Middle Class Part 32: Issues Article 5; Welfare

(Note: I already have addressed the issues of Medicare and Medicaid and concluded that there are misallocations among those programs. If would guess that the total number of fraudulent Welfare outlays amounted to as much as 10%. Within that total is included the more granular Welfare components including food stamps, "temporary" housing needs, temporary assistance to needy families outlays and other Welfare-related programs. I would treat the Welfare component of money spent on education needs a bit differently, but would still deeply research how the money earmarked for that component were spent to the best end. I would expect that about the same total could be saved by auditing the military portion of the federal budget- a major outlay favored by republicans which I have already addressed (see part 9). Taking a bite out of 20% of the federal budget, giving 10% of that back to the taxpayer and spending the other 10% more wisely would provide the greatest good to the greatest number of people. So, as the summer Olympics are just about upon us- allow me to continue with one of my favorite events- synchronized brow-beating of the two major political parties- indirectly this time, and focusing on the democrats who are most to blame for the present condition of the Welfare system, that is until I drown in the Beijing smog.

I suppose: I would also suppose that someone would question my forwardness and remark on the audacity that someone could suppose so much being equipped with so little knowledge. I would counter that a government's audacity precludes all types of comments and am surprised that all of the inhabitants of the country which it governs could continue to live under its auspices while collectively knowing as much as they do.

I would also guess: that both the Welfare caseworker and the military strategist would dismiss the accusations of a novice who has not been involved in the day to day business of such weighty issues, so delicately balanced for the greater good. I would respond that it takes a pretty objective person, or more necessary, a set of objective individuals, to investigate the goings on in governmental offices all over the nation who do not have a level of involvement which compromises the principles or the provisions of the taxpaying American public. What can be easily identified is that the military and Welfare comprise two of the most exorbitantly funded components of the federal budget and that it is high time that both were investigated for fraudulent activity. If you see below, those who are fraudulently attempting to conduct Welfare business are being arrested and convicted and those who are hatching, directing and efforting Unconstitutional wiretapping schemes are being given congressional immunity. See Eric Lichtbau, The New York Times, July 10, 20080 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html. Maybe we should arrest and convict some of those who perpetrate fraudulent military acts upon a largely suspecting public; hey, if there is a classic rock song about a pin-ball wizard (Elton John) anything is possible.

James Madison, our fourth president of the United States, wrote these words in Federalist Paper number 36: “Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burthens, and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression!” I include this sentence among the many I will write below in connection with the overall sub-topic of Welfare. I do not agree with Madison’s ideas on the redistribution of wealth. Unfortunately, social Welfare often is the major governmental outlay which leaves the haves with the idea that the have nots are the beneficiaries of their labor . . . they aren’t wrong.

The less fortunate: The legitimate poor have not had fortune shine upon them to the same degree as have other economic classes and that should be taken into consideration before a couple of French words like a carte blanche dismissal of their needs or a laissez faire apathetic treatment of their condition is adopted and considered the best method for dealing with the less fortunate. A minor ailment may worsen or improve with time, but unattended diseases have a way of manifesting themselves in other people who may have previously supposed themselves immune. It may be best for each private citizen to reflect on what we would expect of others should we be destitute, physically unable to work, or in a financial pitfall of a situation that is none of our own doing. If a reader is unable to dually consider their own present comfortable economic life and reflect on the needs of others, I pity their ignorance as much as I do the indigence of the poor. Our beloved children may have, without our foresight, have been stricken with a malady which takes untold hours to properly address and unfathomable financial resources to combat. Such is life’s way; perhaps all who are not already poor will be able to avoid these types of adversities.

“Burthens”/Welfare defined: Surely two or three thousand experts would redefine what is meant by the term- “Welfare”. This one was taken from The Heritage Foundation: “the total set of government programs—federal and state—that are designed explicitly to assist poor and low-income Americans.” The same investigative body contends that Food Stamp and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits constitute Welfare, but Social Security benefits do not. The scope, according to Robert Rector, who penned the article from the Heritage Foundation, from which I quote is vast: “The current welfare system is highly complex, involving six departments: HHS [Health and Human Services], Agriculture, HUD [Housing and Urban Development], Labor, Treasury, and Education. It is not unusual for a single poor family to receive benefits from four different departments through as many as six or seven overlapping programs. For example, a family might simultaneously receive benefits from: TANF, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Public Housing, WIC, Head Start, and the Social Service Block Grant. For more information see “The Size and Scope of Means-Tested Welfare Spending” http://www.heritage.org/Research/welfare/Test080101.cfm. [Note: The article is from August of 2001, but is still pertinent in terms of definitions and background material, though the federal and state budget information is dated.] Rector also writes that: “Some might think that [the] spending growth [of total welfare outlays] merely reflects an increase in the U.S. population. But, adjusting for inflation, welfare spending per person is now at the highest level in U.S. history. In constant dollars, it is seven times higher than at the start of the War on Poverty in the 1960's.” I am not sure this makes any more sense than my chocolate covered cake doughnut with sprinkles always preceding the coconut offering in the doughnut line-up at the breakfast counter in the cafeteria- there is an awfully strange co-dependency rule at work among the doughnut community and Welfare recipients.

