Nancy Ford, administrator of Nevada\u2019s Division of Welfare and Supportive Services, split the baby On Aug. 19, adopting one policy change designed to meet federal requirements that aid recipients be required to look for work, but rejecting another.<\/p>\n
Ms. Ford rejected a proposal that would have taken food stamps away from entire households when the head of household failed to meet requirements such as attending employment workshops.<\/p>\n
In other words, she ruled those who beg the state to subsidize their grocery shopping can continue getting tax subsidies for their Pepsi and Doritos and Little Debbie Snack Cakes, even if they refuse to attend job-training workshops and apply for work, as promised.<\/p>\n
But she did approve a separate proposal to require those who don\u2019t keep their agreements to attend classes or look for jobs to \u201csit out\u201d of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program for three months. (Previously, those kicked off the welfare program for failure to comply with their \u201cPersonal Responsibility Plans\u201d were allowed to reapply the following month.)<\/p>\n
Ms. Ford said the change is designed not to save the division money but rather to encourage the handout recipients to comply with those \u201cPersonal Responsibility Plans.\u201d The federal law that aimed to end \u201cwelfare as we knew it\u201d now requires the beggars to meet requirements such as participating in \u201cwork-related activities\u201d 30 hours per week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certain people out there who have learned to play the system and know how to get their benefits without doing the minimal amount of work,\u201d Ms. Ford explains. \u201cIf they put as much effort into work as they put into getting benefits, they\u2019d probably be very successful in the work force.\u201d<\/p>\n
Needless to say, even this minimal step outraged those who believe Americans who are willing to work (or marry someone who works, or both) should be taxed ever more to supply endless and unconditional handouts to those who do not.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is so reprehensible I don\u2019t know where to begin,\u201d moans Leroy Pelton, a tax-funded UNLV professor who believes the bums should face few if any restrictions on their handouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to impact our community, our schools, our emergency rooms, our sheltering systems,\u201d agreed Terry Lindemann, director of Family Promise, a program that helps homeless families — managing to name at least two enterprises that should be pay-as-you-go, in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s going to take care of those children because their parents are judged non-compliant?\u201d she whined.<\/p>\n
Their parents, Ms. Lindemann — or, if they cannot, then their extended families or their churches or other religious associations. And if all those fail, then (orphanages being currently out of style) foster parents duly designated.<\/p>\n
Neither the state nor \u201cthe community\u201d are responsible for the welfare and upbringing of the children of others. Those who assert they are, tread a slippery slope.<\/p>\n
For just as we\u2019re told we can now require motorcyclists to wear helmets since \u201cwe\u2019re all responsible\u201d to pay their medical bills if they suffer brain injuries while riding bare-headed, why would not the same logic justify sterilizing the poor against their will, since otherwise \u201cWe\u2019ll all be responsible for caring for the children they refuse to abort and obviously can\u2019t afford to raise\u201d?<\/p>\n
As budgets grow tighter — if the do-gooders continue to insist \u201cwe have no choice\u201d but to keep feeding the able-bodied for free — such despicable proposals will resurface, and from surprisingly \u201cprogressive\u201d circles, mark my words.<\/p>\n
Was Ms. Ford\u2019s action last week immoral, as the critics claim?<\/p>\n
No. What is immoral is seizing money from those who work hard and save and wait to have children till after marriage in order to provide for their own offspring, in order to subsidize and thus encourage the irresponsible breeding decisions of those who refuse to do any of these things.<\/p>\n
Those who are able can and do and will doubtless continue to help the less fortunate through voluntary charity. But taxes are not voluntary, and charity is not a legitimate or constitutionally authorized function of government.<\/p>\n
Government does charity badly because bureaucrats are taught to not make comparative value judgments, which are precisely what\u2019s required. The family of a worker laid up because he fell on the job and hurt his back should receive help with few questions asked, but a far higher level of skepticism and demand for proof of reform are necessary before handing more alms to the chronic drunk or drug addict or hustler — the very sort who Ms. Ford warns us have \u201clearned to play the system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forced redistribution to meet the bellowing demands of the kind of folk to whom you might hand a hamburger, but never a dollar, does not encourage good fellowship, grace, and charitable feeling. It does just the opposite.<\/p>\n
Taxpayers are more like dogs than they are like cattle. Attempt to milk them dry, and eventually they will turn and bite.<\/p>\n
Professor Pelton and Ms. Lindemann are free to drain their own bank accounts (the parts that didn\u2019t start out as our tax dollars, anyway) to finance the oversize litters of the otherwise nonproductive class — perhaps they’ll get their reward when the little tykes graduate to felony auto theft and home invasion. But neither this pair nor the uniformed agents of their fantastic schemes of enforced altruism have a right to any portion of my paycheck, or of yours.<\/p>\n
Theft under threat of force is still armed robbery, no matter what \u201cgood things\u201d the thieves say they hope to accomplish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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