Do you support mandatory national service for Welfare Recipients?

[KaraokeKarlton]

Some people here believe we should force high school students to do more "volunteer" activities in order to receive a high school diploma. These kids already have a lot of responsibilities and work to do in school, with school activities and part time jobs. However, there are many welfare recipients who stand to gain a lot more by having to do this community work, and they are being supported by the community already. The times I've seen this subject of making welfare recipients work or get job training, the opposition has been very strong. Yet there are some here who think it's perfectly okay to make those same demands from kids who are already doing an awful lot. I find this to be very hypocritical and wrong. Who needs to learn job skills more than those on welfare? I'd really appreciate someone explaining to me why it's okay to force kids to do community service in order to get a diploma but why it's not okay to force welfare recipients to do community service in order to get assistance.

[REP]

1. Neither Is Right

I don't agree with forcing high school kids to 'volunteer' and I don't think non-voluntary service for those on welfare is a good idea, either. I do fully support something like the WPA and CCC - these projects gave important and meaningful work to people - work that is still benefiting the country.

[tjdee]

2. This is now your third thread on this issue...

with dozens of replies on each thread.

You must *really* care about this issue, but it's called difference of opinion. As simple as that.

[KaraokeKarlton]

4. This one is about mandatory service for welfare recipients

I am curious what people think about the idea of forcing these people to do community work. Sure, the idea for this discussion came from the other thread, but I feel it warrants it's own discussion. Also, this is the second thread in this section, not the third, and the subject is different, although similar. The other one is for discussing Kerry's mandatory service proposal. This one is for asking what the difference is between mandatory service for kids and mandatory service for welfare recipients, who need the job skills much more. And the third thread isn't even in GD.

Yes, this issue is extremely important to me. I have 3 children and anything that affects kids is near and dear to me.

[liberalmike27]

3. Welfare Thoughts

I think it is okay to ask Welfare recipients to work, with the condition that they have fully funded child care provided, that that it doesn't require unreasonable measures, like in Moore's movie where people rode busses 50 miles each way. I also think it should be an adequate amount, and should leave a few hours for training each week toward getting a better-paying job in the private sector. This presupposes that there will be better jobs in this sector.

When the economy is good, like it was in the Clinton years, so many problems melt away. If our elected officials don't start responding and solving the problem with our jobs melting away, then we are all screwed anyway.

I've heard a few positive stories about Ben Cohen opening a garment factory in LA, and a guy in Detroit that opened an axle assembly plant, who feel we can still be competitve. In Hightowers book Thieves in High Places he describes the difference per garment produced from the cheapest labor available to our labor as one cent to 21 cents here. So our jobs are being moved for 20 cents profit per garment. With transportation costs, I'd imagine that the savings are similarly small. But what does our country pay in lost American standard of living? That cost can hardly be calculated, but welfare is just one, dignity perhaps the most important cost. However they do it, we need to make other countries pay. Protectionism shouldn't be such a bad thing, after all, it is us we are protecting from predatory countries taking our jobs.

[Mairead]

11. You express my feelings too

Everyone who wants to work should be able to get a job that pays enough to support a dignified life. Similarly, everyone should be expected to work and contribute to society at the highest level their skills support. Only if they're irreparably damaged (can't think, too unstable) should they be left on the shelf. There's plenty of work to do, Goddess knows.

[blkgrl]

5. Its clear that SOMETHING has to be changed in the welfare system

I'm not exactly sure if this is the answer, but I think the system is being abused.

[KaraokeKarlton]

6. I think Vermont has a good and effective system

There are time limits for those who are able to work and choose not to. If you have young kids at home, you have much lower requirements to meet. If you are disabled or are caring for a disabled child, you have much lower requirements based on your ability to take part. What is really great about Vermont's system is that it acutally addressed and helps resolve the barriers that keep people on welfare. There is subsidized child care, help with transportation, job training, education, assistance buying clothing, just about anything you can think of. The program does have some requirements, but there is a massive amount of support throughout the process. It has helped many, many people be able to get on their feet and get off welfare. The program is called "Reach Up".

