Some of these ideas are very sound. Unfortunately, I don't agree that we are a generous nation as a whole. Not to the poor and the homeless. Not to the disabled. I don't call welfare charity. I have helped many young women after the reform. The reform has not had that much time, by the way. Food banks don't rely entirely on charity. If they did, they could feed a lot less people. They rely on grants. And the grants have been cut back by the government so much already, that people are suffering.
If we left it up to individuals and Churches, I'm afraid the problem we see of the homeless on the streets would increase too much for society to handle and that there would be many more vigilante crusades.
There are things that should be done before any talkof ending welfare ever starts.

Very interesting post.

There are things that should be done before any talkof ending welfare ever starts.

This is a statement with which I can agree, WF. I don't prefer the "cold turkey" approach to getting rid of welfare, nor do I think it would be likely to happen that way. As with much of the LP platform, if we were to implement these programs cold turkey, it would have a detrimental impact on society.

I disagree that we aren't a generous nation. I have seen too much from too many people to support this view. I believe, however, that we're a bit jaded, and that we have seen far too much of those who abuse the system than of those who use it properly (I am willing to bet that, for every well coiffed, manicured welfare mom some of these folks have seen, they have seen ten coupon cutting conscientious folks on food stamps; the latter group just tries not to draw attention to itself).

Personally, as a minister, I have tried to get the message across to other ministers that they NEED to begin preaching a social gospel. Christ taught it, and as followers of Christ, it is our DUTY to teach it. My opinion is that the only reason welfare became necessary is that the church abandoned its responsibility; I would love to be one to help change that.

And I believe you could help change that. I know America has times of being generous as a whole, but there are too many voices crying against the ones in need. I have a fear that Churches could put, and I can't think of the right word I want here, but I'll go with conditions, for giving help. (I became an minister through an online site about two years ago,I had a dream)

I have a fear that Churches could put, and I can't think of the right word I want here, but I'll go with conditions, for giving help.

You're right in this; this is the fundamental difference between many conservative and liberal churches (I am a Christian misfit; too much of a social gospel minister for the conservative, and too conservative in my personal life for the liberals); the liberal churches tend to give with less prejudice, some of the conservative churches attach conditions (usually church attendance) to their welfare programs. Personally, I believe conditions should be given(aside possibly for things like volunteering time in the food pantry for the capable individuals who need continual assistance; and even then, I'm not comfortable with it as a requirement), except for proof of financial need.

In short, I believe the church is as much in need of reform as the government.

