Social services and Responsibility

Last night in Barack’s acceptance speech he had a couple quotes that made me go – YES!  At the same time they made me come back to one of my biggest issues with a lot of our current policies and tax laws regarding social services. 

The first quote – “let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.”  I love this quote!  The things I focused on were responsibility, working harder and looking after each other.  This is exactly how we became a great nation.  If we are to achieve our dreams we must do each of these!

The Second quote – “the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.”  My main focus in this one is opportunity, we live in a land where anything can be accomplished and this is fantastic!

So where are my issues with our social policies?  A lot of our policies currently do not enable people to be responsible, work hard, and help others or to even have hope.  Just two that we can look at is welfare and EIC (earned income credit). 

With welfare it is very easy to get trapped in the system, where if you get a raise or a second job you end up losing benefits and in the end are worse off than you were when you were not achieving.  I actually had a friend that this happened to, as a single working mom she would have lost her daycare, health care and other services if she were to even work four more hours a week!  It was not until the kids were in school all day and her father’s schedule changed (so he could help with after school care) that she did not need help from the government with daycare.  This enabled her to get a good job and take care of herself and children.  Her first 6 months on the job she did not have health care, after 6 months she was able to quality for care.  When she was finally off assistance she said she felt more empowered and had a great sense of self than ever before.  She also will tell you that the system is broken in that she was penalized if she achieved and she always felt trapped.  Is that type of system good for our sense of responsibility, opportunity and hope?

Earned Income credit, actually makes me VERY mad.  For those of you who do not know what it is about here is an overview.  Basically the government gives you anywhere from $0 – $4,716 based on the number of kids you have and how little you make.  It is not based on anything more.  In order to get the $4,716 you need to have a couple kids and only have made about $16,000.  At first you might say, but it is helping those who don’t have money make it easier.  My response to you – go do a season of taxes for HR Block (a task I think every elected official should be required to do).  Many people actually game the system to just work as much as they need to get the most money.  They will call in the summer to see if they have hit the best income spot – and then STOP working!!!!!!  I actually had a girl at the desk be upset that she had not meet the best payout spot and was very upset, her mother actually said “but it is free money, maybe next year you will have to work a little longer.”   This system does not help our citizens to thrive and have opportunities.  Not to mention that it is not free money, many of us hard working people who actually pay taxes give this girl her “free” money. 

We cannot continue to put in place systems like these as they destroy our desire to achieve and make a great life for ourselves.  Be careful in how you recommend we “help” people as many times it back fires and becomes more of a bad spot on our nation.