EXACTLY!

We probably agree that social programs which are not working should be dumped. We agree that teaching someone to fish is better than giving them a fish. I wonder if we agree that giving them a fish is less expensive, and if there are a lot of hungry ones and limited resources, then a fishing-instruction program for all those people would not be feasible. In other words, I notice that with social programs, the most effective ones (fishing instruction) are more expensive, but that the resources provided are not enough to even do it wrong (give everyone a fish).

Also, Washington State has for fifteen years been doing its best to SQUEEZE money out of the budget. Programs have been abandoned. Administrative costs have been critically evaluated. Even the Republicans, as a group, are reporting that there are no more "efficiencies" to be found (as an alternative to taxes). We're as lean as we can be, even according to the testimony of the conservatives....and we've got a $2.2 billion budges shortfall, while our roads continue to deteriorate and university enrollment falls because of lack of funding.

If you're going to suggest that welfare programs should be to simply tell people to "get a job" while we remove their safety nets and put them out into the street, then don't bother. This has been said before, and it always gets said by people who are outside the system. Even the most rabid conservative public policy makers are not so ignorant as to believe this bunk. People who say this are clueless and out of touch.

What do you think of the SBIR/STTR programs (getting way off topic)?

From what I've been told the solititations/request for proposals are custom geared with paticular people in mind - an outsider really can't go head to head and win. Also you need some inside Pentagon contacts to get one written just for you - going owe someone down the line.

Link:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/sadbu/sbir/

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I just Googled on "Wisconsin welfare reform" and this popped up:
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The Claremont Institute
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A Tale of Two States
Wisconsin and Minnesota Show the Best and Worst of Welfare Reform
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http://www.claremont.org/writings/991217hinderaker_johnson.html
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When Congress passed welfare reform legislation that President Clinton finally signed in 1996, it abolished the federal welfare entitlement to cash benefits for dependent families. Recognizing the incredibly destructive consequences that this entitlement program had wrought, Congress directed each of the 50 states to design its own program to replace welfare with workfare.
Perhaps no two states resemble each other more closely than Minnesota and Wisconsin. Among other things, each has a population of roughly 5 million, each is dominated by a single metropolitan area, and each has a long-standing progressive political tradition. But in charting welfare reform, no two states have taken paths that diverged more markedly.

Minnesota and Wisconsin had similar welfare systems until the late 1980s. In 1986, however, Wisconsin's welfare caseload peaked at more than 100,000 families and became a significant political problem. Tommy Thompson was elected governor that same year on a platform that focused on welfare reform. In the following years, under Governor Thompson's leadership, Wisconsin pushed reforms that imposed responsibilities as a condition of receiving benefits. These reforms culminated in the requirement that able-bodied welfare recipients work for their benefits.

The key to Wisconsin's system is that it does not merely pay lip service to the desirability of working one's way off welfare. Wisconsin actually enforces its work requirements by denying benefits to able-bodied adults who refuse to work; cutting benefits to the extent that recipients fail to show up for their jobs; and providing community service jobs as a last resort.

Governor Thompson's reforms have virtually eliminated Wisconsin's welfare caseload. The number of families receiving welfare has dropped from its high of more than 100,000 to only 10,185 as of the end of 1998, a 90 percent decline.

Not surprisingly, Minnesota's approach has produced results very different from Wisconsin's. Minnesota's caseload peaked in 1992 at 66,212. By the end of 1998 it had fallen 30 percent, to 46,322, just one third the decline experienced by Wisconsin. In part, this difference in results reflects the fact that no one now moves to Wisconsin in order to collect welfare benefits. In Minneapolis, on the other hand, the home of Minnesota's largest welfare population, roughly a third of the caseload every year is new arrivals from other, mostly nearby states with lower benefits or more demanding programs, such as Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.

By supporting able-bodied recipients who do not work, Minnesota's welfare system needlessly perpetuates dependence. It also raises a fundamental question of fairness. Abraham Lincoln frequently argued that the basic precept of kingship and tyranny is, "You work and I eat." Lincoln condemned slavery as a manifestation of this precept.

Minnesota remains committed to a system consistent with this precept. By contrast, Wisconsin has experienced a new birth of freedom.

