Quote from Ricter:
Anyway, the recent surge in social safety net spending is not because there was a sudden degradation of character, but because of the recession. So there's little reason to believe those receiving it, who as Tsing pointed out include many worthwhile people (particularly now), will be voting merely to keep getting it.
This may surprise you since im a "ruthless blood sucking conservative" but i actually have no problem with welfare for the "GENUINELY NEEDY"
I do believe in giving help to those in need, infact i spend alot of time doing charity work. Here is the difference in our opinion. No able bodied person should be allowed to accept food stamps or welfare beyond a certain time period in my opinion, 3 months and thats it.
If someone is genuinely handicapped i have no problem paying for them, unfortunately we have turned it into a system of abuse whereby people simply think they should be able to quit work and get money.
On top of that the system doesnt work at all the way it was supposed to. I will give you a couple example from employment insurance though they are both examples from Canada im sure they both apply.
My sister is a hair dresser and a couple years ago she broke her ankle skiing and she had to have two plates put into her ankle, and couldnt walk for 4 months. So she had been paying into employment insurance through the government her whole life and she thought it would be no problem, by the time she had finished working her way through all the red tape with the government she ended up recieving 1 cheque for 450 bucks a week before she was able to go back to work(which was supposed to compensate about 15k of lost work), meanwhile she pays 150 dollars a month, every single month actually thinking that this is an insurance program that will take care of her in her time of need.
Another example, once again this is a canadian one, i know a guy who is a carpenter who builds decks and fences and does all kinds of outside carpentry, every single year once it snows, he applies for employment insurance and he gets paid by the government out all through the winter while he works cash jobs so he can hold onto the cash money from the government.
The other day he came up to me and said "I will never vote for Harper again, he wants to limit employment insurance so i cant get it in the winter, i pay my taxes so i deserve this"
I asked him "If every single person was to pay 3000 dollars of taxes in the summer then take out 15k every winter how would that system survive?"
He didnt seem to understand the point, all he said was that he paid for it......
The fact of the matter is the days of these programs legitimatelely helping the people they were designed to help are long gone, and for the most part the only people left are the ones willing to abuse the system, the people who are willing to abuse the system always figure out a way, and the people who legitamately need it stays the same. Why is it that the people who need disability has gone up in multiples? are we really to believe that all of a sudden we are producing an exponentially higher number of disabled people?