The problem is not with the concept of state welfare - other countries do that perfectly well - it is that the US doesn't have welfare, it has workfare.

I was unaware Enron was still in buisness.

When MOST buisnesses fail......they fail.

If it is in the governments best intrest to not let the company fail....it intervenes.

I wrote that they should be put into not for profit organizations.  No shareholders jpn.  The government would oversea it and if there is a problem, a new npo would be brought it.  That seems like the safest way IMHO.

Well, I suppose that's technically true. However, you can replace the bus driver but we're all still riding the bus. It sounds like Crystal (welcome, BTW) is suggesting we switch to a train.

Crystal, what you've talking about sounds very similar to the faith based programs Bush has proposed in the past. It is unfortunate that his plan was demonized and it went nowhere. Obama has since somewhat, if not all out, endorsed the idea ... so who knows.

You are quite right that we've seen no real progress with our welfare programs. Some would suggest it has destroyed the minority community.

    Before the advent of large scale government welfare, a plethora of private organizations provided assistance for individuals who were economically disadvantaged--churches, aid societies, widows' and orphans' benevolent groups, etc. As Marvin Olasky has documented, these private organizations had an impressive record in reducing poverty and economic distress.[13] They did it largely by relying on human goodness based on values such as love and compassion rather than by mechanistic disbursement of funds. Personal responsibility was required. As Olasky recounts, "No one was allowed to eat and run" at the pre-New Deal private charities. Additionally, families took care of less fortunate relatives. While private organizations such as the Salvation Army continue to help the poor, there is strong evidence that their financial support has been dramatically eroded by the public's knowledge that the government provides public assistance.[14]

      When the modern system of public assistance evolved in the 1930s, proponents felt that a humane society should take care of those who had no male breadwinner in the home. No thought was given to the possibility that public assistance predicated on the absence of a male head of household might lead to an increase in the number of such families. If you subsidize something, usually you get more of it, and this has been the case with the single parent families and the welfare system. We believe the evidence supports two propositions: (1) Welfare has increased the incidence of single parent families and contributed to the decline in traditional families (two married parents living together with their children); and (2) Welfare has contributed to illegitimate babies being produced to obtain or increase public assistance payments.

http://www.house.gov/jec/welstate/vg-5/vg-5.htm


You will find information about this, as well, in the link. What did we ever do before the New Deal?

I thought it was fairly well footnoted. Dismissing it out of hand as 'partisan' seems...I don't know...lazy, maybe.

Those who ignore history forget it does tend to repeat itself. Some of the programs were established during the Great Depression of the 1930s, btw, as a result of two GOP
presidents policies, practices not unlike Dubya's, assisted many with true bootstrap projects provided by FDR.

While WWII with many drafted into the military along with spending for war, eventually brought the nation out of the Depression,  Roosevelts "welfare?" programs that in most cases were a form of workfare, saved many from starvation, assisted families to get on their feet. Provided labor on massive infastructure projects that exist and are still in use for many purposes.  Even the arts were a part of those programs.  Anyone ever visited Coit Tower in San Francisco and observed the spectacular murals there? Depression era artists created them.  And then there is the Golden Gate Bridge. How about Boulder Dam, Grand Coulee Dam.  While there are those who damn any who might need assistance, this nation could use a considerable amount of infastructure replacement. 

Maybe a bit of "work fare" like FDR provided.  From the unemployment stats, the daily closure of businesses, most especially small business and major companies like Mervyns and Room Source now requesting bankruptcy protection, maybe it's time to consider using some of that borrowed money for U.S. projects, instead of sending it down the rat hole or providing it to crooks, both U.S. and Iraqi, and the military industrial complex for killing, rather than providing for the real needs of the American people.

BTW I'm no isolationist, but we've lined the pockets of Bush/Cheney and their cronies long enough. The waste is a major factor in our current economy because of the debt to pay for it. All off budget.

Crystal, I've got some ideas as well. They may not mesh perfectly with yours, but some have already been proven to work well.  And I forgot one of the most successful aspects of Johnson's "Great Society" programs remains. Head start though cut to the bone by GOP dominated budgets, still offers what it's states.  A head start for those
children who otherwise might have an opportunity for the provision of  early childhood education to help in the process of moving on with an interest in learning.  Am I wrong that education can still be the great social equalizer? 

Another very productive method for providing employment for some seniors to supplement low social security payments that also assists in helping some to  get off of AFDC, is government sponsored child care centers where healthy seniors are employed and women can pay less than to private child care centers to be able to actually afford to work and know their children are well cared for.  I know of one highly successful one that was established next door to a senior housing complex. Great way to provide for two groups that might be in economic need.  No handouts, honest and caring labor. 

BTW, Crystal, in my 18 months on AFDC, I never failed to work at least part time.  I even sacked burgers at McDonalds, for  a number of months until I realized my grant was being cut by all but a dollar a day of my earnings.  At the time I was only attending college part time.  Not being really stupid.  I quit and did without the extra dollar a day until I was able to acquire a work study scholarship that the funds I earned were not deducted from the grant and went to college full time instead. Did you know those scholarships were changed under Reagan and women today even have earned scholarship funds deducted from AFDC grants.  Hell of a way to encourage those on AFDC to try to get off of it and become productive taxpayers, huh? 

Through grad school, though by then I was a husband away from poverty, I continued to substitute teach in the day time, teach community college two nights a week and
commute two nights a week 100 miles round trip to eventually earn my MA going to night school, but carrying a full load of credits.  LOL, today it makes me tired to just
think about it.  Rant finished. Maybe too personal, but sometimes you have to have been there and done that to have some real understanding of reality.