The Libertarian Party's stance on social welfare and business policies is fundamentally flawed and would have the effect of taking America back two centuries.
I believe I have an unique personal perspective on this as my wife and I are just now coming off of food stamps. The short version is we had an unplanned pregnancy, decided to have the child, ran into the brick wall of our financial reality (at the time I was pursuing my entrepreneurial dream of a rock band), had to move in with my mother, and applied for county assistance (Centre county, PA). Now this point is very important: WITHOUT THE SAFETY NET OF WELFARE, WE WOULD NOT, I REPEAT NOT, HAVE BEEN ABLE TO HAVE OUR CHILD. This assistance came in the form of health issurance (through the PA Access program) which covered my wife's pre-natal visits, delivery and hospital stay ($20,000 alone), and follow-up visits for my wife and child (including wellness checks and vaccines). The assistance given us also included $360 a month for food stamps. Before continuing, I would like to say that we thought this amount was too much. In fact since we didn't go out and get steak and shrimp (i.e. we kept it realisitic) we often had a surplus at the end of the month. Now here's another important point: WITHOUT THAT ASSISTANCE WE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET OUR LIVES GOING, FEED OURSELVES, OR KEEP OUR SON HEALTHY. As I mentioned previously, my wife and I had to move in with my mother. According to Gideon's position, our families and the local charities and churches should have been enough to support us. Well my mother (father left when I was two) is hard-core working class ($24,000/yr) and like many working-class people in debt. My wife's parents are working-class as well, just getting by and also in debt. Local charities practically don't exist here in central PA, and no church would touch us since at the time my wife and I weren't married. At this point my wife was on bed rest and would be out of work for the next four months recovering from the emergency C-section. While my wife dropped out of college, I have a BS degree in Music Education and am certified to teach. However, when we decide in August 2002 to have the kid and pull out of the band, all teaching positions are filled. To this date, I have yet to secure a teaching job through it is not from lack of trying. The only jobs I could find in the Bush economy were waiting jobs. Can you honestly say that a family of three can be supported on $14,000/ year? This was the actual amount from our tax filing for the year 2003 (my son was born March 2003) Now a big reason this amount is so low is because my wife was out of work for a total of six months (two before delivery for bed rest and then four to recover from aforementioned C-section). My son is now 17 months. My wife has a great receptionist job for a local company and I will soon start a sales postion. We live in a nice tax-subsided apartment complex for families and we are finally getting in a good financial status.
I apologize for boring you with my life but I feel that this help illustrate the very reason welfare exists in the first place: in the weathist nation in the history of mankind no one should go hungry or homeless. Without the assistance we recieved, we would still be living in my mother's home and my wife's and son's health could be very different (more on that later). never once did I feel "trapped in a system that destroys opportunity for themselves and hope for their children". Indeed, without the assistance we would have less opportunity and less hope for our son. Family members, friends, and co-workers who knew we were welfare were actually glad that they knew that they tax dollars were helping someone who genuinally need it. Now while I freely admit that there are a portion of people recieving welfare who frankly don't deserve it or decide that they don't need to work or better themselves. In these situations I am all for reforms that would limit this abuse of a system that in itself is inherently good and noble.
Totally eliminating welfare would have the result of millions instantly being subjected to crushing poverty, unable to afford housing, food, or health care. Of course if you need necessarily care about these people you won't likely lose much sleep because eventually they'll die (the human body can usually last four to five days without food). Indeed, a great "final solution" to the war on poverty.
Now I realize I took my argument to the extreme, but that does not necessarily make it inaccurate. The fact that all of the Libertarian's proposals are fundamentally flawed helps illustrate my point. If private charities (including churches) were all that was required to eliminate poverty, the mission would be accomplished by now. Starting a dollar-for-dollar tax credit wouldn't even be necessary. In fact, this proposal is very redundant since the vast majority of charities (be they social, religious, educational, or cultural) are already tax-deductible. Very often millionaries don't donate money to schools or food banks out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to cut out a little bit of their tax liability. Moreover I would like to know where you get this $125 billion amount for charity because I am willing ot bet that this amount reflects all charitable donations, not the amount given to pure social operations.
I will agree with you that educational reform has the biggest potential for alleviating poverty in our society for after all it is the "great equalizer". Furthermore, I also agree that schools are becoming more and more "economically segregated" as you suggest. However, I disagree that privatization and vouchers are the way to go. I would out ot you that these would have a further devastating effect on our educational system. To remove the adminstative duting away from the government and place into private hands would have the effect of the "profit motive" coming into schools. With our schools already hard-pressed to get the money they need (even with selling advertising space and signing contacts with soda companies and Channel One) how are our schools supposed to start making profits? Next, vouchers sound like a good idea at first but the effect of these would be to make monetary resources from schools that deperately needs the funds and send them to schools that already are receiving the funds they need. These latter schools would then find themselves swamped with students and struggling to provide the quality of education that they were produing initally. It is a fact that our schools are not getting the funds they need. Even No Child Left Behind is drastically underfunded. Meanwhile 60% of our federal taxes goes directly of indirectly to military eqiupment or operations. So we are left with this question: do we want smart bombs or smarter kids? THe Congressional Budget Office (the investigative branch of Congress) estimates that just one quarter of the 1.6 trillion (that's right, trillion) set aside for Bush's missile defense program (which doesn't work and could start a new arms race and Cold War) could renovate every school in America and bring then up to code (not a bad idea since a third ofthe schools in Washington D.C. couldn't open their doors in 2001 due to unsafe buildings). Another approach to helping our schools get their money would be to rethink our tax allocation. For example, here in Pennslyvania we have school district set up by township (State College is its own district with its own superintendant, Bellefonte is its own district with its own superintendent, etc.) while states like Maryland and Virginia the districts are set up by county with just one superintendent for the county and more adminstrative duties delegated to the school principals. This has the effect of less overhead costs and well as local, state, and federal tax dollars going more to the schools that need it more, whether this is due to a higher population or weaker tax base. This in turn helps all schools to succeed. Another idea is just two words: more teachers. A lower student-to-teacher ratio is perhaps the single great contributing factor to a better education. Also, more pay for teachers would be a good thing. Beginning teacher postions (with B.S. degree) pay from $22,000-$36,000. A manager at Circuit City makes more a year. Furthermore, a kid can graduate from college and get a engineering position paying $50,000 a year. With those figures where do you think the intelligent, creative people are going to go? In conclusion, let's not go blaming our schools or radically changing the system until we put in the funds and the amount of teachers that can make the current system work.