[blkgrl]

18. Yes, thats why I like Dean

My mother is an employer and its unbelievable how many employees have actually QUIT working in order to keep their welfare benefits. Its sick. I think the way welfare is set up now, in most states, discourages people from working. I don't know enough about how the system works to make good suggestions but the "Reach Up" program sounds pretty good.

[Mairead]

9. Yes, it's being abused by the wealthy elites

They get hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare from us each year.

[blkgrl]

20. True, something should be done about that too

Funny how conservatives never seem to remember that.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

7. Look...

I've been there. I have been forced into virtual slavery, at below minimum-wage pay, doing county work while county workers were being laid off. Manditory service for welfare recipients is just an extension of the slavery that inmates are subjected to, working for pennies per hour for corporations. It is wrong, reprehensible and holds out a hope for something that doesn't exist and never materializes: real jobs.

It is a repuke scam, nothing more. A vile and venal scam by people who, I believe, would like to make poverty illegal, while moving jobs out of the country. It is one of the major reasons I despise them.

Oh, and one more thing: Back in 2K1, while I was on welfare, I was trying to get funding to return to school. I was told I was quite qualified for the funding, but it never materialized, in spite of promises. Two years later, the county, which controlled the block grant, was ordered by the state to return the money. Seems they sat on 95% of that year's educational block grant, hiding it away in a bank well-removed from the area. Seems they wanted it to be forgotten so they could plow it under, into nice patronage projects. If not for a state audit, they might have succeeded.

Vile. And Venal. Repukes.

[KaraokeKarlton]

13. What state do you live in?

I'm familiar with the prison work. Vermont does that as well, but on a voluntary basis. Prisoners can learn a marketable trade and earn a little bit of money while doing their time. The pay IS horrible, though, but it's NOT forced. For instance, the state prisoners make school furniture, do things for the DMV, repair bicycles for needy kids, run a wood mill, learn horticulture and operate a greenhouse. They donate the vegetables they grow to the poor. They also have many other things. Many prisoners try to get into the programs not for the minimal amount of money, but to learn skills and kill time. It makes them feel good about themselves...and it's NOT forced.

Vermont's welfare program is a good one. Right now, just about anyone in the system who wants to become a nurse or a teacher gets all the support needed to get a degree, including any costs just because there is a need for them here. I entered the system here before we had reforms. Before the reforms everytime I tried to go to work, the barriers got in the way. After the reforms, it was so easy to get to work and stay working because the system helped set up a plan to deal with any barriers that might come up. It made all the difference in the world.

[Skittles]

8. FORCED LABOR?

No, I f***ing don't care for that.

[Nederland]

19. Not Forced

If you want benefits, you work. If you don't want to work, you get nothing. Its your choice.

[maxanne]

32. thank you Rush Limbaugh

Try reading up on workfare programs, or homelessness.

I can't believe how worked up people can get about welfare - and yet remain totally unconcerned about the numbers of homeless children in this country. The National Coalition to End Homelessness projects a million in the next year.

So, it's better for women to be slaves in order to recieve benefits? It's okay for a state to force workfare - where a woman takes a crappy paying job (all she has skills for) and her kids stay home alone to bring themselves up, because she can't afford child care? What a great solution to the problems.

Funny all the lip service we pay to valuing children. What a bunch of crap. We don't care about them at all.

[Skittles]

35. THANK YOU MAXANNE

I GET SO TIRED OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

[JohnKleeb]

36. Skittles I think I read somewhere that many people on welfare are children

[foreigncorrespondent]

10. Going by what I understand about your welfare system...

...I think the first thing should be a complete overhaul of that system.

Meaning, here in Australia we can claim unemployment benefits, which never amounts to much, something like a couple of hundred bucks a week for someone over the age of 21. But we are also obligated to doing something after six months of being unemployed.

That could be the work for the dole scheme, where people actually work to learn a new skill, while earning their unemployment benefit. Or part time study, while continuing to look for employment. Part time empolyment, while continuing to look for full time employment. Or volunteering your services to a needy cause.

