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Should Conservatives Use Welfare Programs? — John Boyer
My wife and I recently found out that we are pregnant. Hooray! I make very little money as an adjunct professor and full time college tutor. I am a PhD student working on my dissertation. I know I’m in a transitional period. Nevertheless, money can be tight. With a baby on the way and my wife deciding she doesn’t want to work for the first six months after giving birth, it’s going to be even tighter.
While filing my income taxes, TurboTax told me about another website they run called MoneyFinder. It’s straightforward. You enter in your projected income, some information about yourself (Is anyone in your household pregnant or has anyone in your household recently given birth?). Hit enter. The internet gremlins crunch the numbers. And voila! A list of government programs you may qualify for.
One of the programs which we may qualify for is WIC, which is food stamps for families with young children.
Now, I never considered using a government program. Even when I was fired from my first job about eight years ago, I never thought of going on unemployment. That’s just not what conservatives do. We don’t ask for handouts. When I couldn’t find another job, I moved back in with my parents and applied to graduate school (which had been the plan all along). But now, with a child on the way, the idea of a little help sounds attractive.
I think we can get by on our own. Tightening belts and whatnot. The idea of going on welfare instinctively offends my conservative mindset. If I can trim fat from our budget, why should I take money from my fellow citizens? Isn’t that government-organized theft?
But if it would help and if I don’t intend to continue on welfare after I get a full-time job, where’s the harm? The money will be spent anyway. And we appear to qualify. Thus, I pose the following question: Should conservatives ever use government safety net programs? If so, under what circumstances?
Published in General
I once heard Bobbie Knight speak. He responded to criticism that his teams had done well taking advantage of the 3-point shot, even though he had opposed the 3-point rule in college basketball. To paraphrase: he said you have to play the game according to the rules as they are, not how you want them to be.
But, Kay, isn’t our vision one where people in tight situations rely on their own ingenuity and shopping wiles? Where they go to family, friends, or church when the cupboard is bare? It doesn’t sound like John’s situation is even that dire.
After the belt tightening, will his family still be able to afford eggs? Milk? Cereal? Some fruits and veggies? I know a couple who own their own successful business (salon and photography shop) who still go home many nights and eat omelets for dinner. Fast, nutritious, and cheap. I think people largely suffer poor nutrition in this country because they make poor nutrition choices.
Heck, my three brothers and three sisters grew up on Cheerios and milk and are healthy, successful adults. Mostly. ;-)
I don’t want anyone unduly suffering, but I think lifestyle expectations are too high, and the sense of entitlement is over the top. You pay taxes, therefore feel free to use welfare benefits? Oof.
John, congratulations on your growing family! When we were pregnant with our first, I was encouraged to look into WIC. I went to the office and looked at the paperwork and was shocked that I would have to sign away all my privacy rights: the anonymous “they” would have access to all my medical records. I walked back out, and we tightened our belts.
I teach Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University at our church, and we have helped several people climb out of horrible debt and chronic welfare use. That isn’t your situation, of course, and no one can tell you what is best for your family but you.
More generally, I think welfare programs are for people that are in emergency situations: medical catastrophes, natural disasters, abuse and abandonment, etc. Welfare programs are not for people who have made lifestyle choices for which they don’t want to accept the trade-offs.
Interesting word, assistance. Some see it for what it is, others for how they can use it beyond its real purpose, and still others see it as a pejorative.
We hit a rough patch. We used assistance. Once I found a job which paid much better than the two jobs I was working, we got off of assistance. I assume that means that we saw assistance for what it is intended to be, but not for use beyond what it should be.
Given the economics today, I would not be surprised if a lot of people who want to make their own way are unable to do so, even with two jobs. If I am right, assistance properly used is not a pejorative and may be a real benefit for people in transition in their lives.