Troubling numbers: Having glanced at a number of highly informative articles culled from various Google searches I have learned that determining how much money is devoted to Welfare spending is not an easy task, perhaps a bit more difficult than being a novice alligator sexer but twice as rewarding and less dangerous. Both are dirty businesses and I am probably not qualified to do either. Until I hit on “Welfare fraud” as a Google search I was hard-pressed to find instances of a misallocation of funds, similar to what I have been doing on a number of sub-topics to this point, including CEO pay,* military spending, etc., (i.e. those things which would generally fall under the overall heading of government waste). While it is clear that in terms of dollars, Welfare spending eclipses expenditures of any other single federal budgetary outlay, I think it will be a little more difficult to be as critical of that government program as I was upon the misallocations attributed to military spending because from what I have found the military funding excesses are at least twice as expensive to the taxpayer as the Welfare equivalents. If I am forwarded a number of articles or instances of misallocations where the Welfare system draws closer to the military in this area, I would be positively giddy. What I found after having spent twice as much time hunting for those instances as I had for the military equivalents is found below. Keep in mind that the federal government invites scores of immigrants who down the road, even the presently considered illegals, will have a shot at all types of Welfare benefits.** The government spends quite a great deal of money on a war in a region we are never going to control for a an inadequate peace. Those are two major failings of the federal government- to be so big and presume so much. Unfortunately, they have not been appropriately made aware of their elephant-ness- that the public is growing less tolerant of the oligarchy we continue to elect to office. I might be able to be effectively critical of the government if I knew the answer to one very important question- is sarcasm a renewable resource?

Probable potential I: One probable and two potential reasons for a relative dearth of examples of Welfare fraud as compared to its military counterpart- 1) the probable reason- Welfare was considered to have been massively overhauled under a democratic president in 1996, which may or may have taken care of some Welfare fraud- though not according to a couple of sources I provide below. How those reforms may have taken care of subsequent accounting practices, or minimized potential misallocations- ???.

Probable potential II: Potential reason for a lack of Welfare fraud/misallocations information- 1) we still have a print and electronic media bias toward favoring the unfortunate, in many instances giving them the benefit of the doubt when there is far too much doubt to give them the benefit of. As I conduct much of my research using the internet and the internet largely would make available either electronically published papers, newspaper stories, reports, investigations, I was bound to find fewer stories than I had expected. I do not have subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, etc. and so have likely missed out on a number of stories that could have contributed to the material I have been attempting to objectively present since May of 2007. A reader would note the complete lack of cited references to the above listed periodicals over the extent of my political jeremiad. Of course, holding to the widely held belief that the print media has a liberal bias, having a subscription to a number of magazines or conducting research inside the vacuum of widely circulated newspapers still would have left me wanting in the objectivity department, especially according to a conservative. 2) Another potential reason for a lack of insightful, well-documented, voluminous number of articles and stories relative to the bilking of the public by the Welfare industry is that in my internet article mining endeavors on the sub-topic of Welfare fraud, of the stories that I have found, the stolen or misappropriated dollar amounts have rarely been reported to have extended beyond $5,000 by individual fraudulent participants. I have never done a formal cost-benefit analysis on anything in life, excepting whether to sell my Star Wars toys, but the type of dollar amounts I found when looking into the government waste concerning the military, as objectively considered, was often ten times the outlay for as little in return. By return I mean- militarily- useless hardware or money lost to no-bid government contractors and on the welfare front- fraudulent payouts to those cheating the welfare system. 3) Of the fraudulent welfare stories I have found, many seem to indicate a city or county wide investigation. This is never going to get as much media play as a national news story which affects the whole country. This would make finding articles and stories more difficult, especially if the writers are more concerned or distracted by national stories and their own liberal bias. Ah, the media- often more annoying than a clam with high-blood pressure who annoyingly pronounces the -e- at the end of provolone. If aliens were to land here they would be too busy laughing at Sean Hannity's hairline and lack of objectivity to make him submit to an anal probe- quite a shame.

