"I'm from the government and I'm here to Help"

Scary words, no? Did you know that after 50 years, statistics show that the same relative number of people are poor as when the “War on Poverty” began (Poverty Statistics) ? Over a Trillion dollars spent and no headway whatsoever.

Could it be that the war on poverty uses policies which, rather than help people climb permanently out of poverty, instead perpetuates it? Could it be that, when you strip away good intentions and feel-good ideas, you find no progress at all.

Imagine you are a single mother living in an urban environment. The government provides you with food stamps, WIC , medical assistance, a welfare check. And the assistance increases if you should have another child. What would you do?

During the Clinton term the republican congress voted for and passed the Welfare to Work program, and although Clinton disapproved of it at the time, he later claimed credit for it when he saw the results.

Welfare to work gave that mother hope, showed her that with effort, she could move from a subsidized existence by the state to a better life created by her own hard work.

No, it isn’t easy. And as a privileged white person from the suburbs I certainly do not pretend to know what such a life would be like.

It’s tough when you are on welfare. But when you are born into welfare, when the government tells you that you will never make it on your own (for whatever reason), people believe it and act accordingly.

That means the creation of a self perpetuating welfare state where people trade dreams of excelling for their next check from a bankrupt government. They feel “entitled” to money earned by producers.

Never tell a mother or a child that they can’t make it in this country. It should be a crime to put such an idea in the mind of anyone.

While it’s true that the starting point in life is clearly unequal, it should not be an excuse not to try. Some of our greatest citizens were born in poverty; they simply refused to stay in that zip code.

My dad was one such person. Despite the confiscatory taxes of the Carter administration, despite ever increasing regulations, my dad somehow made a huge success of his restaurant. He saw the government as a hindrance. He wished they would have gotten out of his way.

During my dad’s years running his restaurant he provided many jobs and had many cooks and waitresses that were there almost from the beginning. He saw kids fund their college educations in part due to the money earned working in the restaurant.

The town profited from increased tax revenue, the employees had steady work and a fun, family atmosphere; no one expected anything without first making an effort.

When I began working for my dad, me – the owner’s son – I started by picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot. Later, I washed pots and dishes.

Only after demonstrating that I could, pardon the pun, take the heat, was I promoted to line cook and even waiter.

The pursuit of happiness is not a guarantee of happiness. No on said that life would be a painless exercise of rainbows and great music.

Only hard work, persistence and determination gets you to where you want to go. If you look to the government for a solution, you are looking to a life of subsistence.

My dad looked to no one but himself. He made it. Others can too.

Source: The Persistent Conservative

Writ large: Another moral panic, another rushed bill

When the government knows it has to address a national concern, but doesn't know quite how, a bright spark in cabinet – perhaps the PM himself – pipes up: "I've got an idea. Let's pass a law." Then the Minister for Something Must Be Done chips in: "Why don't we rush it through parliament? That way, no one will have time to reflect on it." Thus was born last week's parliamentary standards bill, the government's reaction to the expenses and allowances scandals.

It is a very depressing bill. What it prohibits should not have needed to be spelled out in writing. It should be second nature in the moral make-up of everyone who chooses to enter politics.

Hastily drawn, ill-thought out legislation created in panic rarely works. Look at anti-terrorism laws, or at the Pavlovian reaction every time there was a mild alleged failure in the criminal justice system. Too often the absurdity, injustice or failure of such legislation becomes evident too late, when it becomes clear that it is causing havoc within the existing system, too Byzantine to operate (like some sentencing laws, which several judges have told me are either incomprehensible or unworkable) or just plain embarrassing. Remember the fuss about making the "glorification" of terrorism a crime? The only person to be convicted of it urged attacks on four accountants' institutes, which he blamed for his failure to pass accountancy exams 10 years before.

The new bill would create a new offence of, in effect, fiddling expenses. The government knows that the conduct defined as criminal can easily be dealt with under existing laws – the Fraud Act 2006 or "false accounting" under the Theft Act 1968. But it looks good to pretend that some new initiative is taking place. The bill sets up an over-elaborate machinery to regulate and investigate MPs. A new body would be set up (always a mistake to do this in a hurry), the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

The biggest blow to the government's rush tactics came from an unexpected source: Malcolm Jack, clerk of the House of Commons – Mr Big of parliamentary procedures – who pointed out that the bill would severely diminish parliamentary privilege, a cherished part of the historic bill of rights of 1689, which says "that the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament."

In other words, MPs can say what they like in parliament without the risk of being sued (for instance for libel) or otherwise questioned by some authority or in court. But the new bill would specifically allow evidence of proceedings in parliament to be admissible in prosecutions of MPs. This, says Jack, would have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech of MPs and of witnesses before committees. I doubt the government considered this.

It's not too late. Slow down. Think again about the many aspects of the flawed bill. Better a workable act of parliament in a few months than a rubbish one in a few weeks.

Source: The Guardian