WC, your argument is out of line for some of us. I have always cooked from scratch as I had a celiac child, and another who practically lived in a “bubble” due to her allergies, as well as my own food allergies, especially soy. Two of my grandchildren are celiac. No gluten, no sugar, no lactose, and I could go on for a book. As a single mother without child support or alimony, I have no shame, and refuse to feel guilty by those of you who think there is something shameful in accepting help during emergencies.
Wasn’t one of the 7 deadly sins pride? And I don’t think cheerios and milk is going to give a developing baby the best possible start in life.
John, I’m pretty sure what I’m about to say doesn’t apply to you. But I’d like to point out that, for many middle-class families, government assistance during catastrophes can successfully tempt them away from retrenchment and leave them worse-off in the long run. This happened to my family:
My health, which had never been good, took a catastrophic turn for the worse midway through college and I had to move back home.
Over 18, sick as a dog, living with my folks, unable to do more than part-time work, buried in medical debt… I would have happily crawled into a hole and died if I could. My parents, despite their pledge to do whatever necessary to help me, refused to sell any of the family’s extra real-estate to assist with medical expenses. Instead, they made my applying for SSI Disability a condition of their help.
If they had sold the extra real-estate to help pay my medical bills, they would have sold at the height of the bubble and cleared a tidy profit, even after my medical expenses. Now, the unsold property is just a drag on the family fortunes.
Conservatives are always against welfare, so long as we are talking about someone else. The instant it is us, or our kids, or someone we know, we find reasons to justify the programs. We say “well, I’m not abusing it, I’m using it as it was intended.” As if the only reason the country is going broke is because of welfare abuse.
My advice is to avoid using WIC if you can at all help it, just out of principle.
I say that as someone who used WIC a long time ago. I wish I hadn’t, and I still regret that I did. I happen to be eligible for some VA benefits if I’ll put in for them. I don’t. Because I don’t want to take a hand-out. Some will say “But you served, so you deserve those benefits.” Yeah, well, I got paid while I was in the military, and I didn’t storm the beaches at Normandy. I got as much out of my time in the Military as I got. I deserve nothing.
Kay–I would never judge those who need assistance and take it. Just saying that people like John can go either way and be fine as my husband and I were when we were poor students.
No, John, you have to move to an isolated valley in Colorado and make your own steel.
… on weeeeeeed!
;-)
I agree with a few other posters when they said that you can set an example in later years through stories about how you “made it work” by using your own resources and promoting small community by reaching out to your church or other local community organizations for assistance. We should be supporting each other and using the assistance of yesteryears, we can start getting back to neighbors helping neighbors.
I was in these shoes a few years back. My husband had lost his job and we just found out I was pregnant. We had moved for his job during 2009 and I was not able to find one either. I thought long and hard about WIC and Medicaid and other programs we qualified for, but instead, I DID reach out to our church, some family, and friends. We got rid of absolutely everything but necessities and made it work. Was it hard for a while? YES! Did it suck taking handouts from parents? YES! Did we live? YES!
‘d do what I could on my own first. You might surprise yourself. I’m much more minimalist as a result of the experience and arguably happier and more appreciative.
Seriously, though, I would echo what most people have said here. I would just add that your first responsibility is to the kid–prenatal nutrition, early childhood development, tooth development, all that. She has to live for the rest of her life with the consequences of your decisions now. So if your situation is so dire that her future is threatened by your poverty, then yes, absolutely take the assistance. Otherwise? Are you really that hard up? And just because the program suggests you will qualify doesn’t necessarily make it so. If you’re married and living together, doesn’t that disqualify you?
Heaven’s sake, Kay. Your situation is totally unlike John’s. No one here is saying you should be ashamed for taking assistance, I don’t think. We’re addressing John’s situation where a married couple with an infant and a meager income can probably make do, at least until the baby is weaned, at which time, maybe Dad will be making more money.
