Is it ever moral to go on welfare?

[blackdiamond]

Firstly, i just read my submission: spelt Harry Potter as Harry Porter, and can't edit it (how embarassing! ): it will forever stay in cyberspace for my great-great grandchildren to read!

Edit: Or, you could ask a moderator to fix it for you if it bothers you that much.

Blackdiamond,

Walk into a welfare office. Observe the type of people who go there and work there. Imagine joining them as a supplicant, kow-towing to the welfare bureaucrats and answering intrusive questions about your personal life, all the while working hard to show to them that you are so poor you need welfare. If you think you can still write that great novel under those conditions, I admire your ability to keep focused!

a small price to pay for a greater vision, don't you think? i'm not sure your scenario is too different from working under some harsh conditions for a stupid boss in a semi-sweat factory or restaurant, as you await the finishing of your book. (Remember Al Pacino's first job in Scarface?) Edited February 27, 2007 by JMeganSnow

[Galileo Blogs]

(Remember Al Pacino's first job in Scarface?)

Remember his last job?? No particularly philosophical point here, I just wanted to say that.

[JMeganSnow]

They took it from you and it is moral to take it back.

It is moral to take it back if you use moral means to do so . . . a statement like this winds up as an example of the ends justifying the means, but it's easy not to notice that sort of thing. I don't think taking welfare if you don't need it constitutes a moral means because it requires you to do something immoral: lie. Not to mention that it can come back and bite you in the butt.

I don't blanket-condemn anyone. In my personal experience, I have never met anyone on welfare that I could respect. I might meet one or two people that break the mold, especially in more-socialized countries like Britain where conditions are worse (that's where J.K. Rowling is from, after all). It is simply not something I will ever advocate as a positive alternative. Well, you lost your job and your house and your car but look on the bright side, at least you've got welfare! Bah.

[Antonio]

It is moral to take it back if you use moral means to do so . . . a statement like this winds up as an example of the ends justifying the means, but it's easy not to notice that sort of thing. I don't think taking welfare if you don't need it constitutes a moral means because it requires you to do something immoral: lie. Not to mention that it can come back and bite you in the butt.

Indeed, cheating and lying is immoral even when dealing with government employees who are part of a questionable system of entitlement.

The way my wife and I have seen it with regard to benefits for my daughter who uses a wheelchair is that we're trying to take back some of the wealth taken from us to pay for programs and services that shouldn't exist in the first place. One thing I had not even thought of in my last post when I went over the costs of taxes and regulation is how the cost of medical equipment is artificially inflated by the government-sponsored cartel set up by the healthcare-industrial complex. My daughter's wheelchair cost $4,700 and a prescription is required for it because it's a "federally controlled product." That means that a physician had to be paid to review and approve the exact model we wanted, and must approve any changes or additions. We wanted to donate a walker that my daughter outgrew from her toddler years and were warned that it's illegal because we're distributing controlled equipment outside federal oversight. We ended up selling it to some other parents, warned by someone else that's "worse" because it's "trafficking."

It's a joke how much money is spent on administration too on all of this. It's an industry not unlike public schooling, government grant administration and nonprofit groups (most of which are government supported).

As a footnote, we drop off a timesheet for one of the support services my daughter receives at our local county social services office (being in a rural county fortunately it's not like the urban hellhole offices you've seen described here - it's actually really, really quiet here in de-facto Mayberry). The dozens of parked cars there driven by the employees have leftist bumper stickers plastered all over them, even a couple of Mercedes Benzes (and they weren't even the less-expensive C-Class - what a way to destroy a nice car). They're anti-war, anti-Bush, pro-impeachment, free Tibet, Kerry-Edwards, anti-nuclear, you name it. The know who butters their bread.

[The Wrath]

Megan, why does lying always have to be immoral? If someone steals my car and I have an opportunity to lie to the thief in order to steal it back, why is that immoral? For these purposes, assume that the corrupt police department refuses to do anything about it.

This is no different than what the government does. It steals your money. And if you can lie to the government to get your rightully-owned property back, I don't see why it's immoral. Granted, I would never do it out of fear of getting caught. But I don't think it's immoral.

