Fischer: Welfare Just Gives Money To "People Who Rut Like Rabbits"

[alp227]

We have spent over $16 trillion fighting the war on poverty, and it’s time to run up the white flag of surrender. Poverty has won. We now have more people on food stamps - think children here - than at any time in our history. The war on poverty has been a total, dismal failure and it’s time to recognize that. You get more of whatever you subsidize. You subsidize poverty, which we have done since 1965, and you just get more of it.

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

And children are the ones who get chewed up. Welfare, as Walter Williams has pointed out, has done what slavery, racism and Jim Crow laws could not do: destroy the black family.

--Bryan Fischer, director of issues analysis at the American Family Association, via Right Wing Watch. Note that Walter Williams is actually black and is an economics professor at George Mason University. Williams has guest hosted Rush Limbaugh's radio show before. Another black conservative economist, Thomas Sowell, has also argued that welfare destroyed the black family.

$16 trillion fighting poverty for 45 years? That's nearly four times as much as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would cost over 45 years. Where'd he get such a number?

Hmm, I wonder if Fischer has met the Duggar family. Or the now-divorced Jon and Kate Gosselin. Do I hear a hidden message? (Note that Fischer works in the state where Haley Barbour is governor.) He may want to explain Quiverfull and then why he's anti-abortion if he's complaining about those "excessively breeding" erhm, you know the word. Or how Liberty University has been milking the government for millions per year.

[liberal N proud]

1. These monsters don't have a fucking clue

[Rex]

4. Their evil nature shines when they talk about a subject they love

the most. I suspect most would just let the poor die off to be replaced with the next family that gets foreclosed illegally by the banks. THEY JUST DON'T GIVE A FUCK and should be the last people to be making statements like they are 'experts'.

[Taverner]

12. No they don't

[Cal33]

35. OH, they know very well what they're doing! They're pointing their

finger at how much the poor are costing us, so that we won't be looking at
the CORPORATE WELFARE, which is costing the American tax-payer at least
10 times as much as welfare for the poor.

If the corporations paid only their fair share of taxes, there might never
have been any deficit or national debt at all.

This is what is happening because we have too many Al Capones as corporate
executives and politicians in high positions! And we will never get
out of debt as long as there are enough of them in those positions.

We've got to get them out!

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Wonder how many of those 'people who rut like rabbits' adhere to AFA's version of

Christianity? How many of them live in poverty?

[WatsonT]

3. I would support free birth control

along with any other kind of government assistance.

Condoms, the pill, tubal ligation, abortions, whatever.

Might cost something now, but it's a whole lot cheaper in the long run for everyone.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Actually, he seems to be saying that African-Americans rut like rabbits.

I'd bet that he wouldn't say that about whites in poverty. They'd be sluts and low life.

[KamaAina]

6. Welfare didn't destroy the black family

it was the repukes who insisted that welfare go only to single monthers, not married couples, because in their hearts*, they didn't want anyone to get it.

[housewolf]

7. 'Course then they devestate funding for family planning

Their two-facedness - as well as their complete unwillingness to look at causes rather than symptoms - never ceases to astound me

And of course, the men who participate in all that baby-making have no culpability...

[pitohui]

8. financial rewards? i wish this guy, by law, would be forced to live on those "financial rewards"

lower income families, not just black families, have indeed been destroyed, but this is not because of welfare, it's because people don't have any legal way to earn enough money to raise children -- intelligent people who can do math often refuse to have children, so it leaves the less resourceful persons to do all the breeding

salaries from JOBS just aren't enough, the declining middle class is trying to keep above water on their credit cards

as for welfare, it's a fucking joke, the money is not a "financial reward," it is a hopelessly inadequate insult


if salaries were higher, and welfare paid MORE, kids might have more of a chance, as it stands, if you're no good at music & can't play sports, what are your choices? go to school 100 years to get six figures of debt and never have a life, or sell crack...that is the options we put in front of our kids, and that's what destroys young teens & young adults & ultimately the whole family...the complete lack of hope, because there is no way for a person who is just a nice, average person to have any kind of a life -- and once one kid, or one parent, succumbs to hopelessness & gets involved w. drugs, they drag everybody down w. the drama, violence, health shit, one crackhead can destroy an entire extended family

it actually costs money to raise a family, imagine that

my two cents

everyone who thinks welfare mothers get too much should be monitored and forced by law to live for a year on the income of a welfare mother alone and not one penny more, that's what i would do if i was dictator of america, they'd find out real quick how much damn "financial reward" it is

[raccoon]

26. Great post! nt

[madmom]

9. How much have we spent on the "war on drugs"?

[ThomCat]

10. What totally racist Shit!

I received Public Assistance, and I don't have any children. I'm white though.

