Everything Nac

Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer

     What can we do about the polarity we hear in the news and on talk radio concerning what to do about welfare and the high cost of the social net? We need a broader ranging historic analysis here…”every, all, and none” does not cut it.

     Many welfare recipients do feel a sense of entitlement, but if you will talk to them individually, most of them will say that the problem is that the only jobs they can get are only 200-400 dollars more a month increase over their benefits. They know that the system is keeping them afloat and in poverty at the same time. It is hard to justify the system as it stands, but merely yanking benefits and then kicking people to the curb will send millions into poverty they may never get out of for generations. Of course, that’s the cycle we are in right now!!!

     In almost every case, the real issue is education: how to phase out the system we have without throwing people under the bus, how to retrain whole families to take care of themselves, how to see these people as a part of the system. Liberals see the need to phase out and retrain; conservatives see the need to get these people working and off the government teat. You are both right, but end up fighting each other because it seems like an intractable extreme.

     It costs $100,000 a year to imprison someone. It costs $45,000 a year to train. Train for 3 years and then cut them off if they are capable of working. Welfare for life is absurd. Throwing a fellow American under the bus is cruel and unpatriotic. Not trying to help yourself when you could get up off your ass and help us all pay to make this country great is selfish and unacceptable. Not being willing to share what you have made off your American opportunity is equally selfish and self-serving. Should we make people help through taxing them?

     This is the real question. Everyone else thinks that someone else should help. Real unemployment is actually about 18% including those who have given up hope of finding a job. We should, IMHO, take ALL of the welfare money, and distribute that directly into the small business administration. They hire most people. If we fix the tax overhead for small businesses, and hold them accountable for hiring if they get help, then we could be solvent in 3 years, with 95% of all folks off of welfare and working for a small company or even working for themselves.

     It is my firm belief that most people feel vulnerable on the present pathway of using welfare and the social net for life. They never control their lives and they belong to a club that is often seen as socially, economically, and spiritually impoverished. I don’t believe that most Americans would like to see the poor kicked to the curb and thrown under a bus, but they see that many on welfare are angry and self-righteous about the benefits they get from a system they do not seem to appreciate.

     The rich, if that is even an appropriate name to call people who are also in a system that yanks their chain every time the DOW has a cough, has an odd sense of entitlement themselves. They often pretend to forget that they did not do all of the work that made them their fortunes. We all depend on those around us to work for less than we make off of them, otherwise we would be paying for them to work for us without our making a profit. In actuality, the people who have jobs pay their employers for them to work there. This is true by virtue of the fact that they have to make more on their jobs then they are paid. The employee has to make the employer money or the job will not pay for itself and the business will go broke. Business 101.

     Often, employers will make a killing off of an employee, but will not share in that fantastic profit. In fact, this is almost always the case. If we had a system where the employer had to pay the employee 80% of what he produced, let’s say, employees would get more and employers would not make a killing. But, the businessman would want to know, if the company goes under, will the employee help pay the loss? Here is where the risk management argument kicks in. He who takes the risk, gets the bonus. But we all forget, while the employee was working for one business, he was not working for someone else who might have paid him better. Well, then he can just go get a better job. Well, if he unionized he might get better deal where he is…This is how the stand still continues, block and pass and counter move.

     It is beyond obvious that welfare is getting ready to go through a massive transformation, and if those who have been on any social benefits are not paying attention, this will hit them like a ton of bricks. It would be naive for business and political leaders to think that this social transformation will come without some ripples. When people get hungry, they get agitated. Those who have been waiting in the wings for just such a moment will embrace it with every fiber of their being. They will seize the moment in order to say what the people have been unwilling to listen to: There is tremendous waste, those who are in control have been in control of that waste, and the time to take a cut is now but it will have to be across the board; there is no fairness in the employers and rich to simply walk out the door and take it all with them, unless they are simply leaving America and its impoverished Americans. Before, what has happened is that those who decry welfare gave a little and took a lot, but now they are taking the lion’s share and giving nothing to help those they have left on the economic battle field. But then, those who have been taking and not giving back, your days are numbered. It’s your turn to do something for yourself. Both sides seem lined up and ready to take it on, and both are entitled to do so. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

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