[softwareNerd]

Speaking of lying to get money from the system, check out this BBC story.

A US woman has pleaded guilty to fraud charges after coaching her children to feign learning difficulties in order to obtain state benefits...collected more than $280,000 ... in benefits over 20 years.

For most rational, productive people, the problem is that the current system makes us both thieves and victims of thievery. So, when we take a government provided benefit, we might view it as claiming back what was taken from us, or we might view it as adding to the thievery.

[Galileo Blogs]

For most rational, productive people, the problem is that the current system makes us both thieves and victims of thievery. So, when we take a government provided benefit, we might view it as claiming back what was taken from us, or we might view it as adding to the thievery.

That is a key point. Taking widely proffered and routine government "benefits" such as student loans, public schools, public libraries, free concerts, etc., is one thing.

Becoming a professional moocher is another.

It should be clear whether one's actions fall into the former or the latter category. A hint: If you find yourself writing letters to a congressman petitioning to keep a certain government program, you fall in the latter category.

In any case, one's efforts are best directed toward productive, joyful living. Why would anyone want to spend more than a minimal amount of time pandering after government benefits? Is it to live like the woman referenced by SoftwareNerd above?

Edited February 28, 2007 by Galileo Blogs

[Inspector]

I don't think taking welfare if you don't need it constitutes a moral means because it requires you to do something immoral: lie. Not to mention that it can come back and bite you in the butt.

It isn't a lie if you "need" it under their definition. If you fit their definition of "needy" but know that you could take two jobs and work yourself to death just to avoid taking back money that is rightfully yours then why do you think anyone is morally required to do so? Screw that!

I would respect someone who did the former if their motivation was to spit in the face of the robber who took his money. But I don't think that someone who isn't willing to suffer in the name of spite should be looked down upon. Otherwise, there is absolutely no difference, morally, between accepting welfare, scholarships, or unemployment. You can't look down on the former without looking down on the latter.

If you lie to them on their official forms about your circumstances then that is another matter; not what I am talking about nor is it what the thread is about. But frankly that is the moral status of lying to a robber in order to get your money back. Yes there is the whole "breaking unjust laws vs rule of law" thing but please lets not get into that here.

[JMeganSnow]

If someone steals my car and I have an opportunity to lie to the thief in order to steal it back, why is that immoral?

There's a difference between lying to one person in order to get your car back and making your entire life a lie in order to obtain money from the government. What happens when someone at a party asks what you do for a living? What happens when your girlfriend asks how you afforded that nice new car of yours? What happens when your parents want to talk about your work? Are you going to lie to them? If you don't, are they going to report you?

As for why should you have to work two jobs and suffer, let me ask you this: why should you even have to work one job?! The government's been taking money from your parents and grandparents ad infinitum ad nauseum for centuries! You could have been set up for life by now! It's your money you should take it. My advice: shut your whining and do something legitimate about it, like, I don't know, running for public office or something. Wait, you're a bum that can't get a decent job. Never mind.

[Inspector]

is morally required to do so?

That should read "is deserving of contempt to not do so." Six of one...

making your entire life a lie in order to obtain money from the government.

Isn't that a bit of a non-sequitur? The thread title is: is it ever moral to go on welfare, not: is it moral to go on welfare and stay there for one's whole life?

[blackdiamond]

Megan, why does lying always have to be immoral?

My J.K.Rowling type of support for going on welfare did not assume that you would need to lie. If lying is an essential part of this scenario, then i would also have some problems supporting such a choice, especially in a less-socialised country.

I think that if one is not used to lying, it is never a pleasant experience to do it - whether to the government or not. in the case of lying to a thief, it's indeed not pleasurable as well, but you do it because you know this is not something you will have to do again and again: you don't live life in emergency situations!

To take yourself in a situation where you have to constantly lie - to live life as if you were in a car-thief sort of emergency every day - would be psychological torture. I think that's what JMegan is probably trying to say.

In which case, i would dare say, it would always be immoral to take welfare under those conditions.

[inspector, i don't think Megan meant "your whole life", as in, until you die, when she said "your entire life" - she meant, every other aspect of your life, with a bit of rhetorical stress, of course. But I may be mistaken].

