President Donald Trump wants Congress—which is to say, Republicans, since the Progressive-Democrats in Congress want nothing to do with any Trump or Republican generally proposal—to take up welfare reform as the next major Government revamp after tax reform goes through (assuming, of course, a few Republican ego-riven snowflakes don’t blow that up). However, Louise Radnofsky, who wrote the WSJ piece at the link, seems not to understand the scope of the problem. Commenting on a speech concerning the matter that Trump gave in Missouri a bit ago, Radnofsky wrote this:
The president didn’t offer specifics about which of the dozens of welfare programs he was seeking to change….
How about all of them, Madam?
As Trump put it in that speech,
I know people that work three jobs and they live next to somebody who doesn’t work at all. And the person who is not working at all and has no intention of working at all is making more money and doing better than the person that’s working his and her ass off….
Now, it’s certainly true that there are welfare queens who are too lazy or too greedy to do actual work when they can get OPM for free. They’re a small majority, though; most folks have enough self respect to want to work for their living and earn their way. However, it far too often makes no economic sense whatsoever for them to do so.
Too many folks are trapped in the Progressive-Democrat welfare cage because they don’t have the skill sets needed to get jobs that pay as well as their aggregated welfare checks—and those that would work anyway are steadily being priced out of the low-skill jobs they would take by spreading minimum wage laws that require employers to pay more than the work available is worth.
Then there’s the welfare cliff. Far too often, getting a job or a better job than the one currently held, or even simply accepting a pay raise, would put the person into a high(er) income bracket that would result in a cut in welfare payments greater than the value of the job, the better job, or the pay raise. This net reduction in income would be lunacy, except for its effect on keeping folks trapped and voting for the politicians who control the handouts.
Reform all of the welfare programs, reform our welfare system as a system, and reform it extensively. Go down, Trump and Congress, and let these people go.
