Some Welfare Falacies

      I was reflecting on a conversation I had with an ASPIRE worker. Here in Maine that is the program one must participate in to receive welfare. The worker was focused on pressuring her client to come up with a career paths. The client couldn't focus on anything but healing and her children. The worker emphasized that the goal was to make her a success. It is becoming common knowledge that a successful person is one who succeeds in reaching mental, emotional, and spiritual maturity, health and well-being. Such a person then naturally becomes successful in the aspects of common every day living. That is not the view or purpose driving the ASPIRE program, however. A society tired of making welfare payments and paranoid with hunting of people who commit welfare fraud have led to a merciless get them on and off quick as possible policy. Sure, state health insurance will pay for counseling if you get a doctor's referral, but what is one hour per week squeezed in between the stresses of work, schooling, parenting, paying bills on money barely enough to pay an average rent, etc. going to accomplish against a whole lifetime of abuse? Not much, I think. I explained to that worker that I seen it's idea of success: the clients do get a career such as managing those waitresses and cashiers they used to be but they just go home, get drunk, and pass their dysfunctions on to their children who end up on welfare and so on.
       The first thought that pops into my head as response to such a point is: "Well, at least they're buying their own beer instead of spending welfare money on it". But are they spending "their own money" on it? Are they truly saving the tax-payers money? No, they aren't. Every product you purchase is marked up to cover the costs of petty thefts. Every service and product you buy is loaded with the costs of insurance to cover the potential costs of embezzlement and other more major financial losses. Added to those costs on every product and service is the costs of potential legal fees, to protect against crimes committed by dysfunctional employees, clients, property destruction, etc. In the end, the tax-payer is still paying for it's dysfunctional citizens, including it's "functional" dysfunctionals and their drug-addicted children. In the end, that's as big a success as the ASPIRE program can ever be.
       Then person might reply with: "Well, at least we are getting a product or service in exchange for our money!" At what cost? Increased dysfunctional, as noted above creates an increased cost of living for every citizen. As the cost of living increases, so does the cost of doing business. As the cost of business rises, business must close or move to friendly business environments. Either way, increasing dysfunction in it's citizens leads to job loss. This leads to more welfare recipients, unemployment benefits paid out, social security disability claims, etc.
      So, just as giving a child who can't read a passing grade just to increase statistics on how many actually graduate, programs like ASPIRE are a glossing over of society's real failures with inflated statistics of "success". If we instead focus on welfare to be used to relieve financial stresses to aid healing, there is a greater chance of financial success for everybody.
      "I am because we are"