Supe - Easy there turbo. Aren't you the one that gets bent out of shape for people "pretending I said something I did not say"???

Also, are you saying (sideways though it may have been) that I'm clueless and out of touch? Kinda personal isn't it? I thought you libs were all about peace, brotherhood, inclusion-ism (SP?), etc??? ;) Come on man, can't we all just get along?

Your conservative brother,
Skip

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Fascinating.
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Not being a smart-ass here, just curious.
Did you do this on your own - when "...on purpose." - or were you prompted/directed to do this?
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Thanks.
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Fair 'nuff. No, I was not putting words into your mouth, but only responding to what is usually the next step in this oft-repeated conversation. I'm not saying this is your position, but just reporting that I'm tired of the convenient, simple and self-serving vision that some folks seem to have regarding welfare. Just stop providing it, the deadbeats will go to work and taxes will become unnecessary. I say that's largely bunk.

But hey, I'm certainly conciliatory regarding stories like the one above. If someone wants to show the leadership necessary to properly reform some of these systems, then more power to them as we used to say. We can fix the problems. Just not with a simple, inexpensive solution that requires nothing but the withdrawl of funding.

Yeah, we can get along alright, Skip. As long as we agree my ideas are brilliant.;)

YES!!! and to be quite honest, no one felt anything was arong iwth it. The amount of time we needed to put in to fix allthe government's mistakes was astounding. We were trying to recoup those costs.

Man, most of us engineers at Lockheed or UTC even thought about overcharging or mischarging we'd slap ourselves in the face. People have lost their jobs for doing that.

Lockheed regularly gets government handouts, has a staff of probably 300 just to do billing alone, and pushes the direction of the game.

A company like ACT that had 3 engineers, 5 floor guys, an executive engineer and me, having to deal with the inadequacies of the government is a whole other story.

I'm much more concerned about the kickbacks and corporate welfare that Lockheed receives versus our company of 10 and creative ways to make DOD contracting work.

it was a great company, we ended up making carbon fiber hockey sticks for Bauer who bought the whole thing and moved it to Canada.

HAHA! Wait, that's my line!!!

Seriously though... I've NEVER known or met anyone that actually wants to completely do away with any kind of safety net and "kick 'em to the curb". It simply can't be this wide spread movement that some make it sound - law of averages says I'd have run into them by now... you know, during those secrete meetings of the vast right ring conspiracy. The idea that conservatives want the poor or unlucky to starve is just silly.

Back on topic - if Fox was so far to the right/unbalanced, I wouldn't find myself disagreeing with ~half of what's on it.

- Skip

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I'm much more concerned about the kickbacks and corporate welfare that Lockheed receives versus our company of 10 and creative ways to make DOD contracting work.
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Don't want to change this thread, but what kickbacks and corporate welfare are you talking about?

That's a new thread! Please start one on corporate welfare, we'll see what happens. There is so much information on this topic and Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc. are all key players. It should be interesting.

That is a terrible piece of analysis (sorry, but its true).

In summary - Wisconsin cuts welfare entitlements through "tough love". Number of welfare families drops to 10%. Minnesota's caseload drops over a (not really) similar period, despite picking up all its neighbours welfare recipients.

The questions I have:

1) How many people still live in Wisconsin and our outside the reported stats (in other words, no benefit, but still need one)?
2) How many people in Minnesota came from Wisconsin?

In other words, are there actually that many people in Wisconsin who are no longer on welfare because the programme worked (rather than drove them out of state or into homelessness)?

And what would Minnesotas drop have been without "imports".

Basically, there is VIRTUALLY NO proof that the programme worked socially, only that it reduced a number which measures welfare usage.

Pretty much on target CamB, let me add a little personal history. During that peroid I used to visit my sister in Madison WI twice a year for about six years on end. I saw the city being destroyed by the imigration of people from Illinois (Chicago). I'm not saying any right or wrong here, racism or whatever - they had to do something drastic and everyone could see why. It became no longer safe and far from beautiful in some areas overnight because WI's welfare handouts were more generious than it's nearby neighbor to the south. Poverty is not pretty, but it's the values some people have which make them truly poor.