And for the proposals that would really take us back in time:"Tear down barriers to entrepreneurism and economic growth". I can understand business people advocating "laissez-faire" since the business of business is to make money and safety regulations, envirnomental regulations, and other oversights can cut into the bottom line. However, one of the "laws" of history is if you do not learn from your history, you are doomed to repeat it. The last time the American people and their government embraced a totally "free market" was in the 1800's, a period of monopolies, robber barons, child labor, extreme wealth inequality, envirnomental pillage, and a worker fatality rate that literally rivals some modern wars. Allow me to break this down.
As a species mankind is having a profund and often negative impact on our planet. Every scientist not on a oil company's payroll agrees that global warming brought on by the release of carbon dioxide (from automobiles, power plants and manufacturing) is almost certainly the most pressing concern facing us now and in the coming decades. The eastern seaboard states have been rated by the EPA as having the some of the most unhealthy air in the US due to soot realeased from coal-burning power plants (there is also sharp increase in cases of asthma and lung-related diseases). Today (8/25/2004) in the NY Times, the EPA announced that the levels of mercury (which can cause brain and organ failure in humans, especially unborn children) in every lake and river in America is too hazardous. In other words, don't eat fish and for God's sake get a Brita. In the 1980's gases released from power plants and factories produced acid rain. Here we were changing the substance that every living thing on earth requires for life and we're making it into a poison. And yes, I can go on. Do I need to make it any clearer? The environment concerns us all because the environment effects all of us. I think we can all agree that we (including companies) should be free to do what we want as long as we don't cause harm to others. This includes the indirect, though quite powerful, harm that environmental damage causes. For example, if I laid a sewer pipe into my neighbor's living room, he would be justified in beating me up or taking me to court. In the same manner, erasing environmental regulations in the name of better profits is irresponsible and quite frankly murderous. History shows us that even voluntary requirements for industry doesn't work. When Bush was governor of Texas, he made all environmental regulations voluntary, which had the effect of Houston and Dallas surpassing Los Angeles as the #1 and #2 most polluted cities in America.
In 1970 The Occupational Safety and Workplace Act created the Occupational Safety and Health Agency. Yet the agency's annual budget of $500 million a year is whooly inadequate. There are 6 million workplaces in America and 2,000 job safety inspectors. According to former agency chief Charles Jeffress in order for OSHA to adequately monitor the American workplace, the agency needs a budget at least 20 times that. This would be money well spent since nearly 6,000 workers die in America early year. The death toll from occupational dieases is estimated to be from 50,000 to 100,000 a year. According the National Safety Council the cost ot the nation, the financial burden upon bereaved families, and the societal losses associated with workers dying early in their productive lives total over $100 Billion annually, not including the pain and suffering of the millions of workers who every year suffer serious workplace injuries. In summary, to give OSHA the money it needs ($10 billion annually opposed to current $500 million) would actually give the economy a net increase of $90.5 billion dollars. Are you really trying to say that meeting safety regulations cost companies that much? I sincerely doubt it. And then there's the human cost. Is is really showing "individual responsibility" to value profits over the lives of your fellow Americans? By the way, before the automatic coupler was invented, railroad companies would send workers in between the cars to manually couple the cars. This action would then crush them to death. However, the railroad company didn't mind. After all, it was more cost-effective.
Other regulations we enjoy are laws against monopolies like the Sherman and Clayton antitrust laws. If unregulated, companies will keep growing and growing until Standard Oil (or Microsoft) looks like your neighborhood 7-11. Isn't it a fact that to be successful capitalism needs competition? And isn't it a fact that the larger and larger a company gets, eventually leading to a monopoly, competition is eliminated? Where's your capitialistic spirit? But let's not stop there. Let's get rid of overtime pay (Bush is half way there), child labor laws (they weren't learning anything in their underfunded, understaffed schools anyway), and by all that's Holy let's get rid of the minimum wage laws so that companies like Wal-Mart (already not exactly a friend of the working man or woman) can stop paying the princely sum of $5.25 a hour (at 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and 15% tax deduction:$9,282 a year) and give a buck a day. Hey, maybe some of those jobs GM and others sent to Mexico will come back! The overall effect of eliminating the above regulations would return us to the days of buyers beware (workers too) and would nothing to remedy the vast wealth inequality in our country. Consider the following:
CEOS of large corporations make about 300 times more than the average worker at their firm.
The top 1% owns over 83% of the nation's wealth, more than double the amount (17%) of wealth controlled by the bottom 80%
The top 5%'s income is nineteen time the income of the bottom 20%.
You speak of a "society based on work, individual responsibility,...opportunity and genuine compassion,...(and) liberty." Yet the Libertarian Patry's reforms and policies would increase the wealth of the rich at the expanse of the welath (and health) of the poor, destroy corporate (and CEO and management) responsibility by making it easier for companies like Enron to "get away with it", reduce the opportunities of the middle and working classes, replace compassion with the profit motive, and damage liberty by reducing American's economic freedom (less money to spend, more monopolies to fix the prices).
In conclusion, it has been proved in reality and the abstract that a "Free Market" society devoid of regulation and oversight is harmful and destructive to the majority of American workers and citizens. Consider this final thought: If the Free Market can solve everything, how come 45 million Americans (15% of our total population) cannot get any health coverage due to lack of insurance and an additional 90 million (30% of population) is underinsured (extremely costly co-payments, deposits, or other charges)?

