Simply Politics & News

[ForReal]

Here we go again. There is absolutely nothing wrong with giving a helping hand to those that need it.

The problem, as with many of the other social programs of the Federal Government is lack of enforcement of the rules.

My father died when I was 8 years old. A portion of my life was spent in Herman Gardens Housing Project in Detroit. That was in the late 50's. In that time, Welfare Case Workers would show up unannounced to check on clients of which were on their client list. There was no forewarning, except the grapevine of children running from residence to residence crying "The welfare lady is here".

You had to abide by the rules or you were off the roles. If you were a family, that meant you volunteered a portion of your week to the City of Detroit. Winter meant snow removal. All year there were city garbage trucks to work on. And plenty of cemetery and park work in the summer. These were just a few of the tasks that were partially performed by men, whose families were helped by welfare.

If you were a single woman and there was evidence of a man cohabitating with you, you were off the role. Cohabitating with a man either meant you were taking care of him or he was taking care of you, either of which was not allowable.

Children had to live in a decent environment. What that means was they had to attend school regularly and the home had to be relatively clean.
Welfare recipients did not get food stamps. They got commodities. I mean real commodities. There was no way to waste you help on buying candy, pop or other such items.
There were public health doctors and facilities. And dental work was performed by student dentists.

In those days, there was real incentive to get off welfare, not make it a way of life.

The system we have now provides a cocoon. Rent and utilities are paid, food stamps are given and cash is also given. Privacy laws have made it all but impossible to catch welfare cheats. Many of which enjoy cash under the table lucrative side lines and live quite comfortably. There are many homes where children are abused and neglected. This is fact. I've seen it first hand.

No, we don't need a new set of objectives. There is only one. To help those that are struggling to survive. In other words, to provide help for the needy, not the greedy. And we need better monitoring and enforcement of the rules that already exist. We need to set up work programs, including child care centers, so people can work for their sustenance and help those that wish to work and unburden them from excessive child care costs. We need a system that allows both parents to cohabitate to create a family unit. One where the male works for the help his family needs. There is plenty of public service work available in cities that have bloated budgets for public services.

This is simple, if we could just get the road blocks out of the way to accomplish it.