I am against Federal welfare programs, but because they exist they distort the delivery of services to individuals and families in need. Without them, other mechanisms would be more available. Since this is the case, and over your lifetime you will be paying the taxes to support these programs, when you are in need, you should use them, because that is the nature of the system. As a conservative, one should minimize the use of such programs, and attempt to stop using them as soon as possible, but being a conservative is not donning a hair shirt, and forcing ones family to starve or live on the street. Use what you need, and if possible volunteer to give something back.
Now, Misthiocracy, you know the weed will just give them the munchies!
Besides, everyone knows steel manufacturers prefer coke to weed.
Agree, and I wonder about those who find the idea of handouts from interested family and friends more humiliating than handouts from the taxpayer…
My parents forcing me to apply for SSI Disability when I got really sick and moved back home during college was one of the most humiliating moments of my life. My medical bills weren’t driving us into abject poverty, after all. My family would simply have been forced to sell a plot of land to cover the bills without government assistance (and we would have made a better profit on that land if we had sold it then, anyhow, before the crash).
I would only add to WC’s observation with this question: Why are you bringing a new life into this world before you’re fiscally capable of providing the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to raise a child properly? It is an enormous responsibility to have a baby and yes, the financial aspect is important. As a good friend said to me recently after sending his three daughters through 16 years of undergraduate and graduate education: “I made damn sure I could afford to pay for it so they didn’t spend their entire young adult life burdened with debt.”
Government is killing the civic institutions that used to take care of people who needed a “safety net.”
I don’t blame people for looking to the only game left in town.
On the other hand, the more people turn to government instead of civic instititions, the more the civic institutions atrophy, and the more continued justification the government has for doing more.
It leads to a vicious cycle where higher taxation pushes more people onto the dole which justifies higher taxation.
Family is better, if you have it.
It provides direct accountability because there is tension and friction between you.
It’s an uncomfortable situation that you want to end ASAP.
see also:
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Welfare-State-Are-We-a-Charitable-Enough-Country-to-Eliminate-it-Entirely/
p.s. I agree with Spin’s comment: Stay off it if you can.
Anecdote time:
Government subverts capitalism which should be a way for people to lift themselves up.
I moved to a small town in my early 20’s and got a job at the local big box retailer (Wal-Mart).
There was a ton of subsidized housing in the area, which I got into.
I couldn’t afford the housing price without the subsidy.
If the subsidy were removed, either the housing developer would eat the loss for unfilled property, or lower prices to get some people in the homes paying rent.
Alternately, if the homes were all filled up with paying renters, the big box retailer would have to raise wages to import people from out of town, or convince town members to stay local with employment rather than leave the town for work that pays enough to pay rent.
In a way, the subsidy to the renters was really a subsidy to the employers and property owners in the area.
I related to a co-worker that I wanted to get out of the subsidized housing ASAP.
He looked at me mystified and asked, “Why?”
p.s. Happy ending: Broke lease, changed jobs, and got out (with family assistance).
John: First off, congratulations to you and your wife, and God bless your family.
Secondly, many able contributors have already joined this thread and a good debate is underway among them that I don’t want to derail, and to which I have little to add.
Instead, and since we’re all conservatives here, I’m going to get my curmudgeon “get off my lawn” on for a moment and complain about the use of a phrase you employed in your first sentence:
“My wife and I recently found out that we are pregnant.”
“We” are not pregnant. Your wife is pregnant with your child.
“We are pregnant” is a neologism. It arose in a particular moral environment: namely, the demand for the gender-neutral society as the only just society, based on mistaken misrepresentations of traditional conceptions of manliness and femininity.
“Your wife is pregnant with your child”. That phrase takes nothing away from either partner, it recognizes both in their uniqueness, and while celebrating the glory of new life growing in your wife, it reminds a man of his duties.
“We are pregnant” suggests that either, or both of us, could be. And that is simply not so.
I think I love this comment.
