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Essay Name       : 1284.txt 
Uploader         : sean beatty
Email Address    : 
Language         : english
Subject          : Social Studies
Title            : welfare reform
Grade            : ab
School System    : university
Country          : usa
Author Comments  : 
Teacher Comments : 
Date             : 11/19/96
Site found at    : link
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Welfare Reform
Welfare as seen by conservative America is a hand out to the poor. It creates
a cycle wherein children of families on welfare continue dependency on the 
welfare their parents depended on to raise them. But, is conservative America
setting the blame on the right shoulders? Are there enough adequate living-wage
job opportunities to take care of America's poverty stricken masses? 
Will the cycle of poverty end with a poor, single mother working a job at
McDonalds to support her children instead of gaining welfare benefits? I
answer no to all these question and firmly believe that welfare reform is
heading toward a major catastrophe.
The current large number of people on welfare is not due to the laziness 
of the poor but to three major factors:
1) The top heavy distribution wealth in the U. S.of A. today.
2) The amount of teenage pregnancies and children born into poverty, or potential poverty situations.
3)Schooling systems must change to accommodate the work forces needs. 
These are definately not the only factors affecting welfare,  but in my mind are
the major factors. I will also discuss a couple of my ideas for making funds 
available for families that need it.   
Firstly, the distribution of wealth in the U.S. is astonishingly top heavy.
Considering all assets, in 1989 the richest one percent of the population
controls 39 percent of America's total household wealth. Whereas in financial
wealth alone the top one percent controls 48 percent. Also, in regards to 
income, The top one percent garners 8-9 percent of total income(1).  
This gap continues to grow between the rich and middle to poor net 
wealth and income. The new American aristocracy pushes down wages for 
middle and lower class Americans, creating more of a need for government 
help programs such as welfare. However, new reforms cut benefits and 
will require a large number of unskilled workers to enter the work force.
Current trends toward corporate downsizing, diminishing need for unskilled
work in the manufacturing sector, and American companies going abroad to 
seek a cheaper workforce do not bode well for a newly cut off welfare
beneficiary.
The government proposals declare that states are responsible for designing
programs to deal with people cut off or on welfare. States unable to find
jobs for welfare recipients in the private sector will be forced to create
community service jobs and the like to support the jobless. This will create
a drain on state budgets and force state tax raises to create jobs that are
eventually devoid of worth to the community at large because of the steadily
increasing numbers of workers entering such jobs. Hence one would have the 
same dilemma; instead of welfare recipients "sitting around at home" they 
would be sitting around at work.
The problem of a high number of children being born into poverty and potential
poverty must be reduced to diminish the number of people requiring welfare. 
Education and availability of birth control is the key here. Maybe, if 
middle and high school age kids could learn about the means of contraception
and receive them in the same place we wouldn't have such a problem. 
Distributing condoms and birth control might just be a sensible solution.
I just have to quote  conservative, Robert Rector in his paper "How Congress
Reformed the Welfare System"  which is about the triumphs of welfare reform:

"At the present time, nearly one-third of all American children are born out
of wedlock. There is a growing consensus, among liberals and conservative alike,
that the growth in illegitimacy is a social catastrophe for the nation. The
collapse of marriage and the rise of out-of-wedlock births encourage welfare
dependency as well as crime and many other social problems. The welfare 
reform bill contains three provisions to combat illegitimacy. First, it will
focus the attention of the state governments on the illegitimacy problem by
requiring each state to set numerical goals for reducing illegitimacy over the
next ten years. Second, it will provide bonus funding to states which reduce
illegitimacy without increasing abortion rates. Third, it will create a new
program to provide abstinence education, funded at $50 million per year.(2)"