My nephew received Public Assistance for a short while. He's black. He doesn't have any children. He's currently employed and doing very well for himself. Welfare helped him survive when he needed help most.

And for those of you asking why family didn't help him out, we did. He lived with me rent free for several years. Public Assistance provided him with health insurance and food stamps.

His aunt, a cousin of mine, also needed Public Assistance for a short time. She is black and doesn't have any children either! We lived together for l1 years, and when she was having tough years I paid her way too. Because that's what families do. So that's another example of to destroy their prejudices about black people, having children constantly and never relying on family.

I've helped them, and they've helped me, and none of us have kids, and we are not uncommon. People who are poor do what we have to do to survive. Brothers and sisters and cousins and aunt and uncles and grand parents and grandchild and parents and children often end up having to live together in various combinations, and sometimes with friends and roommates too to make ends meet.

And when we have a little bit extra, we give it to a friend to help him or her survive too! Because we know exactly how hard it can be to survive.

If someone gets pregnant and has a child, that's okay too. And it's no business of any politician's if this happens. Sex happens,and that's okay! If they want to outlaw family planning and contraception then they shouldn't be surprised when sex results in pregnancies. And if they want to outlaw abortions then they shouldn't be surprised when pregnancies result in children! We'll still pull together and help raise those children as best as we can. Because that's what we do.

Unlike republican assholes, we don't abandon each other to struggle and die just because someone is poor. We do whatever we can to help each other survive.

[okieinpain]

11. I'm not a fan of welfare. it should be workfare or bailoutfare.

you should get assistance when you need the help, not because you don't want to work, or won't accept a job because it's too low paying. and yes I know plenty of people on welfare who do not want to work, seriously they just do not want to work.

[sixmile]

13. +1

nt

[RC]

15. That is a republican talking point.

[okieinpain]

16. for some repugs it might be a talking point. but in my life it's true.

I know 20 people easy, easy, really easy that have nothing at all wrong with them and they are on welfare, and have been for quite a while. as a matter of fact one of them told me to my face, that I was wasting my time going to vote because nothing was going to change.

[hfojvt]

38. it's a Republican talking point

that many people can see to be true. Back a decade ago I moved in those circles. I had my own business and also worked a full time job making a whopping $5.40 an hour and knew a number of people who were getting checks from Uncle Sam. They made about the same amount of money that I did, only they didn't have to work for theirs.

But the left's response here is mostly to attack the character of people who report what they see.

[Gormy Cuss]

17. Really? You know cheaters?

So you think you know "plenty of people" who don't want to work and are on welfare. Not wanting to work doesn't qualify a person for welfare so every single one of them is a cheat. You admit to knowing cheaters and you're unhappy that they're on welfare. Do something about it. Call up welfare and report them. Welfare loves to send out investigators.

[okieinpain]

19. they do not want to hold a 9 - 5 job period. what can I tell

dhs that they don't already know

[Gormy Cuss]

20. If DHS already knows this and still cuts checks

there must be a valid basis for the person qualifying, and therefore your contention that they just don't want to work is why they're receiving aid is flawed.

[okieinpain]

21. there is nothing wrong with them, healthy body and mind. they

just do not want to work, they will tell you this to your face. now what they tell the dhs worker I have no ideal, but physically and mentally they are fine.

[Lyric]

25. DHS doesn't just "believe" you.

You have to present some pretty extensive evidence as to WHY you can't work. Obviously they must have presented some pretty compelling evidence in order to have qualified for it--the kind of evidence that you can't "fake" (medical records and x-rays, copies of bills, proof that you've registered at a job service, etc.) And that's just to GET welfare. You have to KEEP providing new evidence in order to STAY on welfare. You don't just keep getting it until you say you don't need it anymore. The system is deliberately exclusionary, meaning that the system is actively looking for reasons to DISqualify you--not reasons to keep on helping you. They have access to absolutely everything the government knows about you--your employment history, your bank account information, records of purchases you made with anything other than cash, your income tax refund, your student aid, your medical history (if you claim a health-related exclusion to the work requirement), as well as all of the information about any kids you might have. You have to sign a permission form for the welfare agency to access this information just to APPLY for welfare.

