On other threads, I have been reading that wiley welfare cheaters have driven up medical costs. The premise is that they are getting for free what hardworking Americans can barely afford. They drive cadillacs, they get free Viagra, they are living like rock stars while the rest of us have to work and pay taxes to support them.
Since I actually know a welfare cheater, I thought it would be instructive to take a look at her character and decide if we should support a policy of cutting off all financial and medical support to her.
My cheater is related to me by marriage. Her family consisted of alcoholics, drug addicts and petty thieves. Her parents also divorced, if that could have any additional effect. My cheater dropped out of middle school. She is either high functioning mentally retarded or very dull normal IQ. Also, she is mentally ill. She can function fairly normally on medication, but when she is not on state provided medical insurance she goes unmedicated.
Currently, my welfare cheater has three kids and a bun in the oven. State services alternately take her kids away and bring them back to her, but every one agrees she is not a good mother. All of her kids show signs of extreme neglect. The youngest ones are poorly socialized and are months behind normal patterns of language acquisition.
OK, here's the cheating part: My cheater does not want to work. She is supposed to work, and even though I would not want her nose dripping into my taco, she actually could do minimum wage jobs. But my cheater wants to spend her days in bed and nights watching TV. That's all she does. She cheats welfare by pretending to look for work while her kids are in state-provided daycare. She receives subsidies for her rent, food stamps and medical care for her (because she is pregnant) and for her kids.
Life for the kids is already damn grim, but at least they get out of the house during the day. A state-provided nurse has recently started coming over once a week to give my welfare mom some coaching on child rearing. Hopefully it will help her to cope with having three kids under three years of age (the fourth kid is 5.)
Now, how shall we punish this welfare cheater? Taking away her subsidies, food stamps and medical care is a no-brainer. This would force her to work, right? It would be awfully hard on those children, but she shouldn't have had them in the first place, and at any rate it is not our responsibility. Why should we have to subsidise her carelessness? Wouldn't we just be encouraging her to have even more babies?
In Victorian times, she would be sent to the workhouse and her kids to an orphanage. My welfare mom would certainly have been able to walk on a treadmill, or pound rocks into cobblestones.
My solution? I would go back in time 25 years and rescue her from her own parents and place her in a decent foster home. Or I would go forward 25 years to a time when medication can cure everything. I 'd give her a pill to boost her IQ by 20 points, another one to increase her metabolism, and another to make her love her kids.
My current solution is to just leave her alone. My taxes pay for a miserable, disfunctional adult to have support and training to help her raise her kids. It's not a perfect solution but it is better than nothing.
Since I actually know a welfare cheater, I thought it would be instructive to take a look at her character and decide if we should support a policy of cutting off all financial and medical support to her.
My cheater is related to me by marriage. Her family consisted of alcoholics, drug addicts and petty thieves. Her parents also divorced, if that could have any additional effect. My cheater dropped out of middle school. She is either high functioning mentally retarded or very dull normal IQ. Also, she is mentally ill. She can function fairly normally on medication, but when she is not on state provided medical insurance she goes unmedicated.
Currently, my welfare cheater has three kids and a bun in the oven. State services alternately take her kids away and bring them back to her, but every one agrees she is not a good mother. All of her kids show signs of extreme neglect. The youngest ones are poorly socialized and are months behind normal patterns of language acquisition.
OK, here's the cheating part: My cheater does not want to work. She is supposed to work, and even though I would not want her nose dripping into my taco, she actually could do minimum wage jobs. But my cheater wants to spend her days in bed and nights watching TV. That's all she does. She cheats welfare by pretending to look for work while her kids are in state-provided daycare. She receives subsidies for her rent, food stamps and medical care for her (because she is pregnant) and for her kids.
Life for the kids is already damn grim, but at least they get out of the house during the day. A state-provided nurse has recently started coming over once a week to give my welfare mom some coaching on child rearing. Hopefully it will help her to cope with having three kids under three years of age (the fourth kid is 5.)
Now, how shall we punish this welfare cheater? Taking away her subsidies, food stamps and medical care is a no-brainer. This would force her to work, right? It would be awfully hard on those children, but she shouldn't have had them in the first place, and at any rate it is not our responsibility. Why should we have to subsidise her carelessness? Wouldn't we just be encouraging her to have even more babies?
In Victorian times, she would be sent to the workhouse and her kids to an orphanage. My welfare mom would certainly have been able to walk on a treadmill, or pound rocks into cobblestones.
My solution? I would go back in time 25 years and rescue her from her own parents and place her in a decent foster home. Or I would go forward 25 years to a time when medication can cure everything. I 'd give her a pill to boost her IQ by 20 points, another one to increase her metabolism, and another to make her love her kids.
My current solution is to just leave her alone. My taxes pay for a miserable, disfunctional adult to have support and training to help her raise her kids. It's not a perfect solution but it is better than nothing.