I see that the U.S. is going on one of its oh so popular "wars on (state 
bad thing here)." Yes, it's installment 856 of  the "wars on" saga this
episode: illegitimacy. First of all, illegitimacy is not the big problem
here, children born into poverty is the problem so let not blame everyone
not choosing to have a child in "gods sacred union." Requiring states to
magically wave their wand and instill the morals of the 1950's on their
citizens is not a healthy practice. Legislation will not limit the amount
of children being born out of wed-lock. Secondly, the new welfare reformers
idea of limiting teenage births is abstinence education, and they allotted
$50 million to make kids think fucking isn't cool. American culture has 
already defined teenage sex/pregnancies as an occurrence that is no longer
taboo. $50 million will not put a dent in our cultures view of premarital
sex when the movie industry routinely spends more than that on one movie
that portrays premarital sex as a regular occurrence (as it is in America,
and will be for a long time to come). Give congress a shot of reality and
make them watch the movie "Kids" is what I say.
The nature of school needs to change. U.S. schools prepare students for a 
generalized goal of priming students for a generalized college. Schools
must specialize to meet the needs of the work force as well as the needs
of students. I am a very big supporter of the magnet school system with
a few alterations. I think that high school as far as general education
should be finished in two years. After that student should be allowed to
go on and study what they want to. Germany's use of industry sponsored
apprenticeships is a brilliant idea. Let industry train the workers they
need. If academic pursuits are what a student wishes for let them continue
within the magnet school they require. Talented artists and craftsmen 
should be allowed to pursue apprenticeships or go to an arts magnet. 
Give students with learning disabilities a school can meet their needs.
This will help meet industry's expectations for the workforce and also
give students an out to the stagnant atmosphere of normal high schools.
Catering to students tastes and dreams may help students maintain faith
in their schooling, bringing up the success rates of U.S. schools. Also
the magnet school system allows students from different financial and 
cultural backgrounds mix and may help some kids that maybe brought up 
on welfare see that there are other opportunities. 
Well, I guess I just stated my idea for reforming schools to bring down
the amount of dependence welfare (as well as the quality of education).
And I think it slipped out how I would try to bring down the number of 
children born into poverty.  But how are we going to remedy the problems
with wealth distribution? Well, we could use the problem with wealth 
distribution to our advantage and institute a wealth tax. A wealth tax 
has been instituted in many European countries. Here is what the Swiss
model for a wealth tax applied to America would look like:
Net worth, excluding pension wealth and household effects (and
automobiles worth up to $10,000) would be taxed annually.
The first $100,000 would be exempt, eliminating two-thirds of all
households from having to pay wealth tax.Rates would range from 
one-twentieth of one percent for those in the $100,000-$199,000 range
to 3/10's of one percent for those over the one million mark. Only three
percent of families would see their tax bill raise over 10%.
Wealth tax to be filed along with income tax.(1)
In addition to wealth tax, I would end one type of corporate welfare: 
the accelerated depreciation tax break. This tax break is based on 
companies not being able to modernize as fast technology is advancing.
It's a ludicrous break because the rate technology advances just keeps
going up. Therefore the break keeps going up. That tax break will cost
tax payers 27.2 billion dollars this year alone(3). In addition to the
$40 billion accumulated from the wealth tax(1). That's just short of 
70 billion dollars more to invest in a total overhauling of the 
educational system including the changes I outlined earlier.
Additionally refurbishing sexual education to reflect todays culture.
In concluding I'd like to say the new welfare reform leaves a bad 
taste in my mouth and it makes me worry about the future of the U.S. 
Changes made be old men who long for the fifties and don't want to 
address real issues that affect us today scare me. My views on welfare
and for that matter the entire way politics has runs lately has lead me
to the practice of not voting any more. Until a candidate I can actually
indorse has a chance in hell to win I won't. Changes I believe in for 
welfare will not even be considered until it's too late if at all. Who
knows maybe it'll turn out okay. 
	      
	        
	     	 Works Cited



1) Wolff, Edward N.  "Time for a Wealth Tax?"  On-line. Internet. Accessed 10 	November 1996. availible: http://epn.org/tcf/xxwolf01.html.

2) Rector, Robert.  "How Congress Reformed the Welfare System" On-line. Internet
	Accessed 10 Nov. 1996. Available: 	http://www.heritage.org/heritage/congress/chap5.html

3) Shields, Janice.  "Balanced Budget Hypocracy" On-line Internet. Accessed 10 Nov. 	1996 Available: http://www.essential.org/listproc/corporate-welfare/0032.html
                                                
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