Sometimes people lie to protect their pride. They claim to be gaming the system because it's too painful to admit that they really, truly NEED it. That kind of need is often perceived (especially in conservative regions) as a major personal and moral failure. There are people who would honestly rather be perceived as clever crooks than as people who have failed so badly at life that they cannot even care for themselves.

Go down to your local welfare office and try applying for it yourself. Ask them questions. Tell them your concerns about these people you know. If there's any reason whatsoever that these people can be proven as cheaters, the welfare office will want to know about it. If there isn't, and they're just lying to save their pride, then nothing will be done. I'm sure there are a scant handful of welfare cheats still out there, but as someone who's dealt with the welfare system for years, I know personally that it's damned near impossible at this point. If they're cheating, they're the rare, RARE exception.

[TheKentuckian]

32. Then how do they get approved? Surely, there is no indication your state just writes checks to any

who ask.

How "bleeding heart" do you think the organization is?

Who would rather have such a pittance than something like decent wages or even the woefully inadequate minimum wage? If someone has such a preference then what real use are they in the workforce anyway?

Have you even bothered to just check the requirements? These benefits neither come easy nor put anyone on easy street.

[Gormy Cuss]

33. Again, report them if you know that to be true.

If you've ever applied for aid you'd understand that it's not easy to fake a reason and even less easy to sustain it.

[okieinpain]

41. never been to dhs, just unemployment. I have know ideal what

story they are making up, but they are getting away with it.

[Gormy Cuss]

45. Maybe they're not making up stories. n/t

[okieinpain]

46. maybe their not. I just know they seem as healthy as me, n/t.

[axollot]

22. Maybe a few do not want to work but to say ALL do not is clueless

and WORKFARE?! That's what it is now - 5 days a week 8-4pm for any cash assistance.

Cheers
Sandy

[Lyric]

27. Workfare is legalized indentured slavery.

It doesn't HAVE to be, but in its current incarnation, that's what it is. You have to work at least 30-35 hours a week at a welfare-assigned job (usually something like cleaning highways or some other community-service type job) but your only "pay" is your welfare check. Those are usually about $300-400 a month. That averages out to $2-3 an hour--FAR less than the minimum wage.

If we're going to implement workfare programs, then we need to do it right.

1. Provide free childcare, because minimum wage doesn't pay enough for childcare AND bills.
2. Provide transportation or a transportation allowance (because poor people often don't have cars, and rural poor people also don't have access to mass transit)
3. Pay at LEAST the minimum wage for actual hours worked. None of this $2-3/hr slave wage crap.
4. Provide employment training and encourage/fund higher education

There's more we could do, but those things are the absolute most basic necessities for a fair and successful workfare program.

[axollot]

30. I agree with you - post #11 wants it, guess they arent working the

poor enough in their eyes.

Cheers
Sandy

[Gormy Cuss]

34. What you described as an alternative is a welfare-to-work transition program.

The Federal government knows how to construct and implement them. It's done many demonstration programs in the past. There's also a clear body of knowledge that informs them of the limits of welfare-to-work effectiveness: there are always going to be people who can not achieve a working salary that will make them self sufficient nor do they have families, friends, or charities who can make up the difference. For most it's a short term need, for others the barriers are so great it's essentially a permanent state -- in other words, long term welfare for some Americans is a reality and it's time we stopped treating people like pariahs.

Workfare used to be public sector jobs generated specifically for welfare-to-work programs, with a goal of building job readiness, skills, and experience to position the individual for jobs in the private sector. That workfare has become a modern-day poor farm is shameful.

[Mnemosyne]

36. Yep, those $350 cash handouts, per month, here in PA really have them living

high on the hog. :crazy::puke:

Try it for a few months and then get back to those trying to survive on that because there are no fucking jobs in my area. Not even McD's is hiring around here.

[okieinpain]

43. I don't about pa, but I think they get a little bit more in okla.

but it's on a access card. On the first there are a lot of folks with two baskets over flowing with stuff. there is a meat shop that I like to get hot links from and they except the oklahoma access cards and I've seen folks in there getting great cuts of roast beef and pork chops.

I don't know why you folks are arguing that people aren't getting over on welfare, we all know it's true. don't get me wrong I'm glad it's there but it could use some fixing also.

[gratuitous]

14. The war on poverty ended in 1981

We were making some pretty good strides up until that point, too. But apparently too large a middle class (particularly one that wasn't lily white) made some advocates of a Southern Strategy uncomfortable. So we reversed the policies that raised some people out of poverty while making the wealthy pay their fair share toward maintaining the society that enriched them under the rubric of supply side (or voodoo) economics. For the last 30 years, a greater and greater portion of the wealth generated by labor in our country has been funneled into fewer and fewer overstuffed pockets. Adjusted for inflation, wages have remained stagnant since 1981 while worker productivity has increased substantially. All those workers creating wealth more efficiently created a windfall that those same workers have been excluded from participating in.