Edited February 28, 2007 by blackdiamond

[Inspector]

[inspector, i don't think Megan meant "your whole life", as in, until you die, when she said "your entire life" - she meant, every other aspect of your life, with a bit of rhetorical stress, of course. But I may be mistaken].

Ah, I see. Yes, I think you're right.

But still: if the question is: "is it ever morally okay to go on welfare," then Megan has switched the question from that to: is it morally okay to go out of your way to go on welfare, altering your life and avoiding work and lying to the government about your situation? That's a very different question.

[The Wrath]

I agree. I think the question has been shifted.

[softwareNerd]

Re: the J.K.Rowling example... Personally, I'd be suspicious of someone who said they were going on welfare so that they could write their novel, and who said that they were sure to end up being productive in the long run, and also end up paying more in tax than they ever got out of the system.

Edited February 28, 2007 by softwareNerd

[JMeganSnow]

Ah, I see. Yes, I think you're right.

But still: if the question is: "is it ever morally okay to go on welfare,". . .

That's because I answered this question completely and accurately in my first post, then you announced that it's perfectly moral to go on welfare under any circumstances whatsoever because "it's your money". I think it's fine to go on welfare under a very specific and narrow set of circumstances: namely when you have no other options. I also think, from personal experience, that these circumstances are rare . . . at least, in the U.S., at the present time.

Are you going to make me say it again?

[Inspector]

Are you going to make me say it again?

Gosh, I hope not. Be cool, Megan.

What I mean is that the receiving of money from the government, given that it is rightfully your money isn't an indictment of your character. Being willing to put up with the conditions demanded by the government for receiving it is another thing altogether. But the criteria shouldn't be whether it is possible to live a worse lifestyle that avoids the grave. There is nothing wrong, as such with taking your money back. It is not morally necessary that you "have no other options," because it is your money and you have the moral right to it.

I'm not requiring that you repeat yourself; it is perfectly clear to me what you mean. But I disagree with your premise that the only morally acceptable reason to go on welfare is that you "have no other options." What reason is there to wait until you "have no other options" to take your own money back? If you have the opportunity to do so, then take it I say! (provided that it doesn't require you to sacrifice some greater value to meet the government's often onerous requirements to get it)

[DavidOdden]

It is not morally necessary that you "have no other options," because it is your money and you have the moral right to it.

Would you explain this? I've reviewed your comments in this thread, and I may have missed something but I didn't see anywhere that you estabished the context when it is yours, and you seem to be presuming that it is yours. Where has this been established? By what means? The US government has trillions of dollars which has come from taxation; I would assert that some of it is mine, but not all of it. Similarly, I assert that some of the money in the Ohio treasury is mine, but not all of it. And therefore, I don't have an unbounded rightful claim to all of the money in the Ohio state treasury. If you're gonna use the "it's yours" argument to justify taking welfare, this is gonna run into a contradiction real fast. So is this where you're moving the argument -- that given premises contradicting reality, contradictions will arise, and thus because taxation involves force, concepts of morality are inapplicable to life in these here United States?

See, I just do not buy the automatic "it's yours" principle. Sometime it is, sometimes it isn't. Usually, people who pay enough state tax to have substantially contributed a share to welfare are not eligible for welfare.

[Inspector]

Would you explain this? I've reviewed your comments in this thread, and I may have missed something but I didn't see anywhere that you estabished the context when it is yours, and you seem to be presuming that it is yours.

I do assume a certain amount of context, yes. I assume that someone has either been taxed or is reasonably sure at some point they will be taxed. There are many, many taxes and not all of them income tax. There is sales tax, there is a gas tax, there are taxes on imports for the products that we buy, there is property tax - which you pay for in your rent even if you don't own, there are taxes on cigarettes, telephones, gambling, and just about everything else you can do. I'm only halfway surprised they haven't put a tax on standing in water.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that most people have paid taxes in one form or another. It's nigh impossible not to.

If you're gonna use the "it's yours" argument to justify taking welfare, this is gonna run into a contradiction real fast.

At some point, it is theoretically possible for a person to take more than they've paid. Did I say otherwise? Without establishing context, how are you any more right than I am in stating that one will run into a contradiction "real fast?" Maybe one will not run into it at all. How about you give me a specific example with a contradiction and I will tell you if I think he has a right to that money or not?