Medicaid rules moratorium: Read an Associated Press article from April 23, 2008- “House Votes for Moratorium on Medicaid Rules” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24280912/ to find out that some members of congress are more concerned than others about the Bush administration’s estimate of saving the treasury about $13 billion over five years and $33 billion over 10 years by curbing waste and abuse in the state-federal partnership that provides health coverage and nursing home care to the poor.” Medicaid, you will remember, is just one of the many components of Welfare. One republican Midwest governor said that “ ‘It is an absolute farce for anyone to argue that all of those dollars are being appropriately spent and that Congress ought to just walk away from these issues,’ ” (i.e. from taking measures to stop short term rules from being implemented which would curb Medicaid spending). I agree with the republican and would also agree with a founding member of the country who would be identified as a democrat- James Madison, who in Federalist Paper No. 38 wrote- “A GREAT and INDEPENDENT fund of revenue is passing into the hands of a SINGLE BODY of men, who can RAISE TROOPS to an INDEFINITE NUMBER, and appropriate money to their support for an INDEFINITE PERIOD OF TIME.” The capitalization comes directly from Madison. Now, he happened to be referring to the congress under the confederacy of states prior to the implementation of the Constitution. Hm, this is interesting- have I mentioned that the same, still rather INDEPENDENT body of men, voted to fund the military to the tune of $162 billion, which brings the total combined expenditure on the Iraq and Afghanistan war theatres to about $850 billion? I was pretty sure that I did- see “Bush Signs $162 Billion War Spending Bill” Associated Press, June 30, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25457283/ for yourself. I believe I have already included a couple of caveats about the war’s duration, initial intention, the other ancillary beneficiary measures that were included in that most recently approved war provision bill- such as the doubling of GI college funding, unemployment benefits- etc. So, I won’t take space at this time to again praise the inclusion of those associated measures, but this bill went through a majority controlled democratic congress. Madison would be disgusted. Given the deteriorating efficacy of the federal government, this fact is also not so surprising- that the legislative and the executive branches have continued to so wittingly unite on the issue of military expenditures to the domestic detriment of those who pay their salaries. So, our beloved Constitution, has not protected us from that abhorrent practice of detouring the public’s money and bypassing the public’s will. But at least we have allowed it to do so ambiguously, and so we feel relieved, much like when we are convinced a stray dog does not love us anymore but will not tell us why.

Expectations and hypocrisy: I had expected to discover a great many more instances of Welfare fraud and neglect given the numbers of enrollees, the amount of the federal budget which goes to fund the unfortunate (21%/$561 million in 2007), the confusing nature of the Welfare system generally, and the fact that the program is monitored by human beings. I do not want to be the hypocrite in seeming to favor the gross felony of misallocated Welfare money over the grand larceny of an exorbitantly funded military. It comes to that- I don’t know that Thing 1 caused all that much more damage than Thing 2 in The Cat in the Hat. What’s that- I already used that metaphor to represent the democrats and republicans (see part 15)? Damn. Other more recent and notable hypocritical acts- Jesse Jackson who has called for a boycott of Seinfeld DVDs because of Michael Richard’s (Kramer) racist nightclub tirade in 2006, but who has recently called Barack Obama the N-word, or the Sierra Club who has recently partnered with Clorox, against whom they have been fighting for decades seem a bit more deplorable. It is tiring being the Consumer Reports for the voting public almost all of which are not aware even of my insignificance. Sometimes that means ranking a disgusting, hardly model behavior over a brand of misappropriations the military and the Welfare community would, ignorant of the greater good, eagerly and pugnaciously defend. I am struggling to rank welfare fraud and misallocation as highly on my list of concerns as government waste earmarked for the military. It should be made clear that the money wasted by the federal government on the military and that lost/wasted on fraudulent welfare recipients are both major issues. My ranking the military, considering the obviousness and extent of the problem (in terms of total monetary loss), as a larger concern than welfare fraud, would surely be spotlighted by conservatives, should anyone even know I exist, as an indication that I am a socialist in disguise. That would be the type of reactionary (lack of introspective nature) response I would expect. For centuries messengers have been killed for their bad timing, for being in the line of fire, for their objective assessments, for the news itself and for unwittingly delivering a message that ordered their own death (see the biblical story of David, Bathsheba and Uriah). Certain members of the citizenry of this country have a way of punishing those who objectively dole out information, should the recipient of this news be able to link the news with their being made to suffer- however remotely . . . for many seek to play the victim. I think we see this within the congressional halls, NFL- spy-gate scandals and on into street violence issues where murderers and child rapists go free, because the unwritten code of the streets is not to snitch. Funny thing- while I begin to detail the welfare fraud below and having already written about military waste, CEO pay, necessary costs, social issues and immigration concerns, I would still count campaign finance as the #1 political issue in this country, the one that most directly affects nearly every other issue and probably the one which would be the easiest to solve.