A few people have been working toward a return to the time when the wealth created by labor was more equally shared among the workers, but the folks in power have grown very accustomed to sucking up as much of that wealth as they can, and they don't seem inclined to change the system. Even though the pigs at the trough can't possibly spend what they have in five lifetimes, they continue to gobble up every available dime. And the victims of this robbery are derided for rutting like rabbits or doing anything that doesn't maximize the amount of booty available to be looted by the robber barons.

[Prophet 451]

18. Die, mofo, die

Ever notice that anytime someone rings alarm bells about budgets, the first, last and only thing they talk about cutting are programs for the poor?

I can think of a dozen ways to solve any financial problems and they don't involve taking money away from people who are barely hanging on in the first place.

[axollot]

23. Agree 100% Amazed at the clueless, cruel DU'ers here tho. Shame. n/t

[Taitertots]

24. Is there any evidence that welfare causes people to have more children?

I hear republicans saying it over and over, but there is really nothing to support it.

Is there any evidence that "incentives" cause people to avoid marriage? Or that if they did that there is any reason that they should have gotten married?
I keep hearing republican saying it, but there is really no evidence to support it.

[Lyric]

28. No, welfare doesn't cause people to have more children.

The 1996 reforms gave states the power to eliminate or severely reduce any "additional child" increases. Many states passed laws that completely eliminated them, meaning that even if you have more kids, your check never goes up. But honestly, even BEFORE then, the "increase" was laughable. I think Mississippi's "additional child" increase was something like $22 extra dollars a month? That's not even enough to buy DIAPERS. The idea that women were having babies just to get an extra $20-$40 a month is just ridiculous when you consider how expensive babies are, and the fact that you can't buy diapers, baby clothes, carseats, cribs, medicines, or baby toiletry stuff with Food Stamps or WIC. All that stuff has to be paid for by the mother.

[Gormy Cuss]

39. When you hear someone saying something like that, it's up to them to back it up.

I could repeat at every opportunity that 90% of Republicans eat their own turds but that doesn't make it a fact. I could also spend all day chasing down studies to refute made up "facts" put out there by people who can't be bothered to seek the truth because it might get in the way of their prejudices.

[Dappleganger]

48. My grandmother was forced into welfare after she'd had all of her children...

12 of them to be exact. My grandfather was a sharecropper in Sledge, Mississippi and he died of a heart attack when my mother was 6, while he was plowing in the cotton fields. She took in extra ironing and babysitting when she could, but otherwise the only thing that saved them from all being split up was welfare and their garden and a few benevolent neighbors.

[dembotoz]

29. The palins???? Bristol got 250 k

[Urban Prairie]

31. The greedy global corporate capitalists have been VERY successful in the war

against the lower and middle classes, aka domestic economic terrorism, by gleefully outsourcing and off-shoring US jobs largely unimpeded and subsidized since the 80s, through "free trade", making it more and more difficult for those with average, or less than average intelligence to find and hold jobs that pay a living wage, and require more than a HS diploma or additional training for jobs in skilled trades, that are more likely to be nailed down here in the US by purely physical necessity. Automation, computers, robotics, and technology have also reduced and obviously will continue to reduce the need for those who successfully acquire those specialized skills as well.

[Generic Other]

37. Is he talking about Utah now?

Because that's where they "rut like rabbits" and collect the most welfare. And mostly they are white.

As for "telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete," that originally happened during slavery and continues to be re-enforced by regressive policies that divide families in poverty today. Add to this, the high incarceration rates for black males. Breaking these patterns is the only way to effectively win the war on poverty.

If they want to change this one way would be to require that both parents apply to qualify for benefits. That families be allowed to stay together. That they find work for family members. Or provide work training. And that the families who make the effort get rewarded with extended health benefits.

[fascisthunter]

40. elitist right wing pig

[eShirl]

42. If only we could educate the young about birth control, and offer free family planning services to

the poor.

[alp227]

49. you can't, cuz it's against good ol' Christian values...

(sarcasm) so that's why the GOP's been hollering "defund Planned Parenthood!"

[Initech]

44. Wow, and I thought Glenn Beck was insane.

[upi402]

47. Only folks on Welfare I know are Republicans

Fony Phucks