The Taxpayers foot the bill for so many kids that have families. These kids have aunts, uncles, Grandparents, cousins. Yet the immediate families do not contribute other than with tax. Why not make biological families more responsible for the cost of a child in welfare. If one or both parents cannot support the kid then the families should be subjected to garnishments of their pay. The more family that is located the cost goes down per garnishment. Set a percentage according to the family income. Set it so that it should not harm their own household. Even if the Gov’t still picks up the majority of the tab there will be some amount coming in to help defray costs from the taxpayers.
If parents fail their duty then we should really be looking towards their blood family to be responsible. This could encourage more responsible parenting in the long run. I do believe it would encourage families to be more involved. Yes, it could also cause abuse but, that is what needs to be addressed too, Every idea has drawbacks, Few have drawbacks that cannot be dealt with.
I don’t have any problem with the concept of family supporting family, but you start with a stick instead of the carrot. Obviously the stick will always have to be there, but to really sell the concept, there has to be some positives introduced first. I could see small tax break incentives first. As it stands now, tax breaks are only for dependents that are with you for a half year or longer, and it must be full dependency. How about a tax break for partial dependency? Give them their doggie treat, and if they don’t perform, a tax levy?
Uh huh. Lets revert to tribal principals to cure social ills. Force resource theft to ‘support’ X and humans kill X. Have family killing other family their forced to support.
While my Confucian leanings would seem to demand that I agree with this family-based support system, I’m not sure if that is the solution that we should take, or that a modern Confucian would take. Sure, Confucius stressed the familial bonds and their importance but that is because the state at his time had failed. Mencius, who is normally considered to have continued and elaborated on the basic message of Confucius basically went on to model the state itself after the family. This theme was elaborated on time and time again in later Confucian writings.
And I think it makes sense. One of the main reasons that Mencius argued for the state to overtake many of these responsibilities is because of the problems of class. If there is a bad harvest, for example, the farmer who is having a hard time feeding his family can turn to whom? A relative that is also a farmer, probably in close geographic proximity, a relative who is probably experiencing the same problems that he himself is? That doesn’t seem to make much sense, now does it? While we like to think of America as the land of opportunity, social mobility in America is fairly restricted (less mobile than England or Continental Europe). So the system becomes incredibly regressive. The wealthy can easily afford to have a black sheep-or-two in the family, they can bear that burden. The poor, on the other hand, cannot bear that burden easily. So a nasty downward spiral is quickly created. Especially since due to problems in the social safety net as well as systemic problems like education and job availability in poorer areas, a situation has been created where areas are “enriched” for poor decision making.
So, I’ll go with Mencius on this one. It makes more sense to broadly distribute the burden. It allows for much greater stability. Tribal organizations have been supplanted by the state.
Think about it like doing push-ups. Ideally, everybody would do two-armed push-ups. But sometimes we lose an arm for various reasons. So what do we do? Spread our legs out, create a broader base of support. Sure, a really buff person can do one-armed push-ups with their legs together. But that person is already in a position where one-armed push-ups don’t matter. For the rest of us, spreading our legs out allows us to painlessly compensate for that loss.
Obviously the stick will always have to be there, but to really sell the concept, there has to be some positives introduced first. I could see small tax break incentives first. As it stands now, tax breaks are only for dependents that are with you for a half year or longer, and it must be full dependency. How about a tax break for partial dependency? Give them their doggie treat, and if they don’t perform, a tax levy?