From: coolidge@speaker.wpd.sgi.com (Don Coolidge)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.elections,alt.fan.dan-quayle,talk.politics.guns,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Welfare - The Truth Finally Revealed! was Re: DATELINE: Bush fucks up!
Keywords: Tree huggers, Bud-chugging-hairy-backed-red-necked-conservatives
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:39:50 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.

Brian,

While I agree with some of what you've said, I think you've swallowed a bit
too much Reagan/Bush party line on the subject of welfare. Welfare reform would
be a useful thing, but there just isn't anywhere near the level of abuse that
the rightwingers would have us believe. Last statisitics I read indicated that
something on the order of 65% or 75% of all welfare recipients were on the
dole for less than six months before they were back on their feet again.
That sounds pretty successful to me. Yes, there are abuses (as in any facet
of life), but they are in the tiny minority.

In article <1992Sep12.164039.10796@leela.cs.orst.edu>, mcbeeb@atlantis.CS.ORST.EDU (Brian Mcbee) writes:
|> I suspect it doesn't have anything to do with our education system (at least
|> not the simple way that you paint it above.)  From the poor girl's vantage
|> point, I'm sure she is making a rational decision.  Kids aren't as stupid
|> as adults sometimes make them out to be.  From our middle class vantage it
|> obviously looks like a *terrible* decision, but she doesn't see it from our
|> viewpoint.  She looks around her, and the most likely path to success she
|> sees for men is to become a hustler of some sort (drug dealer, pimp, etc)

In some inner-city neighborhoods, yes. Elsewhere, no.

|> and the path to success for women is to become a welfare mother.  She hasn't
|> been installed with the middle class values of responsibility to support 
|> herself, etc.  For her, there is essentially no downside to having a bunch
|> of kids and living off the welfare system.

Doesn't work. Do the math. You get less for each kid than it costs to feed,
clothe, and house him/her. Each additional kid puts the family deeper into
the hole. Like you said, the kids aren't stupid. They can do the math.
Moreover, they have eyes to see how deep a hole the so-called "welfare mothers"
find themselves in.

When a person on welfare has more kids, it has little or nothing to do with
getting a bigger check. Most likely it's rooted in a desire to be important
to somebody - God knows that they aren't important to politicians, especially
well-heeled Republican ones.

|> The only solution I can see is to get rid of publicly funded welfare and
|> let the private charities take care of those in need. 

Won't work. Charities are already doing as much as they can. The need is for
more help, not less. On the other hand, as Ebenezer Scrooge said,"...then 
perhaps they could all die and decrease the surplus population..." (No, 
that's a fictional character talking, not me.)

The cure for a needed program with problems is not the elimination of that
program, despite that being what Reagan's evil minions have tried to make
us believe for twelve years now. The cure is to make it *work*.

|> If the 13-15 year
|> old girl couldn't see how she was going to eat--she wouldn't get pregnant,
|> or she would likely abort it or give it up for adoption.
|> 
|> The modern welfare system, put into place for the very best of reasons, to
|> provide for those who were incapable of providing for themselves, has become
|> a very destructive force to the morals of the lower-classes.  Where a 
|> generation or two ago it was accepted among the poor that everyone had
|> the responsibility of self-support, that basic morality of our culture
|> has been dealt a terrible blow.

I disagree, except in a tiny and well-publicized minority of cases. Statistics
can lie, but these aren't.

Don Coolidge
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