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Welfare reform only one or two reality checks away
As it stands, America is the greatest country in the world. We enjoy the highest standard of living, access to the best medical coverage in the world, and this is the only country where an Austrian-born body builder can become governor of the most populous state in the Union. America is indeed awesome—but not perfect. America is also a land burdened by mistaken programs and misguidance, and it is time that one of these mistakes was rectified. For too long, we have ignored the system of welfare that promotes laziness and government reliance as a way of life. For many, welfare has turned into a career where performance is measured in terms of child production. If we were to implement just a couple of reforms into the welfare process, the end result would be astounding. Although I am an admitted hard-line conservative, even I can see a need for some sort of welfare program. Simply put—some people are just too lazy to work and would rather live off their genetic ability to produce offspring. Fine. But there needs to be some safeguards put in place to assure the money is going to the appropriate place—the children, not their parents. Random drug testing needs to be instantly implemented. Upon the first failure, the recipient should be sentenced to a six-month jail term, and the kids should be immediately removed. Foster care might not be the best solution, but it is far better than allowing children to live in an environment rampant with drug use and its consequences. On the second failure, the recipient should be imprisoned for five years and the children would need to be permanently removed from the home. This may sound tough, but these measures are necessary to ensure that each child has some hope of leading a successful life as an adult. Drug use is learned—quickly moving from parent to child. Another simple solution to rectify the welfare crisis is to not allow recipients to have more children while accepting government assistance for the children they can already not take care of. There are now simple, reversible, medical procedures that would temporarily make it impossible to have children. Once the recipient is no longer receiving the check, then the procedure would be reversed and he or she would be able to once again have children—just not on the government dime. The immediate benefits of these two reforms are undeniable, even by the most liberally saturated minds. First off, the government would have more money in its coffers due to the benefits lost by recipients who were unable to pass the random testing. Also, money would be saved in medical bills because the cut-off recipients would no longer be eligible for free medical services. As for the children, most of them would end up with a relative or foster parent who would be more than willing to take care of the children for almost no financial restitution. Immediate benefits would include the fact that children removed from drug-addicted households would start performing better in school. By changing their surroundings, we would hopefully be able to elevate their chances of breaking the cycle their parents were subjecting them to. Implementation of these reforms would benefit society in ways that are too numerous to count. But to implement them, two obstacles would need to be overcome—liberals, and government-funded drug addicts. To me, each is equally to blame. — This columnist can be reached at collegian@csufresno.edu |