Social Justice

I'm going to go out on thin ice with this one.  Our church is very strong into the concept of "Social Justice", which is supposed to mean that those people who have a lot should help the ones that don't have a lot.  I surely do not have a problem with that.  There are plenty of people who, through no fault of their own, are not able to properly provide for themselves - people with physical or mental disabilities, a mother left to care for her family when she loses her husband, older people who can no longer provide for their own maintenance, etc.  If one has the means, he has a moral obligation to chip in and make life better for these poor souls. 

Our politicians today have twisted this biblical mandate into "Take from the rich and give to the poor", and still call it Social Justice.  One big problem here is that we need to differentiate between the truly needy and those that are gaming the system.  I have had a lot of opportunity to observe people receiving assistance that probably don't need it.  Here are just a few examples:

• Having managed Section 8 housing, I can't begin to tell you how many of the residents shouldn't be there.  So often, single mothers have baby after baby, receive added benefits, and the sperm donor who often lives with her does not have to help raise his kids.  If the woman marries the guy, she loses the government help.  One woman that I remember had so many kids that we had to put her in a 4-bedroom unit.  All the while her live-in paramour was making $30000 annually and didn't have to contribute at all.  On another case, I did some calculating on what it cost the government to keep a single mother with three kids in a three bedroom apartment.  With the rent payment, ADC, food stamps,  no-deductible  health insurance (including dental and optical) and a couple of other things, the figure was over $50000.  To put this in perspective, at that time (maybe 15 years ago) my total income tax obligation for that year was $4400. This means that every last cent of taxes that was collected from more than eleven families like mine had to be used to support this family.  Why couldn't she support herself?  She was a drug addict, and admitted that she was trading food stamps for drugs. 
• East of where I live is a grocery store where a lot of people on assistance do their shopping.  Maybe I' m being petty about this, but it really irks me when some flashy woman in front of me in the checkout line, with a leather coat, a fancy nail job and hairdo, and color-coordinated shoes, pays with food stamps.  I don't begrudge her wanting to look nice, but couldn't she use some of her own money to buy groceries?  And it seems that invariably, when you pull into the parking lot, you will find some guy sitting in the passenger seat of a car, listening to the radio while the lady of the house is in the store buying the groceries.  (Me being petty again)
• Logan-Fontanelle was a subsidized housing project in the eastern part of Omaha.  When it was new, it was a model property, meant to be a very nice place to live for the people who needed to be there.  A few years ago it was razed to the ground because it was too dangerous to live there.  It was riddled with drug users and dealers, and violence was commonplace.  What a waste of taxpayer dollars!!

Well, we know at least part of the problem. so what can be done about it?  Obviously, we need to determine who the gamers are.  Closer monitoring and random spot checks would go a long way.  And I don't care if it does infringe on a person's privacy, if you expect the taxpayers to support you, you are going to have to pass a drug test.  If another person is living in the home of someone on assistance, that should be easy enough to determine, and he (she) should be made to help with expenses.  On the other side of the coin, the people who actually need help should be getting it on time and in an adequate amount, and procedures should be put in place to make sure that happens.

One final point.  Politicians - please don't use the "poor" as a tool to buy votes.  It hasn't escaped our notice that those who are on the receiving end tend to vote for the candidate who promises to keep the payments coming.  We taxpayers have feelings, too.