Ending the Free Ride by Jeff Jackson (12/24/03)

The Land of the Free - A Conservative Politics Web Site

This is Part 3 of the topic "Propagation of the Nanny State" and follows Government As A Provider and Open Hands to Government. This paper deals with the topics of Subsidized Living.

There is a problem in this country. And the problem is people that continue to live off the "generosity" of others who are forced to be generous by the Federal Government. This number of people that fall into this category of reaping the benefits of the working class vary depending on how you slice it, but the mere concept that there are able bodied persons that continue to benefit off the forced giving of others through tax dollars collected under the threat and penalty of law is a concept that can not be tolerated under the rights of all free men.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are
willing to work and give to those who would not." -Thomas Jefferson

Segments of the population that can work but don't work while receiving benefits such as reduced cost housing, health care, food, and clothing paid for by the tax dollars from rest of the populace are acting as the new slave masters in the 21st century with the Federal Government as their source of power. Taking something not freely given is a principle that smacks in the face of the core rights this country was founded upon. Government that provides for persons that are capable of being productive members of society while not being so, while perceived as compassionate is also setting a dangerous precedent.

To be fair we are not talking about people who happen to be upon hard times and receive benefits such as unemployment or other such help along like student loans, subsidized start up loans for legitimate new business and the like. We do not talk about these persons when talking about the new slave masters because these people are or have been productive and paid their taxes to the government to help support their rights and freedoms enjoyed in this land. They also will be repaying these debts to society or they will be the ones in trouble or eventually jail.

What we are talking about here are the people that do not pay federal income taxes or have not for a very long time and that receive "free" money from the people of this nation through forced redistribution of the wealth at the hands of government. These people, those that can work but don't as well as those that take additional money not earned to better themselves and their standard of living, are the slave masters that we talk of in this instance.

The good news is that there is a simple solution that would not only allow for this to be remedied but also allow for the remedy of some other problems that exist because of this flawed system. The bad news is that this solution will be decried as racist, anti-poor, non-compassionate and what have you by those that benefit most from the existence of this problem. But isn't that always the way?

The solution is the simple application of if you are going to receive something from the government without paying anything into it, then you will work for the government through the application of community service and public works projects. And you will be required to participate to receive the money. Should you choose not to you will be cut off to fend for yourself and be required to find true charity to supplement your life style.

Important to note is that people who are sick, truly disabled, or utterly unable to work would not be required to be cut off. By sick I mean laid up in bed unable to perform. I do not mean that you have a headache or menstrual cramps and feel ill. By truly disabled I mean people that are mentally retarded to the point of being unable to function in society, quadriplegics, and other serious disabilities. I do not mean someone that lost one leg and is capable of getting an artificial limb and performing some duty in society nor do I mean someone that has made a glutton of one's self to the point where they way 800 lbs through their own sloven behavior.

I mean that welfare, as we know it, must be reserved to only those that are in the direst needs on a permanent basis, and that those that receive it for a temporary fix must do something to earn the money they are so graciously being given. Workfare is a must.

We can be flexible. We do not need to be completely cruel. But we must be firm in our desire to not create generation of leeches upon the system. For those that do not work, the requirements would be higher. For those that have at least a part time job, the requirements would be less. For example:

Hours Worked per Week	Hours of Community Service
0-10	35
11-20	25
21-30	15
31-40	5
40+	0

Now, many of those that currently receive money from the system and those that support the status quo will say that such a plan is everything from uncompassionate to down right outrageous. They will say that requiring community service takes away from the time that these people on assistance could be looking for work and if they have children, takes away from time spent with their children. I say such arguments are a crock.

It is a crock because it paints the situation with too broad a brush as often those that like to maintain the status quo and the dependency on the system like to do. When in reality what it really does is requires people to actually provide a service of value to get something\ in return. This is the same concept that the majority of us as Americans have to live with day in and day out. It is not so wrong to require those that receive the charity of our tax dollars to follow the same rules and do something to earn their money.

Such community service can range from working to beautify the subsidized housing that they live in or using skills to help reduce maintenance costs on the units. Expecting a person with the skills of a plumber to help fix a couple broken toilets in the apartments instead of paying an outside contractor a couple thousand dollars makes a lot more sense, especially if that person is already receiving a government check or benefit each month. Community service can mean picking up litter on the roadside to painting over graffiti to working at after school daycare for children who have working parents and can not go home.

It is quite a broad ranging concept. But what is required is that people that get something have to give something more than the promise of looking for a better life or a promise of doing better. This service can be done while their children are at school and not take away from their time with them. It can be done in the evening while their children work on their studies under the tutelage of either a neighbor or more preferably the second parent. But what needs to be enforced more than anything is that nothing should ever be free.

What needs to be is that people are not rewarded when not doing something worth of reward. Excuses will always be made to maintain the status quo. Excuses, however, do not correct the problems inherent within the system. Because if we do not, then those that are content to leech off of society for free money and services will continue to do so. Requiring deeds to be done in order to earn their money provides an incentive to get out from under welfare and into the work force where they will be rewarded at a greater rate of $$$/hour worked than on workfare.

Welfare systems should never be completely abandoned, but they should be limited to those that desperately need them and have been denied all other forms of aid from their own states down to local charities. We should never completely turn our backs on the poor and disadvantaged and it is good that many of the poor in this country find enough assistance to afford what many people would consider "luxury" items such as televisions, etc.

Possessions like television allow the poor to at least remained informed about current events and the world around them even if the information they might choose to receive is slanted one way or the other. Such things should never be overlooked as positives for many times it is the uniformed that cause the most problems for a society.

I am not proposing the disposal of all forms of government "charity". But I am proposing that we reign it in to only those that desperately need it and are beyond all other forms of help. We need to be wary about those that claim to "need" and then be cautious about how we spend our hard earned money to cover these "needs". Even compassion must have it's own reasonable limits. The problem is that we, as a society, have reached a point where we measure compassion by the amount of monetary aid we give our down on their luck fellow Americans rather than by how much we actually help them.

Help is not about making our fellow Americans slaves to the government. Help is about making all that are capable self sufficient when possible, but requiring something in return for the charity our government mandates that the rest of us give to those that are not as well off.