Reply #57: What do you mean? [View All]

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

Should we go back to the old days? No. But I think we can be smarter about welfare without abandoning people.

Here's a suggestion. Statistically speaking, the most effective indicator as to whether a person will be living in poverty is whether or not the person is a young, single parent. What does that mean for welfare?

It means we have to have comprehensive sex education for every teenager in America. Abstinence is great, but that's like a Driver's Education class that says, "don't drive a car." Young people need to know what their options are. It also means that birth control should be made universally available (free) to anybody who wants it -- with a nod to conservatives, I'll compromise to limit that to any person above the age of consent. Most unintended pregnancies are to women between the ages of 18-25 anyway, so they're the target democraphic.

The fallback is that we need to have free daycare available to every family in America, with fees based on a sliding scale based on income. Along with that, every household in America needs to have health care and a real Family Leave Act -- one that provides paid time off for family health emergencies. And then we're going to provide GED and vocational/technical training to every American who wants to move up to a better job.

I'm conservative in that I think the government has no business subsidizing slackers. You don't want to work? Starve in the street, as far as I'm concerned. But at the same time, I think that government has a vested interest in lifting up everybody who wants to take responsibility for their life and to create a better future. And we certainly have a moral obligation to those who are physically and mentally incapable of helping themselves.