A few years ago, our provincial government "downloaded" social services (read: welfare) to the cities, with the exact same rhetoric behind it as you just expressed. It turned out to be a disaster. The big cities, like Hamilton, have much lower costs of living than neighbouring small towns, so when people are down-and-out, they immediately move into the poorer areas of the nearest big city. The tax base of the city is not big enough to support the influx, so taxes within the city get raised to compensate. The upshot of it is that I'm paying more property taxes on my $100 000 home than a friend of mine in a neighbouring community pays on her $200 000 home, and I'm not getting as many services for it. Before the download, the system was administered by the provincial government, who sent the funds needed to each municipality according to their need. The same thing has happened in many parts of the U.S. in school district funding. The districts are too small to spread out the funding effectively. This isn't to say it has to be federal, but it should at least be statewide to account for those disparities.
The reason it must remain public, IMO, is because of the effect of regular economic downturns on charitable donations. The worse the economy is, the less money is flowing into charities from private sources. So as long as the economy is fine, the charities can do their work, but when more people need it, that's when it dries up. There has to be a failsafe. There are going to be people who abuse the system, but they're very rare compared to the people who feel extremely guilty for their temporary need to leech public monies and would do anything to get off of welfare. (As a teacher in schools in poor neighbourhoods, I've seen a lot of this - people who are dreadfully embarrassed, trying desperately to find a way to work AND pay for childcare AND get their highschool diploma AND navigate the bureaucracy that surrounds the welfare, because heaven forbid they get one cent more than they need to survive. The ones who, at first glance, appear to be abusing the system are usually unemployable - no literacy, no skills, and no jobs that will even look at them.) Frankly, I'd rather have my taxes support a leech or two, than cut off a single family who really needs the help.
I question how much actual fraud exists, and how much people are forced into fraud in order to manage the system. I've heard of people who can't live with the child of the baby they're carrying, because if they're single parents they qualify for medicaid but if they're with someone, his salary plus theirs isn't enough to pay their medical bills. So they lie, live separately or pretend to, and "abuse the system." That's not abuse of the system - it's a broken system.
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Date: 2006-10-14 11:34 pm (UTC)The reason it must remain public, IMO, is because of the effect of regular economic downturns on charitable donations. The worse the economy is, the less money is flowing into charities from private sources. So as long as the economy is fine, the charities can do their work, but when more people need it, that's when it dries up. There has to be a failsafe. There are going to be people who abuse the system, but they're very rare compared to the people who feel extremely guilty for their temporary need to leech public monies and would do anything to get off of welfare. (As a teacher in schools in poor neighbourhoods, I've seen a lot of this - people who are dreadfully embarrassed, trying desperately to find a way to work AND pay for childcare AND get their highschool diploma AND navigate the bureaucracy that surrounds the welfare, because heaven forbid they get one cent more than they need to survive. The ones who, at first glance, appear to be abusing the system are usually unemployable - no literacy, no skills, and no jobs that will even look at them.) Frankly, I'd rather have my taxes support a leech or two, than cut off a single family who really needs the help.
I question how much actual fraud exists, and how much people are forced into fraud in order to manage the system. I've heard of people who can't live with the child of the baby they're carrying, because if they're single parents they qualify for medicaid but if they're with someone, his salary plus theirs isn't enough to pay their medical bills. So they lie, live separately or pretend to, and "abuse the system." That's not abuse of the system - it's a broken system.