Why do conservatives always state that social programs have not helped fight poverty?

Question

Do they just not want to know, as they may have to give Clinton credit? The horror:

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geu7.32W1GyQMBjpRXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2OW9iaDZlBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2UEdnRpZANGOTQzXzk1BGwDV1Mx/SIG=127ce0g31/EXP=1181690679/**http%3a//www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14096483/site/newsweek/

Athena...it was Clinton's reform, and the system we have been using for 10+ years

nature lover...I am not talking about Congress. am talking about people who say programs have not helped anyone, when they obviously have

Answer 1

I'm always curious about why people give credit to their own party regardless of who actually did the work. This bill was passed by republicans. Will you give Bush credit for raising the minimum wage when a democratic congress did the work? Keep in mind that the whole point of the act was CUTTING BACK welfare! From the article you mentioned:

By the 1980s, it had evolved into something else: guaranteed payments for single, often never-married mothers. Critics argued that the program bred dependence, weakened self-reliance and rewarded out-of-wedlock births. TANF set new rules. It eliminated the automatic entitlement to benefits. To qualify, mothers had to look for work, take job training or both (states set exact requirements). There was a general five-year lifetime limit on receiving benefits. In a new book, "Work Over Welfare," Brookings Institution senior fellow Ron Haskins—a top Republican congressional staffer during the welfare debate—cites much evidence of success. Welfare caseloads have plunged. From August 1996 to June 2005, the number of people on welfare dropped from 12.2 million to 4.5 million. About 60 percent of mothers who left welfare got work.

So, in other words, by reducing the amount of welfare available, and making work required, poverty was diminished. Carry that on a little further to the obvious conclusion of NO government welfare, and privatized charity funded by personal choice instead of robbery (or taxation, depending on your views), to ELIMINATE poverty. If MORE welfare INCREASES poverty, and LESS welfare DECREASES poverty, then what would NO welfare produce?

Answer 2

Uh. Social programs typically provide subsidies, but they're generally a bandaid on a major gunshot wound.

The biggest problem I have is that social programs have not helped fight poverty. All they have done is cause generations of people in poverty to:

1) Have children outside of marriage and not say who the father really is, to get AFDC.

2) Obtain medicaid so they don't have to buy health insurance or get employed in a place that provides group insurance.

3) Not declare all the cash income they get from working under the table.

4) Obtain food stamp debit cards so they can get free food to trade for ciggies and booze.

5) And generally not have to work.

The problem is there is no incentive to:

A) Get a job that helps pay for things
B) Stop making welfare babies
C) Stop looking to Uncle Sam for food handouts
D) Stop making income, using questionable methods, to avoid reporting it and paying taxes on it. And ...
E) Get into an employer group health plan.

Clinton tried to fix the problem because even the conservatives in his own party, ten years ago, were fed up with the vicious cycle of poverty, welfare mothers, and the like. Generations of people living in squalor because they choose not to go out and work and play it safe getting a check, free medical care, and earn a few bucks under the table which never gets declared.

Stupid, isn't it? I know that Clinton helped pass legislation that required getting a job after a certain point, but that still doesn't make the deadbeat daddies pay up, or take people off of food stamps.

We need real, paying jobs. Real employment. Instead we export jobs to the rest of the world so 3rd world countries can move up the developmental ladder while we regress into a nation of people called the "least common denominator".

Conservatives need a strong middle class which is, in reality, the backbone of this country.

You can't be an industrialist in the US of A unless you have consumers for your goods (regardless of where they're made). So if you increased the ranks of the middle class (witness what's going on in China), then you increase the demand for consumer goods; and that in turn creates profits; which in turn are reinvested into the economy in the form of new infrastructure, including manufacturing and soft industries that go along side manufacturing.

Instead, we have a dwindling middle class, and swelling ranks of 5 generation indigents who suck off the teet of the dwindling middle class' tax money.

Disgusting!

Answer 3

President Clinton does deserve credit here. His reforms have helped a lot of families move off of welfare to become functioning members of society. As a conservative, I have no problem helping someone for a little while when they need help. I do have a problem with people who live off of welfare and make no effort to find work or make it on their own.

In general, I would argue that traditional social programs, like welfare, make a permanent class of citizens who will always depend on the government for their basic needs and will always be poor. If you give a mouse a crumb he will ask for the cookie too.

Answer 4

Because they believe the Conservative lie that most people on social programs are lazy looking for the easy way out, when the truth is most either can't work or are working poor. If the Cons really wanted to see others lifted out of poverty they would support paying the working poor a living wage.

Answer 5

In any society there are needs for social programs. What Conservatives don't like is the amount of and the length of time that those in the program get stay on it. These programs were never meant to be a way of life. Just a stop gap measure to help those in need till they can get on their feet again. All these far reaching programs have done is enslaved those that get it to the liberal democrat vote.

Answer 6

It's true. Those controversial reforms under Clinton stopped a lot of generational welfare and so on that Conservatives scream about. TANF is what we consider welfare to be, which was enacted under Clinton. TANF stands for Temporary Aid to Needy Families.

Answer 7

read it and weep lib.
The bill was hammered out in a compromise with the Republican-controlled Congress, and many Democrats were critical of Clinton's decision to sign the bill, saying it was much the same as the two previous welfare reform bills he had vetoed. In fact, it emerged as one of the most controversial issues for Clinton within his own party.[Haskins 2006]

Answer 8

As a conservative I am not against all social programs. Welfare is good when the people recieve it really need it but most of the time that is not the case.

Other social programs like affirmative action have enslaved entire races to poverty. You cannot progress when you rely on the government to do everything for you.

Answer 9

A lot of the programs or reforms give our citizens an entitlement mentality that they can just collect welfare and other such stuff and not contribute...
That is the problem

Answer 10

It has, but it could do much better. There should be part time community service and/or skills training tied to social programs.

There should also be incentives to move off of social programs.