I don't really think that it would be easy, especially without violating a condition that I gave earlier in this thread: that doing so didn't involve compromising one's interests in order to meet the government's requirements for getting welfare. Honestly, I don't really know what the government requires of you to be on welfare, so it's a floating abstraction to me that I think involves being poor and maybe not working? The point is that taking welfare as such, is no morally different than taking scholarships or social security or driving on a government road. So long as you're not doing something immoral to get it then what is the big deal?

[DavidOdden]

I assume that someone has either been taxed or is reasonably sure at some point they will be taxed.

Right, but that has to be weighed against the services that you've received. For example, you don't have to pay a user fee for road maintenance, running the snow plows, repairing the water lines, the electric lines, police protection, fire-fighting if you've had a fire, child's education if you had a child in public schools, your own education if you didn't fully pay for your education in a private school, etc.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that most people have paid taxes in one form or another.

I agree that most people have paid taxes on one form or another: that is not what is in dispute. What is in dispute is whether you can automatically assume that any and all government benefits that you could get are less than or equal to what you've paid in taxes. So that is the point at which it become immoral to accept welfare. Though this is all vacuous banter because I'm betting that nobody has a careful record of taxes paid, so that they know whether they are taking my money as opposed to their own money.

The point is that taking welfare as such, is no morally different than taking scholarships or social security or driving on a government road.

Uh huh, that's not the problem. The problem is, simply, that is it false that welfare payments are necessarily "your money". Therefore, any argument that requires that assumption is invalid. Therefore, that assumption should not be made.

[Inspector]

The problem is, simply, that is it false that welfare payments are necessarily "your money". Therefore, any argument that requires that assumption is invalid. Therefore, that assumption should not be made.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that there is a moral problem because I can't track the exact dollar bills I pay in taxes? That I don't have the right to recover money stolen by the government unless it is the exact money, down to the serial number, that was taken from me?

If so, then that is a bold claim. Because as I said, there is no difference in this regard between welfare and scholarships, student loans, medicare, unemployment, or any other thing you get from the government.

[Antonio]

What I mean is that the receiving of money from the government, given that it is rightfully your money isn't an indictment of your character. Being willing to put up with the conditions demanded by the government for receiving it is another thing altogether. But the criteria shouldn't be whether it is possible to live a worse lifestyle that avoids the grave. There is nothing wrong, as such with taking your money back. It is not morally necessary that you "have no other options," because it is your money and you have the moral right to it.

Yeah, being willing to put up with it is a serious chore. Just dealing with the bureaucrats that work for social programs is annoying, however well-intended and good-natured most of them I have dealt with are (read - heads in the clouds). At first, I didn't like having to turn over personal financial, asset and income information for my disabled daughter to have Medi-Cal as a backup health insurance. And I even wasted time and energy questioning it and protesting it on the grounds that they didn't need it for eligibility because my daughter, being paraplegic, has an automatic waiver. But they need it anyway because the rules don't make an exception, even at the same time as they specify that it's not eligibility criteria for disabled people (more government illogic). Finally though, I looked at the info this year when I renewed and thought 'screw that' because I'm proud of what I have, and I see no reason why I should be ashamed of it, particularly in front of a bureaucrat reading something I'm mailing back to her.

I'm OK with it because it's my money. And I have plenty of options. So much so that this stupid state-run health program hardly gets billed because my private insurance pays 90% of everything and the better doctors and labs, etc. don't take Medi-Cal anyway - and we're one of those picky parents.

I'm not requiring that you repeat yourself; it is perfectly clear to me what you mean. But I disagree with your premise that the only morally acceptable reason to go on welfare is that you "have no other options." What reason is there to wait until you "have no other options" to take your own money back? If you have the opportunity to do so, then take it I say! (provided that it doesn't require you to sacrifice some greater value to meet the government's often onerous requirements to get it)

Indeed. We receive a handful of services for our daughter who has disabilities even when we could just use more of our own money to pay for some of them (though many of these services have been monopolized - dare I say nationalized - by the California government). I'm not waiting until I run out of options. It's my money and in fact, a lot of the services that I do pay for - the lion's share of them - are more expensive BECAUSE OF the state intervention. Like I mentioned before, because you can't buy a wheelchair without a prescription (even a folding-into-a-suitcase travel wheelchair we were looking at), that adds to the price because it's a regulated medical equipment (that insurance, private or state, doesn't pay for).

