There are many conflicts in the current Christian Republican thinking concerning the welfare system. It is my understanding that the majority of Christian Republicans (CR) feel that there are too many cheaters on the system, that those on welfare procreate at free will and are creating large numbers of welfare recipients that burden the system, that recipients are lazy and don't want to work nor have they paid enough into the system to receive benefits.
The majority of welfare recipients are women, children, and elderly people. While there is no doubt that you can hunt up a few people that cheat the system, they are not representative of the average recipient, they are VERY FEW! Yet the majority of policy is directed at those very few while undercutting and making miserable the remaining needy.
The women with children that make up the majority of the welfare roles are in a difficult position. They must find a way to work, if possible, while rearing children, generally on a single person's income. If the woman can identify the man that has responsibility towards these children he is brought into the picture through the child maintenance programs. If both parents are minimum wage earners, their paychecks are horribly burdened with child responsibilities. If the parents live apart, the man's full wages can be garnered leaving him no way to support himself until the children have graduated from high school. It is easier for the man to disappear than to try to survive under the load. When this happens, the woman must face the option of giving her children up to the state to support them. However, the chances of the state actually finding a home for individual children above 1 year of age is close to zero, so the state feels that the mother should remain with her children if possible. Yet, if the woman works at a minimum wage job, she is hardly capable of supporting her children with any success because the wages are less than necessary to cover the daily needs of an individual much less a family. AND the woman isn't allowed to receive benefits from welfare because her income is too high!
Take the welfare mom that attempts 2 jobs. Her children are reared by the community or within the family, usually with little intervention and support. Many of these families still live in more hostile environments are are subjected to the goals of the "hood" like drugs, thieving, prostitution. These issues come to mind because they are the most obvious forms of coping with lack of reasonable resources from a society that has turned its back. Children reared in this environment will most likely, though not always succumb to it. Coupled with lesser schools, they have little recourse to find a way out. These children will make their way into the prison system. This IS a goal of Republican spending....we just don't want THAT element tainting OUR society.
I have heard the complaint that the welfare mother should have to work. If she does it will often take two jobs to make enough money to care for the children is a decent environment. Many woman are willing to commit to this kind of labor to provide for their children but who is looking after the kids? Faced with low wages, the remaining parent is most likely going to have to compromise and work one job while giving up nicer low income neighborhoods for a more hostile environment. Although the mother may be able to spend some time with the kids, she will have the alternative issues of dealing with the neighbors of the lower income environment where drugs, poor schools, and prostitution have taken root. AND she does this with less than support from her community; instead the community burdens her with dejection and complaint. Who is she to have children.
Have we forgotten that sex is a biological need? I am an educated woman. I had 3 children taking every precaution to not have them and with the use of birth control methods less than the pill, I became pregnant using 3 separate forms of lesser birth control. Are you saying that welfare recipients have no right to have sex? Perhaps we should hand out welfare checks with a chastity belt? But even that wouldn't work. Some man with needs would find his way around that and since women are considered little more than a masturbation station for men, no woman is safe from the consequences.
Recently, the Republican house voted to stop funding for Planned Parenthood. How are the welfare mothers supposed to get care during and after their pregnancies or for their children? How do they not have children if you have taken away their primary source of condoms and birth control? Expect the welfare population to increase. Take away a welfare woman's ability to get medical care for herself or her children, increase the time spent outside of the workforce and risk losing that minimum wage job.
Last you ask whether these people have paid their dues or taxes that they deserve to receive benefits from society. I assure you that those who have suffered poverty and have ever worked pay a far greater portion of their income to taxes in purchases than does the average citizen and they receive the benefits of society in far smaller portions does the average person. Add to that the costs of poverty: paying more for the same goods and services because of the high price of theft in their communities, paying late fees to bills because their paycheck doesn't arrive conveniently, or by paying interest because they pay for things over time. Being poor carries with it very high fiscal costs that most people never consider. Beyond that there is an even greater cost, that is the cost to society for waning property values and tax income in low income neighborhoods, the cost of inefficient schools, the cost of police services, criminal justice systems, prison systems, the lack of prepared workers in the workforce, the cost of political jockeying to resolve these issues. No one deserves this amount of ridicule, intolerance, and neglect. We all need equally and we all deserve an equal chance at success.
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I would like to make two side notes to the parties I am directing this discussion toward as you are an anomaly of great conflict: the Republicans and the Christians. It is pure anathema that you have joined forces.
Republicans:
Your interest has never been to reduce government control, it has been to high jack the budget and place the money into the hands of your cronies, friends and family so that you can control government and reap the benefits of the money. You wrongly believe that promoting the economy is the way to maximize the monetary system, promote free trade but all you do is promote greed within the system and create an inefficient government an new form of aristocracy. The old guard knew something that you don't understand- that they had to provide for everyone and that it was their obligation to do so as a trustee for society.
Christians:
I wonder everyday how anyone of you can call yourselves Christians. Wasn't Jesus the one out feeding bread to the downtrodden? Did he threaten and despise the poor? Where does all this shame, ridicule, and intolerance reside? Don't you have an imperative within your own sects to help one another? Have you considered just how many welfare recipients ARE Christian? You should be ashamed of yourselves.
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