Welfare fraud I: An unidentified county total of $211,000 in 2006 was linked to 84 convicted offenders. My math is pathetic, but I think that amounts to only about $2,500 a person. If 50-80 offenders were convicted in each county in the United States, I doubt that a liberal could defend Welfare against the charges of the military. To be sure, figuring on who is the least guitly from a government waste perspective, (the Welfare or the military) as I had done above, I admit, makes little sense. [Source for the information included above is from a writer who works for The Post-Journal- I have no idea with what city or state such a paper may be affiliated. The post was in connection with the rising costs of living which in turn, it is supposed, potentially puts more pressure on social services to make the ends meet.]

Welfare fraud II: “6 Held in Welfare Fraud Scheme; Inquiry Uncovered Worker Bribes” Thomas Morgan, July 12, 1991- (very long URL). One suspect received monthly checks totaling “as much as $118,000 since 1986.” Note the year of the article, which predates the 1996 Welfare reform. Again, I may be up against one or more of the roadblocks I identified in the Reasons for lack of examples paragraph above. Morgan writes- “An investigator assigned to the welfare agency found more than 800 cases . . . in which payments and food stamps were improperly disbursed. These claims cost the city as much as $9.3 million.” Starting to add up.

Welfare fraud III: “Former Social Worker Indicted for Welfare Fraud and Perjury” from Kentucky, April 20, 2006- do a search on the title of the story. The suspect in this case used her deceased mother’s food stamp card, was indicted on “30 felony charges of welfare fraud [for having] misappropriated over $1,500 in state welfare benefits and one felony charge for first degree perjury.” At the end of the story this appears, to give some context to the problem- “The Special Grand Jury has recently returned indictments against seven state welfare workers for stealing more than $250,000 from the state welfare system. Over the last two years, the Attorney General’s office has filed felony charges against 28 welfare caseworkers, charged with stealing more than $800,000.” Excellent!

Other random Welfare information: There are five degrees of welfare fraud; it is unclear how many degrees there are of military fraud. Child Welfare, child abuse and substance abuse are almost synonymously linked to Welfare generally. Some states that have instituted diversion programs offer lump sum payments or have welfare recipients work for their checks by cleaning streets, or parks, or offer “personal responsibility” contracts which are plans for a recipient eventually finding permanent employment. I wish I knew how certain states defined “eventually.” Like- eventually . . . the world will end and certain arthropods who have been designated for insect-reassignment surgery will be made the beetle it was born to be, meanwhile; conjoined barnswallows will be taught to fly; and welfare money hijackers will no longer receive a government handout. (By the way- check out the “Conjoined Barn Swallows Found in Arkansas” story at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/25772658/ to see that I don’t just make all of this stuff up.)

Random Welfare info. Part II: In a 2001 survey- 57% of Americans say Welfare encourages more women to have more kids than they would have without welfare. I would not necessarily expect that number to rise when people learn that immigrants are eligible to begin receiving Welfare benefits five years after coming to our country. The reason- immigrant women, and men, seem to have kids as a matter of course, with little concern about the financial drain a newcomer might place on the taxpaying public. Yes, there are white and black women making the same horrible decisions; exactly my point- let us not continue to let the horse out of the barn (see part 22). Strangely, certain members of the executive and legislative branches over the past 43 years, since Welfare’s inception, who have been repeatedly elected to political office, also seem to be little concerned about that financial drain as well. Folks, it is just going to get worse- “Obama, McCain Expand Courtship of Hispanics” by Larry Rohter, New York Times, July 17, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25713058. But often we’re more distracted by Nigerian email viruses asking for money for bulldog puppies (look it up), the secret life of Anne Hathaway’s former love, the names of the Pitt-Jolie twins, or how to get to a major highway on a weekend to meet friends for dinner when all potential access points are closed,*** than about these political issues that never go away.

