Do you agree with welfare?

In concept? Sure. In current practice? Not even remotely.

I’m willing to pay a bit more so kids have food. And so their parents don’t steal my shit to buy food.

If you oppose welfare and the females right to choose you are a fuckwad.

Not everyone is as well-equipped to deal with reality as I am. I’m perfectly willing to give folks a helping hand, within reason. With every social project which aims to give people help, there will be those who abuse. I try not to think about that part too much, because the help it affords some folks, outweighs those who try to work the system.

I wish we were better at our social system of support here in the US. Europe and Canada have some good models.

Yes I do. Someone needs to feed children whose parents can’t for whatever reason.

yes, both for moral reasons, and for economic reasons. The moral ones are pretty familiar. The economic one is that investment in human capital actually pays a good return both directly and indirectly. Society collectively can help a lot more people efficiently than individuals can.

For properly scoping out those of the public which truly need versus the flipside, of it being leached and leading to poor self-sustainability and work incentive. Filtering the system would help with higher penalties for fraud.
Now does it hurt the economy detrimentally as opposition mounts with this idea in mind. I’d say yes in the perspective that its not capital being used to build a new fortune 500 company headquarters. In my opinion its all money that eventually gets recirculated back into the system which just pads the pockets of the super rich. Like 15% of the country holding close to 90% of wealth assets.

Current system – NO.

I do believe in helping those willing to help themselves. If you want help from the government, you better be going to school and getting passing grades, or working. If you can’t find work, the agency that provides your welfare check should have the right to put you to work doing whatever they want you to do, within your ability.

If you just want to sit in front of the Xbox or the HDTV, you don’t need my taxes paying for either.

I believe a society is as strong as its weakest citizens.

That being said, I am more in favor of better educational programs, from vocational training, through free or nearly free university educations for those who qualify. College should be harder to get into, and free if you do. We need landscapers, chefs, draftsmen, healthcare workers, tradespeople, artisans, bureaucrats, interior decorators, etc. Not all of these occupations “need” a four year degree. There should be more opportunities to create an employable citizen base. Working people mean more people paying into the tax system.

Not the current system. I believe in the welfare system for emergency help, not as a lifestyle choice. I don’t get to choose to my pay taxes and so don’t believe others should be able to choose to be able to live off of my tax monies.

You got chopped up in a tractor and can’t work? Ok, there’s disability and welfare so you can be trained for something else until you can do something else. You got pregnant without the means to care for that child? Get welfare and school/training until you can do for yourself and your child. Welfare shouldn’t be a limitless drain with no accountability, commitment to the people supporting to give back by becoming independent.

I’m sorta on board with the concept, but not the implementation.

I agree with welfare as an idea, but I don’t think it can ever be practically implemented in society without a huge amount of inefficiency.

People who don’t make enough money to sustain should be given the means to sustain with little or no income. Efficient housing, simplified way of living, tutoring in gardening and other useful skills, along with basic medical treatment. A little money on top of that would be fine, but alone it’s not going to fix the underlying problems. People need to be a part of a community that cares if they are to be expected to care themselves. We have so many resources, yet so little goes to help people just live. Look at the average job and you’ll find that it’s not exactly necessary for the well-being of society. Why not just let the poor live how they want to? They aren’t stealing anything from us anymore than hurricanes steal from coastlines. They represent a problem that shouldn’t be ignored, but you can’t fix it by just throwing cash at them, or smoking them out into shitty jobs.

Healthy people contribute to their society naturally. Give the poor a secure environment and most will figure things out. Those that don’t will at least be content and not cause any problems for others. Welfare doesn’t do this as far as I can tell.

Yes. Welfare (and not the kind that requires women to work rather than take care of their infants) is critically important for people who are in trouble. One big important fact about welfare is that most individuals stay on less than two years. A third who need care for longer have very serious problems: mental, alcoholism, etc. that require other services that we (the richest society in the world?) should be able to provide. Another critical fact about welfare is that on average women have the exact same number of children as the population at largeI
It is not a haven for the lazy, it is a safety net for people in trouble. Yes, yes, yes I believe in welfare!

@Nullo :: I would love to hear how you would fix the problems.

@johnpowell No offense, but I honestly think that you really just want to try to rip my answer to pieces, and perhaps belittle me a bit in the process.

Very well. Let it never be said that McFly was chicken.

I would tighten restrictions, move to increase accountability and the penalties for abusing the system. I would restrict eligibility in manners similar to what was suggested in @WestRiverrat‘s post, perhaps with an added rule that would limit the amount of assistance rendered should the accountability measures indicate significant levels of welfare-queen trends. Per a variant on the my-house-my-rules philosophy, I would likely increase state monitoring. I might also require that the aid recipients work, in a reasonable capacity, for their welfare, especially in the cases of those with a history of defrauding the system.

Female’s “right to choose” is for before she gets undressed.

In certain circumstances, but I think a lot of people abuse the privelege and get away with it, and that’s wrong.

For the able bodied it should be a temporary aid until one takes a job (not necessarily one’s dream job) and is self supporting. It should have a time limit to insure this happens. It is not the responsibility of other workers (who are probably not in their dream jobs either) to financially provide for those who could work but choose not to.

In the case of those who are not able to provide for themselves, then a compassionate society does support as long as it is necessary.

Say what you will about welfare, but it got my brothers and I through a very rough period in our young lives when our parents separated. Now it looks like my brothers are all going to be doctors in a few years and will be paying back into the system through their taxes. A success story if I ever heard one.

In my opinion, the only bad kind of welfare is the one where children inherit the vast wealth of their parents and never have to work a day in their lives. All that does is consolidate money into the hands of the few and leave less “pieces of pie” out there for everyone else. But that’s another discussion entirely…