The Wefare Fallacy

Chicago's Cabrini Green being Demolished -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I drove by Wycliff and Cedar Springs here in Dallas yesterday, and noticed the ramshackle apartments. There was a sign posted with some kind of zoning proposal. My hope is that the firetrap apartments will be torn down for a mixed use complex but my fear is that they could be zoned as Section 8 -- code words for 'welfare housing'. If that were to happen, you would have merchants frantically relocating and Oak Lawn neighbors up in arms. The politically incorrect, painful truth is that a housing project is far more likely to bring crime and poverty into your area. And once a property has the 'Section 8' designation, it will get nothing but tenants whose rent checks are guaranteed by the government.

My feeling is that there should be no Section 8 housing or housing projects -- anywhere. All residents should pay for their space with hard-earned money, and select their residences based on criteria other than government guarantees. You might inquire, "What of poor people who have no jobs?” The jobless condition is something which entrenches itself after so many years of welfare payouts. I have some proposals for ending this low self-esteem cycle:

• End all welfare payouts with two exceptions: short-term unemployment for anyone who has recently lost a job (and is actively job-seeking), and welfare given to extremely handicapped or impaired citizens who couldn't otherwise work.
• Provide free daycare for households with children. This would ultimately cost less than providing round-the-clock care for the entire family in the form of welfare.
• Provide adequate earned income credit for low-skill jobs, so that the employee can support a family as needed.
• Provide vocational training and tuition reimbursement; offer education (with a minimum hours requirement) as an alternative to work.
• In the unlikely event that the free market economy cannot offer a job, offer government service positions (e.g. at Post Offices or military bases) to help 'prime the pump'.

If you give people 'money for nothing', they will become utterly dependent on it. It will become a cycle that repeats itself to eternity. People need a higher goal than simply meeting a food and shelter requirement. That brings me to the next point.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow devised 'Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs'. His needs from lowest to highest were:
Physiological, Safety, Love & Belonging, Esteem and Self Actualization.

Maslow felt that progression to one level could not happen unless the prior level's needs were met. In the welfare trap, project residents never make it past the 'Safety' level. They never have the esteem or actualization that comes with a job title, or from making a creative contribution. The young men are more likely to become 'gang bangers' because they seek some type of distinction. They want to declare, "I exist, I matter, and I make a difference". With the closed doors they currently face, they might feel the only outlet is through crime and gang membership.

There is a strong undercurrent of Anglo hypocrisy and racism that accompanies our welfare state. In most American cities, the ghetto is geographically distinct and separate -- usually on the other side of a river, rail yard or interstate highway. Out of site, out of mind. It's easier to pay out welfare than to deal with people individually. If we actually ended welfare we might bring true integration to our society. Despite all talk of equal opportunity and racial equality, the "isms" are alive and well.

Private companies would dislike the idea of 'pump priming'. They wouldn't want the government competing for the labor pool that we have. Agribusiness would hate losing the food stamp market. It's almost as if poverty is the “opportunity cost” that Anglo society and corporations (largely the same group) gladly pay to have exclusive use of the labor pool, and to keep minorities in their poverty-stricken Gulags. If poor people paid for an apartment or house with money earned, they would have a sense of belonging and pride – the home would be a reflection of the self. There would be far less tolerance for tag art, vandalism or violence. Eliminating welfare would turn nearly every citizen into a stakeholder to some extent. Your 'bad neighborhood' would become just your working class neighborhood if we were to eliminate the Welfare Fallacy.

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