MARK ANGELIDES
When a society tilts its balance from those who “support” and those who are “dependent”, there is very little turning back. The amount of taxation required to fund the “dependent class” becomes so high, that money leaves the economy either through inventive tax arrangements or a scaling back of operations to fall below a threshold.
Now that President Donald Trump has decided that the Welfare to Work waiver will be removed, States will be forced to encourage people back into the work environment. With work comes dignity and freedom of opportunity; so why are the Left pushing so hard against it?
To be very clear, the program involves asking Food Stamp recipients to either take a paid job that has over 20 hours per week, to engage in a work training scheme, or to volunteer for at least 24 hours per month. If the recipient will not choose one of these options, then eligibility for Food Stamps is withdrawn.
Already, the leftist media is rolling out tales of woe to try and win the emotional argument. They are using individual hard-luck (anecdotal) stories to encourage resistance against a full roll-out. But these are a distraction from the real facts. This policy will not impact anyone who:
- Is physically unable to work.
- Has children or elderly relatives that require care.
- Is elderly.
The only people this will affect are those that are able-bodied, living alone (or with a partner who is also capable of work), and in a real position to actually find a job. And here’s the rub, at the very worst, the recipient will need to do an hour of volunteer service a day (with weekends off) to continue receiving benefits.
If you are not excluded via the above exclusions, then the idea that you can’t manage an hour a day from Monday to Friday is an insult to those that are paying taxes to fund your Welfare. And what’s more, the program actually achieves what it sets out to.
In December 2014, in Maine, the local government chose not to renew its waiver of the Welfare to Work program. At the time, there were 13,332 people who were claiming Stamps and were not exempt from the program; by March, the number of claimants had dropped 80%! More than 9,000 people had decided (or coincidently happened) to either get a job or choose to not claim.
Clearly, there was some element of fraud involved, where people who were claiming perhaps already had a job and were using Food Stamps as an “income top-up”. Either way, people were in work. Therefore the program works!
So all that remains is the question: Why are the Left fighting this program? Is it because they would prefer people to stay poor and dependent on the State? Or is it because they want to create a societal division between those that pay and those that receive? Any government that does not put the interests of its citizens first is a bad government; we can see very well what type of government the present crop of Democrats would create.
