Monday - November 08, 2010

two conservatives on different sides of the cure for welfare benefits

A couple of very interesting editorial comments in a generally conservative paper.

Look at the difference of opinion here on a touchy subject for some.  Welfare.

Govt. plans on big changes. One of which is to make ppl who receive benefits, do community work.  The left doesn’t think much of the idea but then, there’s votes to be considered. Right?  And the C of E is against but then, the Archbishop lives in LaLa Land anyway so we can ignore him.

You’ve seen my posted stuff like this before. I’m just putting this new one here to remind folks how things are.

Mother-of-two lives in Britain’s most expensive council house (valued at £2.5m) for two years… rent free

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:01 PM on 8th November 2010

A mother-of-two who was moved to a £2.5million council property ‘so she wouldn’t be disturbed by local building works’ has been living rent-free for more than two years.

here for the rest
There’s no need for me to post the whole thing here. Just a taste should be enough. The country is in need of reform and cuts are on the way.  Oh wait. Except for the Prime minister who has put a personal photographer (plus others) on the govt. payroll.

OK I got a bit sidetracked.  Here. Read the following.

At last, someone who grasps a truth the Left won’t admit: welfare traps people in poverty

By Melanie Phillips

There is a rough rule of thumb that if the wrong kind of people are ­opposed to what you are doing, then you must be on the right track.

By those lights, the reaction from the usual ­suspects on the Left to Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms indicate that he has hit the bull’s eye in the most satisfactory way.

For even before he actually unveils his proposals this week, the air is thick with screams of rage and lurid claims of ‘slave labour’.

So what is he doing to provoke such fury? Why, making the outrageous ­proposal that instead of ­sitting at home on benefits doing nothing, people who are out of work should actually give something back to society in return.

According to advance reports, IDS will be requiring the unemployed to ­undertake community service projects such as gardening, clearing litter and other menial tasks.

Following the example of U.S.-style ‘workfare’, they will do such jobs for 30 hours per week for four weeks at a rate of £1 per hour, under the threat of being stripped of their Jobseekers’ Allowance for three months if they fall short.

Shock horror! Such is the outrage on the Left, you’d think IDS was proposing to send little children up the chimneys.

All he is doing, however, is responding to the patently obvious fact that unemployed people don’t just suffer from an absence of work but also — more lethally — from ­having settled into a way of life which saps their ability to work.

The driving aim of his entire welfare reform package is to ensure that it always pays to work rather than stay on welfare.

MORE MELANIE

Read her entire comment.  Do love this lady. It was great seeing her on Fox when I we were home this year. A very pleasant surprise. 

Now then .... from the same paper is this ....

American idea that just won’t work here

By Peter McKay

This week a White Paper will reveal plans by the Tory / Liberal Democrat coalition for cutting our annual £190billion welfare bill.

The headlines promise ‘workshy to lose Benefits’, but who believes this will ever happen?

The ‘workshy’ will have to do at least 30 hours of community service over a four-week period or their ­benefits will be cut for three months. It’s an American plan that ministers hope will work here.

The Archbishop of ­Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, leads a chorus of protest from liberals, saying it’s too tough and might push the unemployed into ‘a downward spiral of despair’. Looking on the bright side as always.

But the majority of voters are ­probably in favour of pushing the long-term unemployed into voluntary work.

Besides, they don’t see why people who have been on benefits for years shouldn’t put something back into the community which supports them.

Perhaps it’ll work brilliantly, changing for ever the relationship between the unemployed and the community. But here are some ­reasons why it might not:

* American ideas don’t always work over here. They do far less than we do for the unemployed. A Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ reigns there. Workfare, the U.S. scheme on which our new plans are based, was invented in 1968 not by a conservative but by civil rights activist James Charles Evers.

* Most of us know — and tolerate — individuals who for one reason or another don’t want to have jobs. We know they’d never make satisfactory employees. Who benefits if we force them into jobs they’ll do badly? Some avoid work so that they can pursue private dreams. How many of our pop stars began on benefits?

* Some long-term unemployed do work — in the black economy. A minority of them get caught and punished, but most are shrewd, resourceful individuals skilled at working the system. Workfare will merely be another clumsy government obstacle to skate around.

* While every effort must be made to cut welfare costs, it’s surely a ­mistake to concentrate on this when we’re slowly climbing out of a painful recession. It certainly won’t stimulate recovery. It’s far easier to argue that everyone must work when the economy’s booming and there’s plenty of employment to be had.

MORE McKAY

Posted by peiper     on 11/08/2010 at 12:19 PM   
Filed Under: • UK •  
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