I would gladly see it all go away in exchange for lower prices and more freedom.

[Antonio]

What is in dispute is whether you can automatically assume that any and all government benefits that you could get are less than or equal to what you've paid in taxes. So that is the point at which it become immoral to accept welfare. Though this is all vacuous banter because I'm betting that nobody has a careful record of taxes paid, so that they know whether they are taking my money as opposed to their own money.Uh huh, that's not the problem. The problem is, simply, that is it false that welfare payments are necessarily "your money". Therefore, any argument that requires that assumption is invalid. Therefore, that assumption should not be made.

It is probably possible, though it would require a very deep, expansive study by someone of a thorough economics background to do this, to figure out the cost of taxes paid.

Sure, it's easy to tally how much payroll taxes like Social Security, state disability, unemployment, income tax, property tax, phone/satellite TV and radio/cable taxes and sales taxes and other government fees because those figures are easy to come by on receipts, etc.

What is harder to quantify, but not impossible for an economist in a deep study to figure out, is how much we pay in the form of higher prices caused by taxes paid by businesses and the costs of regulations. As an editor with a staff to oversee, dealing with labor laws takes some of my time and a lot of my company's time (we have a person devoted solely to that here in an enterprise of 220 people and two attorneys in corporate) and money. That's not even counting other regulations that add to the cost of doing business.

All those add up, and have been quantified at a macro level by economists. It's tougher for us to do that as individuals, to be sure. But we're all paying the price for government intervention in the economy.

Even so, the money spent by the government is still my money and your money too. Whether they like it or not, we're the boss.

[softwareNerd]

Most of the tax money in the US comes from the wealthiest 20%. Someone who pays almost no income tax, and mostly sales and social-security taxes, might well be using more in government services (even just the legitimate things like army, police and courts) than he pays in. Of course, one can make the case that without government interference, real wealth would be much higher; that might be true, but it's probably impossible to compute.

More importantly, though, the government doesn't take all this money and keep it somewhere, from which one is taking it back. The money that was taken from you, has been given to other people -- for legitimate and illegitimate reasons; money you take from the government is similarly taken from other people. (I think GreedyCapitalist made this point earlier.)

For most government services in general, I take the approach that I will work to change things, but will accept that what we have today is what we have. So, if the government is offering a service which would have otherwise been private, I will consider using it. The more extensive the government's involvement (i.e. the more private options it has replaced in a particular field) the more likely am I to use it. So, when it comes to K-12 schooling and college, the fact that they're government funded would not be a criteria in itself [what they teach is a different issue].

In addition, I think it's important to act the way you'd want others to act, if they found themselves in your exact position.

[DavidOdden]

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that there is a moral problem because I can't track the exact dollar bills I pay in taxes?

I don't think we're yet at the level of a moral problem: I think that for some reason, you just aren't getting the pieces, not that you're being immoral in advancing this argument. The argument "It is my money by right" is based on a false principle that "your money", i.e. the amount of money wrongly take from you by the government, is less than or equal to the amount of money forcibly taken back by you. When you take more than you have paid, you are taking your money and my money. It may in some instance be the case that you're taking back your money, but that is not a principle. You can try to build a justification for being on welfare on some other grounds, but not on the unproven "it's your money" grounds. The fact that you didn't keep receipts does not justify what would be the fundamentally immoral act, namely falsifying reality: asserting that you know that it is your money when you do not know that, and you (or, one) are just rationalizing the act by inventing an alternative reality. Because the fact of the matter is, it's not your money, it's my money.

[blackdiamond]

I'm not a proponent of the it's-my-money-so theory of Inspector, but i do have some questions to his critics.

To David Odden,

So, if a thief steals your money (which you needed to buy food), buys food from it and gives it to you (which you then eat because you are so hungry), would you be wrong to demand that the thief is still made to pay back *your money* by justice?