Welfare Reform

[Liberalman]

Toronto and most cities in North America is paying too much for welfare and is in need of a major review and overhaul.

There are people on our welfare roles that has been receiving hard earned tax dollars for years and will keep on getting that money for more years because this is their perceived career.

Welfare is a program to help the people who fall on hard times and is there as a temporary solution until they got back on their feet.

Lets face it, things happen in life that we have very little control over and we will need help until we can start over.

Years back when the American President Clinton was in office he came out with a simple welfare plan where a person could draw welfare in their lifetime of five years maximum.

That is sixty months of welfare and when you consider that the average crises lasts about six months before you get back on your feet and if this happens six time in your working career this equals 36 months and the person would have 24 months to spare.

When Mike Harris was premier years ago in Ontario he tried to bring in welfare reform but he tried by cutting back the welfare payments overnight to a ridiculously small amount and he said that people that were on welfare had to work a certain percentage of the time on municipal or provincial projects but he never followed through with that idea.

They tried the food stamp program but abandoned it because people complained that it was a psychological hardship for then when other people saw that they were on welfare.

Now welfare recipients get cheques so a certain percentage of them can buy their cigarettes and beer and wine and drugs and their movie channels on cable TV

With cheques you cannot follow the money to see where it is spent on.

With today’s technology welfare recipients can get a welfare debit card issued by the government so they can access their welfare account for the basic necessities like food and shelter.

People that have been on welfare that are able to work have to go to work for their welfare like government projects with time off so they can search for work and they have to provide a list of businesses that they went to so it can be verified.

If the cities and towns were to adopt the welfare debit card and working for welfare the welfare roles would dramatically decrease to the people that really need it.

 

[lone wolf]

What about Hydro execs who get million-dollar-buy-outs and generous pensions for ripping off the public ... or former permiers who get a near equal buy-out yet still has to be protected by a squad of bodyguards (the only ex-premier in Ontario to require the service, I might add) at expense to the Province ... or the bribes and incentives paid out to billion dollar companies to locate in Ontario who leave when the bribe money is gone (Weyerhauser)

Welfare recipients? Think again where your tax dollare are misspent.

Woof!

 

[Scott Free]

What about Hydro execs who get million-dollar-buy-outs and generous pensions for ripping off the public ... or former permiers who get a near equal buy-out yet still has to be protected by a squad of bodyguards (the only ex-premier in Ontario to require the service, I might add) at expense to the Province ... or the bribes and incentives paid out to billion dollar companies to locate in Ontario who leave when the bribe money is gone (Weyerhauser)

Welfare recipients? Think again where your tax dollare are misspent.

Woof!

Absolutely!

 

[Colpy]

OMG!

I agree with Scott Free and Lone Wolf!

I'm going to the basement now........please ignore any gunshots you hear.

BTW, guys, Liberalman has a point as well.............

Liberalman?

Now I'm going to have to shoot myself TWICE!

 

[CDNBear]

When Mike Harris was premier years ago in Ontario he tried to bring in welfare reform but he tried by cutting back the welfare payments overnight to a ridiculously small amount and he said that people that were on welfare had to work a certain percentage of the time on municipal or provincial projects but he never followed through with that idea.

Bull****! He most certainly tried, but the Liberal Unions threw a hissy fit about non union members doing union jobs. It wasn't that he didn't follow through, he was forced to drop the idea.

If the cities and towns were to adopt the welfare debit card and working for welfare the welfare roles would dramatically decrease to the people that really need it.

As the cost of administering the debit card system sky rocketed.

:roll:

 

[MikeyDB]

Liberalman has an argument indeed.

I can't speak for others in my situation, but I can speak for myself. I see people abusing the Disability Program ...all the time, and it infuriates me! I have been limited to a greatly reduced mobility for over ten years now and couldn't perform any employment role that wouldn't unfairly burden the employer by paying me to do work I'm unable to do... I hate living in a chair for years on end...I miss the life I had when I worked both as an employee and as a self-employed person, but I can't change what happened to me. And there are others worse off than I. I don't drink so the money (benefits) I recieve aren't flushed down the pooper...I don't use controlled substances of any kind...I live a life of minimals..... I'm not complaining... (well maybe a little from time to time... ) and I get furious when I see other disabled people abusing the system.

We will have elderly folk for as long as the species survives and given than in the "regular" world these people have earned invested spent money...been a part of creating the structures of commerce and business that everyone will participate in....spending some amount to help these people seems appropriate. We will have workers injured whowill be unable to find employment as a result of their experiences...it seems reasonable that the children and family of somone who's been unlucky enough to find themselves in this situation ..get some help from those who have a future....

"Welfare" because you're too lazy or un-motivated to get out there and work...is a bleak necessity and I agree with the idea that some system, some "enforcement" if you would that puts the onus on the individual to contribute to their own upkeep is entirely reasonable.

But the picture of why people need help isn't a simple black and white kind of thing....

 

[Avro]

Bull****! He most certainly tried, but the Liberal Unions threw a hissy fit about non union members doing union jobs. It wasn't that he didn't follow through, he was forced to drop the idea.

As the cost of administering the debit card system sky rocketed.

:roll:

You need a history lesson.

 

[Avro]

Workfare as some would like to call it offers nothing to an individual who needs training instead of a bag and stick to collect garbage. Other nations who offer free or cheap education must be laughing at us as they skyrocket ahead of us in areas of trades and higher education.

Tax cuts almost never create a job but education does. The cons and private sector always talk about investment and going in the red to do it (I've done it with my various buisness vetures) but they never want to do it with the poor.

 

[lone wolf]

Here's great reform: Get out of the damned office and see for yourself!

When I make a change (ie, properly declare changed circumstances) I come to the surface. I am investigated. I am interrogated. I am scruitinized in intimate detail until some bureaucrat determines that my claim is ligitimate and I am still disabled as defined by blah blah blah.

Cheaters seldom play by rules. If nothing changes, nobody notices. Nobody sees three people in one dwelling all claiming individual living expenses, or the under-the-table income from hauling scrap metal or firewood (all with a "bad back") or the rent-a-kids.

Nobody sees ... because nobody leaves the office. They used to ... and it would be worth the paycheque investment to put someone back out into the field. On ODSP, cheaters prosper. Honest folk never do.

 

[darkbeaver]

I can't stand it when people try to score points on the backs of the poor. LW has already mentioned where the big money gets sucked out of the system and it sure as hell isn't welfare recipients. When you have enough brains and guts to realize it's the wealthy elite that thieve the overwhelming balance of public funds then I'll listen to you untill then you're just being employed by the bankers to mouth thier BS for them free of charge. If you eliminated welfare of all forms completely it would not stop the theft from the public purse, and if you want to police welfare then you need to employ a vast machine. Make a difference today, squeeze the wealthy till thier eyes pop. They're the real useless eaters, soon we won't be able to afford them.

 

[Avro]

Spoken like a good little commie.:roll:

 

[MikeyDB]

Avro

Don't know that name-calling is necessary here but who do you think steals more from the public purse? The banks and mortgage companies...the petroleum cartels....forestry and mineral companies.....or the poor?

 

[darkbeaver]

Spoken like a good little commie.:roll:

Hide your shekles Avro, we're coming for them. You'll soon learn how to pick cabbage from dawn till dusk, and love it comrade.:lol: