Fairwell Welfare

The main point of this article seemed to be whether or not tax money should be spent to subsidize low income families. I think the simple answer is yes, but it goes deeper than that. The New Hope Plan in Wisconsin seemed to aid many people, and be very successful. It actually gave incentive to people who needed it, and helped people climb out of poverty, at least somewhat. The problem is that it relied on so much government funding that people started to question the value of it. Obviously a cost-benefit analysis is difficult in some cases because it is hard to put a price on certain benefits. So where does that leave us?

A simple solution might be to just not use a cost-benefit analysis and say that it is the government's responsibility to help lower the poverty level. One might respond by saying, "Well, why does that make me responsible for paying for it?" The government does not have many funds of its own, and whereas we currently use a ton of our budget on defense, the government still needs help paying for things. If everything our taxes paid for was optional, we would have very poor government facilities, health care, roads, and schools. If you think it's bad now, think about how bad it might be later. Thus, being a citizen of the government requires you to pay your dues, and these dues might be used for causes you do not support. You are tacitly consenting to these taxes by remaining in the country, and not attempting to gain citizenship anywhere else.

What about the system itself, is it more useful than traditional welfare systems? The answer again is yes. The fact that this provides an incentive for those who are in poverty to escape it is the key. Many people under the old welfare system stayed in poverty in order to collect benefits because if they rose even a little over the line of extreme poverty, they would not be eligible. The one flaw, as pointed out in the article, of the system is that when you near the end of the road of the New Hope Plan, many benefits are cut from you, and people fall back into their old ways.

It seems that all of these cases on healthcare and welfare all hold the same problem: the line of eligibility. There is always some point where benefits are cut, funding is cut, eligibility is cut, and those just above the line are screwed out of the system, for lack of better terms. They are still poor, but they do not qualify. These are the people that hurt the most from programs like this, because, whereas they are poor, they pay the taxes which fund the program they are not eligible for. So what is the solution? I'd suggest a revamping of our definition of poverty. To be 'poor' in this country you have to be dirt poor. This is extreme poverty, not just poverty.

I know for a fact that MN Care and other state funded health care plans are very strict on their eligibility. I did not qualify for it last summer because I made too much working 40 hours/week, 10 cents above minimum wage. I think there's something wrong with that, because it would have been impossible for me to buy my own health care from a private provider. On another note, this University requires health insurance. Should people be required to have health insurance if the government is not willing to give it to them? I'd say no, but that's a topic for another debate I guess.