If the Free Market can solve everything, how come 45 million Americans (15% of our total population) cannot get any health coverage due to lack of insurance and an additional 90 million (30% of population) is underinsured (extremely costly co-payments, deposits, or other charges)?

In part because our tax system is flawed. My position has always been that employers should receive a dollar for dollar tax credit for every dollar paid to employee wages and benefits, as this money's already taxed on the employee's end.

I appreciate your insight, and I do understand where you're coming from, believe me. But the system of forced compassion is no compassion at all. You also miss a LOT of the platform and ALL of what I have to say personally when you envision a world where there are no options for you in raising your family. There still would be options, they should come from the private sector.

You may consider this a cruel thing for me to say, but...the government does not OWE you a living! It is great that there are stopgap programs, but I believe it's the private sector's responsibility to provide these things, not the government's. When we allow and expect the government to step in and solve every problem, we get an increasingly restrictive government and we watch the rights of the people erode. I will not risk redundancy by reiterating what I already posted in my response to wisefawn; I would encourage you, however, to examine her question and my response.

As to the platform being "fundamentally flawed", I'm inclined to disagree; I believe our current system is fundamentally flawed, for several reasons. First, too many needy families fall through the cracks, as for one reason or another, they don't fit in the criteria established for the program (I speak from firsthand experience on this one, believe me). But, because the federal programs are there, private charities refuse to help, believing in the big brother government to provide what you need.

I hate to get personal on these blogs, but I will in this case, as it is equally relevant. The reason I know this situation is, my family and I are currently at a serious risk of becoming homeless because of this situation. I was let go of my job, am desperately trying to find another, the state will not help us as far as rent goes, and no private organization will help us either. There is a very strong, very real possibility that I will be raising my children in a homeless shelter in Las Vegas in a month. So much for the theory of these government programs actually working.

Starting a dollar-for-dollar tax credit wouldn't even be necessary. In fact, this proposal is very redundant since the vast majority of charities (be they social, religious, educational, or cultural) are already tax-deductible.

The tax deduction for charities is not a dollar for dollar credit at this point, either.