Random Welfare info. part III: This just in- Welfare creates a cycle of dependency. The poor could and do work jobs that do not pay enough to support a family and so they keep gaining Welfare benefits. Some websites, such as United Council on Welfare Fraud- (UCOWF) have numbers people can call to report suspected Welfare fraud. The chances there will be a setup like that for military fraud is less likely than California being a red state in the upcoming presidential election or that albino crickets will become the major distribution company for sleep-number beds. Substantiation of child and substance abuse allegations are vital issues concerning the sub-topic of Welfare; keeping a family together is considerably less-expensive than foster or institutional care and that can continue to enable an adult to abuse their children, themselves and the Welfare system.

Random Welfare info. Part IV: Medicare is a rather massive portion of the federal and state outlays which falls under the broad Welfare heading. Read Paul Krugman’s New York Times article on universal v. privatized Medicare coverage that pits democrats who favor the doctors getting paid for services rendered v. the republicans who favor a middle entity of an insurance company brokering medical coverage. Pay attention- republicans will always argue against the creation of more layers of government, but apparently on the issue of privatized medicine- that is ok. I am not arguing against privatized medicine, but the fact that an insurance company would help us better manage the health care of 304.7 million people including 47 currently uninsured (of which at least 10 million should not be included in that number- see part 26)****- hahahahahahaha. We may need their help, but not in their bloated-overlord state as currently constituted, but rather with some objective fact-checkers keeping them from overcharging, under managing, etc. You can privatize health care without the insurance companies holding all of the cards. Having a health care system which only included the insurance companies as the governing body would be like being on a deserted island and storing all of the drinking water in the same place, it isn’t safe or right; don't put all of your eggs in one basket is just one cliche I would reference to illustrate the point. Survivors should learn to hedge their bets a little better. Krugman writes of a “veto-proof majority” for which the senate democrat’s most recognizable charicature- gimpy, geriatric Ted Kennedy cast a punctuating vote in favor of the bill taking the Medicare issue one step toward universal coverage. Somehow I have visions of Alec Guinness falling on the detonator in order to blow up the bridge in the final scene of "Bridge on the River Kwai." What else would you expect from a Kennedy? (For the article see http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/24538369.html?location_refer=Commentary. The article appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Opinion Exchange section [OP2] on July 13, 2008. Krugman gives the reader some background on how Medicare has worked in the recent past and does so in relatively few words . . . amateur- the real key to writing is to bore your audience into submission and give a mole diptheria with the best of comedic intentions.)

Random Welfare info. Part V: I could probably make this into a five part sub-topic by attempting to find fault with the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), how SCHIP was designed to help working families who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid, the caseworker and social worker’s roles in subjecting the taxpayer to fund those who may be abusing the Welfare system, state-varied minimum requirements which must be met by potential recipients according to Welfare cap eligibility stipulations considering how many dependent children a potential recipient might have inconceivably parented, what employment-seeking measures recipients might have to go through to justify being on the government dole, what unbelievably minimal proof of citizenship requirements must be met in order to receive cash assistance, what disabilities a beneficiary might need to claim to get benefits, what TANF means***** a detailed listing of medications for their chigger and swimmer’s itch-ridden beagle. I could spend paragraphs distinguishing between the greater federal and state outlay in the form of different types of handouts- in-kind, (i.e. health care services) or earned income tax credits (i.e. cash). I could write about the role the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has in enabling Welfare recipients. I could make Dennis Miller-like analogies about the continued enacting of supplemental and qualifying sub-programs that fit neatly under the broad heading of Welfare- such as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children supplemental act or the Suck our Middle Class Children’s Educational Fund Away Association. I was going to make a remark about certain Welfare recipients having children born to them with a .23 blood-alcohol level, but that seemed exessively insensitive. No wonder why I would promote forced adoptions- see part 30. I don’t want to make light of the situations of millions of Welfare recipients. The federal government matching the states earmarked dollars for Medicaid ranges between 50 and 83 %- I could spend a paragraph there; potential middle class health care tax credits- there is two paragraphs. I have chosen only two sources that seem to provide enough information to put this problem in context, unfortunately for the resilient who would rather walk across the Sahara dragging a dead camel than read the rest of this post, there is quite a bit of information contained in each source:

Cato Handbook for Congress: http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-25.html. [Note: the date of origin of this document is likely about 1997 or ’98.****** Clinton is mentioned as the president with no mention of Bush and Rudy Giuliani is referred to as the mayor of New York, a position he held until 2001.] These pieces of information are delivered in the course of the report- and keep in mind this is post-1996, after the Welfare overhaul, but perhaps not long enough for Cato to have all of the facts:

- Welfare has been a $5.4 trillion failure since its 1965 inception (through the late 1990s);

- Nearly 32 percent of births are illegitimate; in 1960- just 5.3 percent; (not speculating on the reason why- that is off topic)