As in all things, do that which you believe, upon consideration, is just and right. You say you could tighten your belt, you say you could get help from your parents, and you say that you don’t need the help -but that it would make your life easier. Forget what conservatives think, or what we think; you answer to your wife, your conscience, and your God (or whatever for those not religiously inclined).
Conservative mindset aside, you say that accepting a handout you don’t need is not your way. Then don’t accept a handout. Sure the money will be spent anyway-maybe by someone more needy, or maybe wasted. That is not your concern -you don’t answer for the US Government, you answer for yourself.
As to the general point, this here is the corrupting nature of welfare -that the promise of cash and an easy life induces a man to abandon his principles and nature for the promise of an easy life. You must do what you believe is right -but don’t let a few hundred dollars be enough to buy your morals.
John Hansen and captainpower have touched upon an important aspect of this matter. In the absence of government welfare there would be private institutions upon which you could rely. Some would be private charities, but there would also be a range of commercial products available for the prudent.
Some would be things like income protection insurance. Others might be newborn assistance loans, whereby you could obtain a lump sum against future earnings. This might differ from a regular unsecured loan by means of preferential rates (married parents of children tend to be better risks than random new car buyers).
The point is, because of the government programs many private solutions simply don’t exist. That can leave you with no option but to make use of the government programs if your situation is dire.
Damn government programs!
What about the concentric circles of charity?
Whether it be gifts or loans, why not turn to parents; other immediate family; extended family; friends; congregation, parish, or synagogue; and other local charitable organizations? Why? It’s a lot harder to remain on the dole when you have to look your benefactor in the eye on a regular basis. The easy way to avoid that check is to go the impersonal governmental benefit route.
My father suggested getting a new car during the cash-for-clunkers period. I told him no way.
I agree with the argument that the welfare system has distorted the support system that would normally be available to you. The people who would help you have less money to do it with.
Or, to put it another way, it’s not how we think our society should provide help, but it is the way it actually does provide it. It’s no worse than sending your children to the public school if you can manage no other option. If you genuinely need it, there is nothing immoral in accepting it.
That said, be aware of the dangers of dependency. Plan for how it won’t be a permanent state of life. Make sure that you are not committing yourself to expenses or spending patterns you won’t be able to maintain without it.
“We” are not pregnant. Your wife is pregnant with your child.
Could not disagree with this more.
My wife had two “difficult” pregnancies. Believe me, “We” were pregnant. I may not have suffered as much as she did, but I did suffer…
On the “taking welfare” question, I look at it this way. Conservatives don’t (usually) believe in a progressive income tax system, but that doesn’t mean we don’t pay what the law says we owe. Just because we don’t believe in a welfare state doesn’t mean we shouldn’t accept what is available.
Okay. Here’s the standard argument: married couples who have kids are overtaxed, relative to the future taxable income of their children. That’s why we have programs like the Child Tax Credit, and more marriage-friendly welfare programs like WIC (note that this does not apply to programs that discourage marriage, which inhibit the earnings potential of the children involved)
Thus, you might argue that properly-designed child subsidies are not welfare at all, but are more akin to public education. Think of it this way: John is married and educated; most (probably all) of his kids will end up paying a positive tax rate, which gives the government an interest in encouraging him to have as many as he wants.
I guess the discernible difference here would be like going down to the food shelf if you didn’t need to. Meaning the gov’t, or assistance of any kind, private or public, should be a last resort, not a first or second resort. The last one.
The larger problem is that it’s very, very easy to receive gov’t assistance, so it becomes the first resort rather than the last one.
That said, I suffered a brain injury in 2002, and was on permanent SSDI. I managed to recover and go back to work, but to cancel the SSDI was a bureaucratic nightmare. It was harder to cancel it than to sign up for it. I can see where if you’ve got a roof over the head, money coming in from the gov’t to put food on the table, cable, internet, well, there’s an appeal there for anyone with the wrong motivations in life.
Anyone should use assistance if they need to. That’s what it’s there for.