Social safety nets mean that failure has no finality. This is broadly a good thing, but it also means that someone who is utterly without merit can receive hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of aid and care throughout their lives. I don't mean necessarily due to being recipients of welfare checks, but in terms of the expense of the services they consume.
******* SKIP THIS IF YOU ACCEPT THE PREMISE THAT SOME PEOPLE COST THE STATE A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF MONEY DUE LARGELY TO BEING ASSHOLES *******
A fictional example:
Adam is born to a mother on welfare. He is severely jaundiced at birth and so is taken to the infant ICU. This cost is met by the state. After a few days he is given the all-clear and goes to live with his mother. His accommodation and food are paid for by the state via social benefits. He grows up relatively healthy and enters the school system at the age of four.
Early on his academic life he is found to be disruptive and has behavioural problems. It is believed he has a mild learning difficulty. He receives additional tuition and a classroom assistant is employed by the state to assist him in class.
In middle school Adam remains at the bottom of his class and as a result of being unengaged by a curriculum he can't really grasp he disrupts the classes he is in. He has a negative impact on all the students around him. He is sent to a special school for kids with behavioural difficulties. The cost per pupil at this school is many times that of the cost at other schools. Adam does not progress much but at least he is no longer messing things up for everyone else.
Adam does not graduate high school, he can read and write to an extent but has little interest in either. He instead engages in petty crime and shouting ill-phrased insults at people in the street. He's not a good criminal so he gets caught, a lot, and ends up in the juvenile detention system on a couple of occasions. Education and job training are thrown his way and he has no interest in either. When he reaches the age of 18 he leaves home and fills out a housing application with the help of his support worker. Adam has his own place by his 19th birthday. He has accidentally torched the place by the age of 21 and so has to be moved to another accommodation.
By the age of 25 Adam has a daughter and is married to Lindsey, who is also a fucking idiot. They fight frequently and the police are called most weeks because the neighbours fear they're going to kill each other, neither ever presses charges but the apartment gets wrecked a couple of times. The housing department conducts repairs.
Adam scrapes together enough money to buy a beat up car, he pays cash. He has no licence and no insurance. He is driving one day and manages to wreck another car, no one is badly hurt but Adam suffers a broken leg. He is incarcerated for driving without insurance or a licence and spends two months in jail. His medical bills are met by the state. The cost to the other person is met by their insurance policy and later themselves as a result of rising insurance costs. Upon leaving jail Adam is effectively unemployable. He's a lazy idiot with no qualifications and a criminal history. The state will take care of him until he dies. His cost to the state and the rest of society totals more than a million dollars. The only legacy he leaves behind is more debt in the form of his equally worthless children.
******* END OF SKIPPING (or not, as the case likely will be) *******
I propose that we set an upper limit for the amount of aid and welare (in whatever form) an otherwise healthy individual should receive. Once they hit that limit they are no longer eligible for state assistance in any form until they have paid a portion back via taxation.
The optimistic outcome of this policy would mean a lot fewer freeloading assholes. The realistic outcome would probably mean a huge underclass living on the streets and engaging in crime, which is more costly than just paying for them to be on welfare.
The only thing left at that stage is to either kill or deport them. Deporting people is costly and largely ineffective, so your realistic option is killing people who have committed no great crime other than to be a useless sack of shit.
All those in favour?
******* SKIP THIS IF YOU ACCEPT THE PREMISE THAT SOME PEOPLE COST THE STATE A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF MONEY DUE LARGELY TO BEING ASSHOLES *******
A fictional example:
Adam is born to a mother on welfare. He is severely jaundiced at birth and so is taken to the infant ICU. This cost is met by the state. After a few days he is given the all-clear and goes to live with his mother. His accommodation and food are paid for by the state via social benefits. He grows up relatively healthy and enters the school system at the age of four.
Early on his academic life he is found to be disruptive and has behavioural problems. It is believed he has a mild learning difficulty. He receives additional tuition and a classroom assistant is employed by the state to assist him in class.
In middle school Adam remains at the bottom of his class and as a result of being unengaged by a curriculum he can't really grasp he disrupts the classes he is in. He has a negative impact on all the students around him. He is sent to a special school for kids with behavioural difficulties. The cost per pupil at this school is many times that of the cost at other schools. Adam does not progress much but at least he is no longer messing things up for everyone else.
Adam does not graduate high school, he can read and write to an extent but has little interest in either. He instead engages in petty crime and shouting ill-phrased insults at people in the street. He's not a good criminal so he gets caught, a lot, and ends up in the juvenile detention system on a couple of occasions. Education and job training are thrown his way and he has no interest in either. When he reaches the age of 18 he leaves home and fills out a housing application with the help of his support worker. Adam has his own place by his 19th birthday. He has accidentally torched the place by the age of 21 and so has to be moved to another accommodation.
By the age of 25 Adam has a daughter and is married to Lindsey, who is also a fucking idiot. They fight frequently and the police are called most weeks because the neighbours fear they're going to kill each other, neither ever presses charges but the apartment gets wrecked a couple of times. The housing department conducts repairs.
Adam scrapes together enough money to buy a beat up car, he pays cash. He has no licence and no insurance. He is driving one day and manages to wreck another car, no one is badly hurt but Adam suffers a broken leg. He is incarcerated for driving without insurance or a licence and spends two months in jail. His medical bills are met by the state. The cost to the other person is met by their insurance policy and later themselves as a result of rising insurance costs. Upon leaving jail Adam is effectively unemployable. He's a lazy idiot with no qualifications and a criminal history. The state will take care of him until he dies. His cost to the state and the rest of society totals more than a million dollars. The only legacy he leaves behind is more debt in the form of his equally worthless children.
******* END OF SKIPPING (or not, as the case likely will be) *******
I propose that we set an upper limit for the amount of aid and welare (in whatever form) an otherwise healthy individual should receive. Once they hit that limit they are no longer eligible for state assistance in any form until they have paid a portion back via taxation.
The optimistic outcome of this policy would mean a lot fewer freeloading assholes. The realistic outcome would probably mean a huge underclass living on the streets and engaging in crime, which is more costly than just paying for them to be on welfare.
The only thing left at that stage is to either kill or deport them. Deporting people is costly and largely ineffective, so your realistic option is killing people who have committed no great crime other than to be a useless sack of shit.
All those in favour?
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