Saving Face

This week the US House of Representatives voted to cut the food stamp program by billions and the squawking about welfare abuse is in the forefront. This reminds me of a time when I was in third grade and the teacher entered our classroom and it was very noisy. She promptly made us all write sentences as a consequence. Now we were not all talking but we all got punished. I often hear this same mentality when it comes to cutting welfare. "They're all gaming the system so we should take it away" seems to be the battle cry. I know there are people who do take advantage of the system but there is a good way to address it. 

The statistics show that very little abuse of the system actually happens, or at least that is caught. We all have a built in bias that if someone is getting something for nothing that there is some game being played. This isn't always true. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening and welfare and food stamp programs help some people stay afloat and prevents children from starving. Now I do agree there needs to be some assurance that people are not using tax payer dollars on drugs, but to assume that everyone on welfare does so is unfair.  It is reasonable to cut any waste but use the saved money for larger purposes. 

Let me offer two thoughts. Here's an idea, cut some money from welfare if you want but use the dollars to investigate and prosecute welfare fraud. Here's an even bigger idea: start a war on poverty. Do we realize how many of the societal ills we argue about can be cured by eliminating poverty?  Use savings to fund programs to help end poverty. The reality is that special interests won't allow that to happen. You see the vote that was just taken was not about how evil welfare is, it's about saving face with the republican base. Republican legislators will now have something to run on the next time around. It is not realistic that welfare will be cut that much or it will pass in a democratic senate. Deals will be made and the program will continue. The tactic of dangling social programs will continue as long as legislators want to keep their unproductive jobs. I've said it before, keep your eye on the ball people. 

http://m.cbsnews.com/storysynopsis.rbml?pageType=politics&url=http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57603776/house-votes-to-cut-$4-billion-a-year-from-food-stamps/&catid=57603776

http://spritzophrenia.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/how-bad-is-welfare-fraud-in-the-usa/