- “Children raised in families on welfare are seven times more likely to become dependent on welfare than other children”; (the Spartans were dependent on the grease ant to demonstrate the persistence of valor in a fight against a homeowner who has caulked the hell out of countertop seams and window cracks in order to keep the vermin at bay . . . the grease ants- not the Spartans)

- indicate that Welfare is directly linked to crime (ah, good old meta-politics- see part 31);

- the 1996 reform was ineffectual overall- it ended “welfare’s status as an entitlement [which means] Spending on the program is not subject to annual appropriation but rises automatically with the number of people enrolled.” Meaning, after the ’96 reform, Welfare was not subject to rise automatically, but must rather be appropriated for, which is good news considering the illegitimacy issues and the immigration issues the nation faces (i.e. the drastic population increases of the past 15 years will not determine the overall Welfare outlay, but rather the politicians who are in charge of appropriating the money- hint, this is still not good news);

- There is no evidence that workfare programs work (so that Welfare could be treated more as a supplement to income derived from employment). These are referred to as “make-work” or public service jobs. The overriding point, and this could be easily associated with what everyone knows about how education and training equate to better jobs which pay more- but cleaning grafitti from a subway wall does not teach someone how to be a computer programmer, so that the cycle of dependency can be ended;

- “Most audits [of block grant programs] have shown little or no increase in administrative efficiency . . . past block grant programs have seldom achieved savings of more than 5 percent.” (That would seem to shoot down my theory of auditing the welfare system in order to show how fraudulently the money is being spent. But, that would not be my only approach.); Those justifying all Welfare allocations and those desiring the government to absolve all ties to the poor would both contend they invented logic and objectivity. Those two sides would likely argue about which is the best setting on the hose sprayer attachment. But in the rational world, neither would have any more hand in negotiating a fair dollar amount to be distributed to the poor in any form of Welfare which exists than is necessary;

- “A 1995 study by the Cato Institute revealed that the value of the total benefit package received by a typical welfare recipient averaged more than $17,000, ranging from a high of over $36,000 in Hawaii to a low of $11,500 in Mississippi. In 9 states welfare pays more than the average first-year salary for a teacher. In 29 states welfare pays more than the average starting salary for a secretary. In 47 states welfare pays more than a janitor makes. Indeed, in the 6 most generous states, benefits exceed the entry-level salary for a computer programmer.” (I don’t want to quibble, but hopefully they mean that the Welfare recipient receives that amount in the same state in which the programmer is employed and that they did not compare across states. Special note: I would ask the Cato institute to conduct another survey after the 96 reform law before including this in such an informative work.)

- The estimated annual cost to the economy (in 1996) was $600 billion which cannot be used to provide individuals with opportunities by creating jobs, which would more naturally and with less dependency, aid the poor;

- The report also minimally refers to Welfare’s social pathologies, exemptions of 20% of the Welfare population in terms of the amount of time one can collect Welfare benefits, and the reform law (of 1996) having made “a half-hearted attempt to deal with illegitimacy—allowing states to end benefits to teen mothers and to women who have additional children while on welfare.”

- Not to be forgotten- taxes. The Cato report indicates that “A 1993 World Bank study . . . found that countries with low taxes had higher economic growth, more investment, greater increases in productivity, and faster increases in living standards than did high-tax nations.” America, there is no doubt, is a high tax country. The report identifies a particular area where a benefit might be derived from lessening the tax burden- those who would like to start a business. It costs an employer $5,400 just to hire an additional worker. It was estimated that “every dollar of taxes raised by the federal government costs the economy an additional 18 cents, leading to an annual loss of $200 billion from our gross national product.”

Cato’s solution: The federal government should simply stop paying Welfare benefits. Wrong! The Cato Institute would probably just tell a blind man he should have his retina regenerate- see, it can’t. So, here is my initial stab at resolving the Welfare problem using Cato’s metrics and problem solving genius- poor people, just stop being so bereft of cash.

Another proposal: 1) Audit the entire Welfare system. 2) Give responsible black, white and legal U.S. ethnic citizens tax incentives/breaks/credits to start their own businesses in inner cities. 3) Send in caseworkers and social workers to the homes of Welfare recipients and track the potential fraudulent misallocation of money to those who are not as wanting. 4) In order to obtain Welfare benefits, people must be working- whether this comes in the form of public service- ala picking up parks or monitoring crime on city streets armed with cell phones in order to report illegal activity while it is happening, or in a more skill-acquiring platform if work is to be had.

