Incentives to Get Off Welfare

The trouble with this is that it would have to be pro-rated over a lifetime, since recipients of government benefits tend to receive those benefits in varying amounts over their lifetimes, and similarly pay taxes in varying amounts over their lifetimes. I don’t see that there would an equitable way to make this work.

You have to take a test to get a license to drive a car so you can get to work every day and feed your family, but any moron can vote to decide who will control the military, the police force, the fire department, community finances, etc.

The most positive aspect of requiring some type of property ownership, etc., for voting is that business owners and other property owners are usually more serious about what happens to the economy, and have usually learned a bit more about it from experience, than non-property owners. An inexperienced 18-year old kid with no property or any other real responsibility is not likely to have the capability of making an informed choice. And so, we get candidates like Barack 0bama who don’t know any more about economics (or anything else, really) than an inexperienced 18-year old kid with no property and no real responsibility. We get rainbows and unicorns. Yippee.

Most people now, whether they’re on the government dole or not, seem to be so greedy that I think they’ll always vote in whomever they think will give them more of somebody else’s property. If we really cared about liberty, if we had any honor and integrity at all, we would vote only for those men who would do everything in their power to get the government out of our lives as much as is humanly possible.

But we’re greedy cowards. We want that safety net to be provided by somebody else.

I also have a feeling that the type of person generally on the dole isn’t likely to care much about voting anyway. It would take them out from in front of “Oprah” or “Survivor,” and make them put forth the effort to walk down to the polling place. That would be almost as bad as having to get a job.

I assume you are talking about only directly paid benefits. Or else how would you equitably assign value to benefits such as use of roads, police services, military efforts, the justice system, etc.? Equal assignment would present a problem because we do not all consume these services equally.

Moreover, if each person were allotted a share of the cost of these general services, I think few would qualify to vote, because our federal government is in the habit of spending far more than it takes in.

But isn’t the reason we have the electoral college (although they’re merely a figurehead now) to help “control” the masses? The more restrictions we place on voting, the easier it is to add more, possibly even unreasonable ones, which could lead to a minority of people able to vote instead of a majority, which can lead to an oligarchy. (and I recognize that we have a minority voting now anyway, but that’s by choice and not force)
I do think your welfare vs. taxes amount is a good idea, and I recognize that it is actually not forced disenfranchisement. You can choose at any point in time to not take your welfare checks, or try to earn more money, so it is actually by choice and not force. Also, you’re more focusing on an incentive to get off welfare, not a way to control who votes. So in theory I think it’s great! In practice I’m afraid of government taking rights away from people.

I don’t like the idea of limiting someone’s ability to vote based on welfare vs. taxes.

I do like the idea of reorganizing welfare to avoid multi-generation welfare families.

Rather than use the inability to vote as an incentive (I agree with infidel- I don’t think it would be a motivating factor for those who are abusing the welfare system.).

I think the welfare system needs to be administered on a more local level, and cases need to be looked at individually. Then a case plan can be set up to establish what the family needs to become self supporting again. Then the plan could include job training, food, housing assistance, with a specific end date.

I wonder what my BIL would do- He’s in medical school and I know they receive food stamps (I guess it’s actually a card now…) and something else- WIC maybe, and they are on medicaid. (which drives me nuts because of how he rails against socialized medicine- but that’s another story.)

Would he give up voting for the next several elections until he is done with medical school, or would he take out more loans?

Interesting…

First: read all of this; I am not advocating for any party or candidate.

Infidel sez: “any moron can vote to decide who will control the military…etc”

This reminded that the reason Bush won the 2004 election over Kerry was that people felt they’d rather have a beer with George Bush than John Kerry. This, of course, is only one of the diverse arguments people gave, but among the independents this seemed pretty decisive. This seems to prove Infidel’s point.

But to the idea of limiting voting rights based on government handouts vs. taxes balance. Brings back the original idea of what are reasonable limits to voting rights. I suppose that is a worthy debate in itself, and may be worth having. But then that would bring out questions about shareholders in certain industries that benefit directly from government policies, government employees, IQ limits, etc… All those could be reasonably well argued to limit certain people’s ability to make a really informed decision. I am more worried about the voter turnout in U.S. – low enough to make you wonder if you can still call it a democracy.

Would you bar from voting based on the balance a disabled veteran who’s getting disability compensation because he/she just can not work with his disabilities?

BTW, multi-generational welfare families are mostly a result of a vicious cycle of no decent primary education -> no chance to have good secondary education -> no way to have higher education. This can be seen in Europe and America.

>Education becomes even more important for families like this

What you don’t seem to understand is that students who don’t know how to work hard and exercise self-discipline will not get an education, even if they get into college, etc. Believe me, I fail plenty of them every semester because they don’t come to class, don’t do the work, and generally waste their time. They fail, get put on academic probation, then get kicked out of school. That just makes it harder for them to get back into school if they finally pull their heads out and start working hard.

The hard work and self-discipline has to come first or it is 100% impossible for them to get an education.

Most college students shouldn’t be in college in the first place, and certainly shouldn’t be getting diplomas.

Or are you a fan of social promotion/graduation?

I’m not a fan of social promotion, and at the college level, I would agree that students do need to master (to some extent at least) self discipline.

I’m speaking of much earlier education. If parents can’t or won’t for whatever reason (maybe because they’ve never been taught themselves) teach their children self discipline and hard work, that has to come from somewhere.

I wonder how many of the students of yours who fail and get kicked out of school are actually from “multi-generational welfare” families. I would suspect that a large number of them are from fairly well to do families where they were spoiled, and never expected to do any hard work. I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to assume that those students must be from families taking advantage of welfare.

Good for you! (I’m not being sarcastic- I don’t think college students should be coddled).

If no real education can happen without hard work and discipline, what do you do for children with parents who don’t know how to work hard or discipline themselves? Is sounds like you are suggesting that there is no way to break the cycle.