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loadedliberal wrote:

karder wrote:Times are hard and I can sympathize with the folks who have lost their jobs. Still, I think it is very bad to give people money, whether it is unemployment or welfare/wic or whatever, for nothing in return. It creates an mindset of entitlement. I believe that the government should create public works projects and anyone who is receiving welfare should have to earn the benefits by working in a government assigned job. It would not be perfect, but at least the taxpayer would be getting some kind of return on their investments. People who have hit hard times would not starve and would be able to take care of their families, but would also be motivated to find a suitable career rather than spend their day cleaning city hall, washing busses, or cleaning storm drains. If I pay you $80 to sit at home, you are not likely to jump at $100 to work an eight hour day.
Oh...and yes, I support drug testing.

First let me say I support the drug testing, if you can't get a job because of a failed drug test then you should not be getting benefits from the rest of us. But I do not think your approach would work, noble as it may be. The problem would be that for every one dollar in the pockets of someone who needs it would require five dollars in overhead if your "public work" idea was to happen. Mandatory community service, sure send them to a soup kitchen to work where they can see where that "entitlement attitude" will eventually get them when the faucet of other peoples money runs out. There are many who milk the system for all they can but I think there are many more who are grateful for the benefits they receive and are motivated to get off of them as fast as possible. Not everyone on welfare is a leach, yes there are some but to deny the basics of survival to people because of few bad apples would be irresponsible.