We still have what we term dole bludgers (people who just don't want to work, but rather rape the system) here in Australia, but the majority of people unemployed truly want to work, so a scheme like the above mentioned has actually lifted a lot of peoples spirits.

For the record I am unemployed. I am receiving an unemployment cheque every fortnight, and trying to live on the $380.00 a fortnight I do earn. But this time around I chose to actually study part time while continuing to look for some sort of employment. And I am studying a certificate in Web design. So I am really advancing my skills ten fold. When the course is complete and I pass the exams I should be able to land a decent job in IT.

[DuctapeFatwa]

12. I think there would be broad support for a low-income service requirement

Among the affluent voting class, it would be both a popular alternative to a conventional draft, and a comprehensive strategy for reducing the number of undesirables in the community at large.

[blondeatlast]

21. Bullseye, again, DF. Short and right to the point!

:toast:

[JI7]

14. like jury duty ?

?

[blondeatlast]

22. Excellent . . . !

[jrthin]

15. I support it if the CEO of

welfare corporations also get to serve.

[JI7]

16. halliburton and enron ?

by welfare recipients, i'm guessing you mean halliburton or enron ?

[blondeatlast]

23. Absolforkinglutely!

Imagine the US with corporate crime handled with massive corporate WPA projects. Like cleaning out Love Canal, setting up a water delivery system from the border to Tucson; oh, the possibilities!

[KaraokeKarlton]

40. Nope, I'm talking about the poor

You support forcing highschool students to do service in order to get a diploma, so you must also support this, being that you think community service is so important that people should be forced to do it against their will. I mean, if you support doing this to high school students you must support doing it to the poor, too. If you don't that would be pretty hypocritical, wouldn't it?

[pansypoo53219]

17. would be better if they were forced to educate themselves

and were taught life skills.

[theHandpuppet]

24. What about corporate welfare?

What should we demand of those who enjoy obscenely lavish lifestyles courtesy of corporate welfare and the labor of the poor?

Why is it that only the poor are considered recipients of "unearned" benefits, and those usually consisting of the basic necessities? I'd rather my tax dollars be spent putting food in the mouths of hungry children than be stuffed into the pockets of Enron and Halliburton.

Do we demand that the wealthiest among us perform "community service" for all they have received from this society? Is it the children of the wealthy who are serving and dying in endless corporate wars? Tell me what we will demand from them and then we can start talking about how we will punish the poor for a free meal.

Unbelievable.

[quaker bill]

25. No

I have no problem with service. I have a problem with mandatory service. It removes nearly all possibility of any sort of character building experience from the concept of wervice.

[pop goes the weasel]

26. Of course not

Why not instead make it mandatory that governments find people a job with living wages?

Already, people getting welfare are required to get jobs (that was part of the welfare reform act of 1996). They don't keep them because minimum wage does't cover transportation, child-care and the higher cost of clothing and food required for work outside the house. In fact, when you are poor, working for minimum wage can result in a net loss in income, even if there is no welfare coming in. Why should poor people have to subsidize stingy employers?

Further, forced labor (didn't we have a civil war over that issue?) destroys the free labor market. The working poor would be done no favors by making them compete for their crappy jobs with people who would be paid even less, or nothing at all.

The real shame is that so many people who are working full time jobs are already having to get welfare to make ends meet. If you want to be outraged about something, be outraged that your tax dollars are subsidizing businesses that make part of their profit by foisting off part of the cost of labor onto you.

[mumon]

27. I support mandatory service for the richest 0.1% of all property owners...

who should have their property expropriated from them, and made to work in the rice fields, where they would learn from the wise ways of the peasants.

I'm not kidding.

It's about time we showed how blatantly hypocritical such right wing schemes are- they are gulags for poor people.

F*ck that!

Let's get the rich folks' property first.

[even]

28. Relax.

Under the new plan as in Fla. There will soon be no high schools or any schools at all for that matter. As for welfare that will disappear too. We will all be competing at the landfills,PHD's and all.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

29. children as well as their parents should be involved in community service

give them a sense of belonging and importance...but it should be reinforsed in the home

[bleedingheart]

30. Does anyone remember the Civil Conservation Corps?

My dad was from a poor mining town in Greensburg PA and went to live and work in the national parks as part of that great program created by FDR.