CalWORKS article: In an August 16, 2007 post from a senator Dennis Hollingsworth of CA with the heading “Senate Republicans Fighting Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Welfare System” (do a search on the title) can be found the following facts:

- if new reforms were not enacted, CA would have been “subject to fines of at least $150 million by [2008]” (for the below- CalWORKS is what CA calls its state subsidized Welfare matching agency);

- “ ‘Rather than providing better benefits to households that include drug felons, fleeing felons and undocumented immigrants, this proposal [which identifies the most needy recipients of Welfare benefits] limits their benefits to that of other CalWorks recipients who are complying with the work requirements.” Way to put the hammer down- stop “undocumented workers” from getting more than legal citizens who are felons- that is really hard core. Part 5 of my Welfare plan would be to provide free clams to otters convicted of breaking the unwritten rule of swimming too soon after their crab dinner. Course, they swim while they are eating dinner, so this might be a hard rule to enforce. I would also discontinue benefits to fleeing felons or undocumented workers, which would mean a more stringent approach to identification provisions- see part 27.

- In 07-08, “the estimated average monthly caseload is 459,000 for CalWORKS” the CA state equivalent of the federal Welfare program;

- only 20% of CalWORKS recipients met work requirements in 07;

- “ ‘Project 100’ [is] a pilot program aimed at identifying welfare cheats and removing them from the caseload. The program stops fraud before there is a need for costly criminal action. In San Diego County, Project 100% has since its inception identified welfare fraud in approximately 20% of welfare applications and saved between $2.7 and $4 million every year.” And for those who would contend that big picture $2.7-$4 million isn’t that much- consider that is one county in one state of the country on one issue- the sub-topic of Welfare. Imagine the amount of tax money we would not need to be paying in if we called all agencies to account for their misallocations;

- One more thing- a republican senator attempted to expand Project 100% statewide, but it was defeated by democrats in committee. Democrats- you are more annoying than the guy who always has to pass gas to make water . . . (i.e. urinate). If it is true, that we spend two weeks of our lives looking for things we’ll never find, hopefully that rabid badger pet of mine is gnawing at the sub-floor of the democratic national convention in Denver and about to chew off the ankles of those who would have voted down this measure. Democrats are like Eddie Murphy- they have found a way to play even more lame roles in politics and life than Murphy has played in his last ten movie failures, excepting the Shrek movies where he played an ass. Number of democrats who have played an ass? Let's just find out who voted against the Project 100% bill- I don't have that much time.

Facts of life: Was a horrid sitcome. People should become aware that not everyone in the nation will be provided with the same opportunities, but there is some fluidity among generations. There are driven individuals who step on the shoulders of their ancestors to attain a height from which the fortunate have never dreamt they might fall. There will always be impoverished peoples and always be rich, and always be middle class citizens. The gulf between these classes need not be fostered by either a complicit or an unwitting government. The idea of haves and have-nots is an unreasonable notion in the mind of a liberal, but it is the way of the world. The best that can be hoped is that the government does not usher more favor upon the rich, for it is already their country; likewise, the government should not consider the poor in one of two extremes- either favor the poor’s indulgences or forsake the poor, matching their indifference.

Personal story: I have a friend whose mother was on Welfare when he was a kid. Three children caught up in a divorce, whose mother and father simply could not make it work economically post-divorce is what I suspect was generally the issue. Perhaps all that kept my family from suffering the same fate (of being on Welfare) when I was young is that my sisters were no longer dependents and had moved out of the house providing for themselves. My mother worked two jobs to support me and my dad worked odd-jobs and struggled to provide enough alimony. Teens these days who are in upwardly mobile households who are given cars in anticipation of their 16th birthday cannot possibly understand the types and level of destitution that exists in this country. I would offer that as I was not paid much of a wage when I started working, I gave my father his own used television for christmas one year- not a joke. I cannot stress enough that I am not comparing my life as a teenager to anything resembling true want and squalor- far from it. But I have what is a healthy and not a cowed empathy for the poor.

How bad is it: Fathers are being evicted from minimalist housing projects, struggling to find employment so that their two kids can get a quality education; older women travel about an hour, round trip, to find healthy food in a supermarket across town because nothing in the immediate vacinity sells anything but chips, candy bars, and soda. The young children shoot baskets into trash cans in fenced off courtyards just feet from squad cars cruising past them with sirens howling. Yeah, I watched CNNs special report- “Black in America” which aired on Wednesday night- (July 23, 2008). And that isn’t even the half of it. No, the nation’s ills will never be completely resolved and not even an idealist can pretend to have this as a realistic goal. But we clearly are not doing all we could to investigate the most obvious reasons of why that would be.

