of welfare determination.
Provide tax credits to promote home ownership in distressed areas.
Provide tax incentives and vouchers against homelessness.
Maintain federal funding for Social Service Block Grants.
Maintain federal funding for TANF Block Grants.
More federal funding for low-income energy assistance.
Expand enterprise zones.
Require work of 20 hours each week to receive welfare benefits.



My first point is that it shouldn't matter how we raise money for the poor or where the poor get their money. If you were a homeless person who received a service or gift of money would you turn it down simply because it comes from a church? When minors are pregnant, I believe it should be required by law to identify the father in order to determine how much support from the state she really needs. If the father turns out to be a doctor in his 40's, he should be in prison for example, then he should be the one providing child support as opposed to the tax payers for example. Home ownership can always be encouraged especially in distressed areas and my plan is to give tax credits to those who buy homes in distressed areas. Also, providing vouchers and tax incentives for home buyers fights homelessness by encouraging home ownership as opposed to the streets. Those who are poor shouldn't starve as I've stated about food stamps and I wouldn't be completely against the state governments providing some energy assistance to be used towards electricity for those in poverty. As for Social Services and TANF, the federal and state governments should share in the costs of these programs. In order to prevent welfare fraud and mooching off of the tax payers, welfare recipients should be required to work at least 20 hours a week. I feel my proposal to fight poverty to be a happy medium between parties.

Ok the doctor was a bad example, but I would like to see a requirement to identify the father in order to ensure whether or not government assistance is the best option. I'm sure we'd all agree that the fathers should be providing monetary assistance as opposed to the U.S. government. Families first!

[Redalgo]

I'm ok with leaving social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps to the states. They'd do a much better job at managing them in terms of spending anyways. A lot of right wingers would accuse you of socialism based on suggesting the government provide a livable income, but you know what? If all the government did was provide everyone with a livable income and abolished general welfare services, then our debt wouldn't be a tenth of what it is now. However, public education has already put us further in debt. The problem right now is that there aren't enough college degree jobs for every single person out there. If we're all professionals or highly paid, then who would work the smaller jobs? The perfect economy is balanced and in the perfect economy, not everyone does well. You're right about red tape. It has to go.

Ya - the liberal welfare regime's strategy for providing targeted, often means-tested aid to the poor seems pretty inefficient to me in terms of how much good each taxpayer dollar is able to achieve for the recipients of state benefits, and it also concerns me in that by giving aid specifically to one segment of the population or another that it runs the risk of bringing attention to and fostering class divides rather than building solidarity and perhaps helping us as a people arrive at a point where ones socioeconomic status has very little (if anything at all) to do with whether one is financially rich, relatively poor, or somewhere betwixt the two.

Aside from that, right wingers would be correct in their description. My previous post included what I consider a transition to market socialism in its prescription for combating poverty. On the other hand, the basic income scheme is also preferred by some capitalist libertarians who still believe there should be some form of guaranteed assistance for those in need.

[barfbag]

There should be assistance for those in need. No one should have to starve. I'd like to see foreclosed homes be turned into poor houses actually. There's a lot of room for fraud with welfare programs but it's better than nothing. I know a guy who sells his food stamps so he can be marijuana.