It was basically the same thing...

[nemo137]

31. so why don't we bring back New Deal programs like that?

it would create jobs, build infastructure, provide job skills, and stop the "welfare queen" red herring.

[JohnKleeb]

34. Kucinich wants to!

:) I am serious.

[JohnKleeb]

33. I know of them

Yes. My relative who died on Iwo Jima, Sgt Mike Strank was in them and yes bleedingheart he had miner blood too. I think some of my uncles may have I cant confirm that because well they have been gone for a while now. LOL bleedingheart, me, and coalminersdaughter should lol form the coal cancus lol, thats another unofficial group I belong to other than the Irish brigade lol. The CCC was a good thing. Hey where is Greensburg? is it near Johnstown?

[Kitsune]

37. Nothing should be mandatory.

I mean, this is still America, isn't it? Land of the free, and all that?

[Solly Mack]

38. No

A single parent struggling to make ends meet hardly has time to pick trash up off the highway for those pigs too nasty to place their trash in it's proper place

I don't think kids should be forced to do community service...though I do think they benefit from participating FREELY in it.

If those on welfare wish to volunteer their time in such a way (as community service..) and they do so freely, that's one thing....but to require it? That's no different than telling them they have pray first, then eat.

[ButterflyBlood]

39. Alright

I don't support this. But isn't it a little strange everyone here is overwhemingly against it yet on my thread it's not so (at least in posts, the poll shows 2/3 of us are against any form of mandatory service)

welfare recipients would be doing it too if everyone were forced to, so why is this bad and mandatory service for everyone isn't?

Also the forced labor comments here aren't mocked like on mine, even though they're basically the same.

[Valerie5555]

41. What about people who DON'T BOTHER TO VOTE????????????????

For I am quite sure I did know at least one AUSSIE briefly, a couple of years ago, and they said how in their country you either had a choice of VOTING or PAYING A HEAVY FINE for not voting.

[KaraokeKarlton]

42. It would be easy to get Americans to vote

All you'd have to do is give everyone who votes a national holiday. If they bring a signed slip of some sort from an official checking them in at the polls, they get a paid day off. There is a problem with the idea of trying to get everyone to vote, though. A lot of people don't bother to pay attention and are liable to vote for the worst candidates just because they don't know any better. I'd personally rather have less people vote and be familiar enough with the candidates to vote for a good one.

[gate of the sun]

43. I don't agree with either

community service has nothing to do with getting a high school diploma or getting welfare. Let's face it with welfare the way it is now you and your spouse if you have one have to work 40 hours put your kid in day care which in most states are not paying for.....where is the time to fit in community service? and what about their kid???? As I said I don't agree.

[einsteins stein]

44. We (Wife and I) Get Welfare, Here's My Take:

We formerly received cash aid, food stamps, Medicare, and WIC. Now we get food stamps and Medical. Here's my input, for what it is worth:

#1 - Recipients should not live under a clock which runs independent of the problems which initially brought them to the service.

#2 - Recipients should be required to:

1. Attend a High School degree/equiv. program, right from day #1.
   
   
2. Donate a few hours every week to some community program
   (like Meals on Wheels, a soup kitchen, Secret Santa, etc...)
   
   
3. Attend monthly classes on basic financial planning, family planning, democracy, leadership, etc.
   
   
4. Either
   1. Go to college to start/finish a bachelors program
      
   2. Get a 2 year Technical Degree
      
   3. Complete a national job apprenticeship program
      
   
   
5. Vote in every election.

These requirements should stay in effect for as long as the idividual stays on any form of support.

#3 - Applicable recipients should be encouraged to participate in a sort of nationalized Habitat for Humanity program.

These requirements/encouragements will lead select welfare recipients from roles of dependence to leadership, from a state of ignorance to a state on knowledge, and offer them the security of home ownership.

THAT is the kind of welfare reform I would like to see.