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Originally Posted by debdodd  Buzz, I just don't think you've heard much about it .... many states are doing this ...* they are "welfare to work" programs and tho' they are not totally successful they are a step in the right direction .... |
Clarification: ALL states have "welfare to work" programs. ALL welfare participants in the US are in such programs. This has been the case since the welfare reforms of '95 and '96, which the GOP, led by Newt Gingrich, pushed for when they took control of Congress in the mid-term elections of '94. Another feature of these reforms is a lifetime cap on welfare benefits ... 24 months, I believe. The capstone of these reforms was the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act which President Clinton signed in 1996.
It is, quite simply, a myth that an American can spend his/her life on welfare. This is no longer possible. They may keep getting
some benefits, but will have to work while they do so (with the amount of said benefit reduced by their earnings).
If any Right-winger has a problem with welfare as it now exists in the US, s/he should remember that the current system was crafted by their own friend Newt Gingrich and was NOT designed by "liberals."
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Originally Posted by debdodd it's sll about respect Buzz ... |
That it is, indeed. The Right-wing myth that people are poor because they WANT to be -- because anyone who works sufficiently is automatically successful and wealthy (meaning anyone who is neither, simply is not working hard enough!) -- is, as I posted earlier, merely a
rationale for not helping others.
That's right ... a rationale. Every bit as much a rationale as Christians using
Matthew 26:11 to justify not being charitable. (In this verse Jesus said, "For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me"). Of course, the very idea of a non-charitable or anti-charitable Christian seems absurd to many of us, and in fact it IS rather odd since many forms of Christianity center on poverty (either self-imposed as in the mendicant movement or in poverty-relief efforts). But there ARE Christians in the world who do, truly, believe the poor are the poor because they have "asked for it" and
deserve to be poor, while the wealthy are wealthy because they are righteous and divinely-ordained to have wealth. This concept is known generally as
prosperity theology, and has other labels within certain contexts (e.g. it's called "word of faith" among Pentecostalists).
(As a student of history I find myself wondering what people like Francis of Assisi would have thought about these "prosperity gospel" preachers.)
At any rate, don't be fooled by all this Right-wing blustering over "liberals" and welfare. There is no longer any chance to be on welfare for life without working, and that's because Republicans, not "liberals," designed the welfare system we've had for the last 12 years. The Right-wing uses this myth to justify holding both the poor and "liberals" in contempt, dishonestly of course.