In summation I: Taxpayers pay into a Welfare system that may be overfunded, that may overfund some beneficiaries while under-funding others. Not a great combination. Because we are being fleeced like sheep- (our sheepishness need not be restricted to an election cycle) in so many areas we need to begin to find at least two areas in which we will no longer stand it. One area should be a resolution that would appease conservatives and one area should appease democrats. Given the number of uninsured or underinsured in this country, excepting those that choose to be or who should not be here to begin with, we literally cannot afford to make these types of economic mistakes for the benefit of any class of people, especially the poor. Why even have Welfare if the benefit is not obtained by the people for whom the system is most in place to help? The whole sub-topic of Welfare seems to have the croup.

In summation II: I don’t have all of the answers, nor do I even have all of the questions. I don’t know how much someone must suffer in order to become eligible to receive Welfare benefits, no matter the type. But I know there are PLENTY out there who suffer enough to expect some form of economic respite. I don’t know a lot of things, like why the public, in 1909, was so opposed to putting portraits on legal U.S. tender, or why people care more about waiting in line to get the latest iteration of the iPod, or why a restaurant in Minneapolis (Zelo’s) most visible signage, marking the entrance to their restaurant would appear on a folding chair that seats the valet parking guy . . . who, when he is unoccupied would be concealing it. But I do know that we are wasting billions of dollars on Welfare that ought to go back to the people who have worked for the money- rich and poor AND middle class.

Concluding Note: If anyone who actually made it this far and is still conscious is wondering exactly where I might be advocating on the part of a policy perspective- I would fall right in the middle, because that is where the most realistic, rational and fair solutions are to be found. Most of the tough issues are like that. Why just simply keep giving the poor billions of dollars in federal and state money and continue to enable them to live off of taxpayer’s labor; why decide to discontinue funding completely when there are so many that clearly need the assistance? Isn’t the best option a blending of the two? The taxpayers await a resolution that is a compromise between the best principles of each side rather than the Frankenstein monster equivalent over which politicians pat each other's backs.


* The amount of money the government allows CEOs to gather, in terms of stock options, protected money, etc. once they have laid off thousands of workers is not a waste?

** Robert Rector’s article for The Heritage Foundation from December 3, 2007 “SCHIP Bill Increases Illegal Immigrants’ Access to Medicaid and Undermines Welfare Reform” (http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/wm1714.cfm) states as much. Rector indicates some major ways in which immigrants will be able to circumvent existing Welfare laws, with illegal immigrants increasing fraud because of an allowed bypass of multiple forms of documentary evidence proving their citizenship and the weakening of the 1996 Welfare reform laws by legal immigrants who had to wait five years to gain Medicaid, SCHIP or other welfare program assistance. “Applicants who claim citizenship and possess a valid Social Security number are deemed eligible if they appear to meet the Medicaid income limits.” Providing a “valid” SSN has not been proven to be all that difficult- look it up. (Note: I briefly looked into whether the latest version of the SCHIP bill was still dead and it appears so, as of January 23, 2008. Don’t worry, Miracle Max, from “The Princess Bride” movie (a role played by Billy Crystal) thinks it is "only mostly dead" and will at some point resurrect SCHIP, which is short for- State Children’s Health Insurance Program [Reauthorization Act of 2007]. It appears to be harder to kill than Jason from the Friday the 13th movies. Sometimes these things just never go away; a baseball stadium bill passed both houses of the Minnesota state legislature in 2006 after about 14 years of constant whining by those who own, run and follow the team. The Metrodome, which still currently has the Twins as residents, was deemed insufficient for baseball about 12 years after the first game was played there. It is reported that at the signing of the Medicare bill by President Johnson in 1965, Harry Truman complained that his neighbors grandchildren did not have Medicaid insurance because their parents made too much money . . . and thus the idea for SCHIP was born. “Inconceivable”- another famous line from “The Princess Bride.”

*** All of 35Ws (Minnesota) on ramps were closed this past weekend due to construction after last year’s bridge collapse. Jesus! A duck deliriously doped up on beak-cancer medication, that tested among the most ignorant of the web-footed fowl brotherhood would not have made such a nonsensical decision, but probably has already decided to vote for an independent this election.

**** See http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html. Estimating the calculation of births, deaths, international migrants (legal or illegal is not differentiated on the site), there is a net gain of one person every 10 seconds.

***** Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

****** Surely there is a more recent, more comprehensive, report available somewhere, but about all that would change is the estimated wasted dollar amounts due to Welfare’s substantially fraudulent persistence.