On Welfare, EBT and Social Programs

On Welfare, EBT and Social Programs

Taking Care of the Poor vs.

Providing an “Early Retirement” Program for the Youth

By: David Deschesne & James Bruce

Note: This editorial is co-written by David Deschesne, from the traditional conservative perspective (please don’t read that as “Republican”) with input from James Bruce, who describes himself as a more centrist/middle of the road thinker, with the goal of understanding both the virtues and vices of the modern social welfare system.

Maine’s social welfare system has been seen by some as a blessing and others a curse. The elderly, disabled and others cast on temporary misfortune rely upon it for sustenance while others have learned to exploit and game the system as a means of attaining a life free from toil and perhaps, some would say, an early retirement.

Life in Maine, however, wasn’t always as free and easy. Lured by promises of a Utopian “Norembega” purported to exist in the land that is now Maine, French explorer, Pierre Du Gua De Monts was granted a charter by King Henry IV of France in 1603 to explore the area, to colonize and set up a trading post and establish an embarkation point in search of passage to the Orient. De Monts brought along explorer and geographer, Samuel de Champlain to record and map the coast and region. In the Spring of 1604, the two, along with their crew, ended up on Maine’s St. Croix Island. The site was easily defended, had plenty of timber, good clay and reasonably good soil. They established a small settlement, but when winter came it was severe. The colonists quickly consumed the available firewood on the island and were reduced to eating frozen, uncooked food. There was no source of clean drinking water. By late winter over a third had died from scurvy and nearly as many suffered various degrees of permanent disability. When Spring came, the survivors moved off the island and started settling on the mainland coast of Maine.¹

These early settlers had no recourse for social welfare. Envision their situation; they landed on an uninhabited island, no stores, no government, no industry and had to build everything from scratch without electricity, power tools, chain saws or pickup trucks. They only had a few months to build their houses, construct fireplaces, gather food and establish some sort of road infrastructure to connect them. All of this with no Lowe’s, Wal-Mart, or any of the modern big box store conveniences we enjoy today. They had to build it all from nothing, using only what they had around them. When they ran out of fire wood, there was no LIHEAP heating assistance program for them to apply to for help. When they ran out of food, there was no EBT card or food stamp system in place—there was no government like we enjoy (or some say suffer under) today. Even if there were, there were no grocery stores to go and cash in those benefits. Life truly was hard for the pioneer, probably harder than anyone can imagine in this day of plush technology and instant gratification.

We’re not suggesting a return to that semi-barbaric system. Rather, the story was presented to provide a frame of reference for how much humans are able to accomplish even without government assistance and intervention. If it weren’t for the persistence of the pioneers, organized, civilized society quite likely wouldn’t have developed anywhere.

As long as there has been civilized society, man has wrestled with the problems of poverty and how to care for the poor. In his monumental work, The Story of Civilization, Will Durant points out how some of the most primitive societies resorted to a form of communism to care for each other. “It was usual among ‘savages’ for the man who had food to share it with the man who had none, for travelers to be fed at any home they chose to stop at on their way, and for communities harassed with drought ought to be maintained by their neighbors. If a man sat down to his meal in the woods he was expected to call loudly for some one to come and share it with him, before he might justly eat alone.” Durant also noted how among the Hottentots it was the “custom for one who had more than others to share his surplus till all were equal.”²

While this form of happy sharing seems good on its surface, Durant showed the other side of the coin; “Sumner believed that communism proved unbiological, a handicap in the struggle for existence; that it gave insufficient stimulus to inventiveness, industry and thrift; and that the failure to reward the more able, and punish the less able, made for a leveling of capacity which was hostile to growth or to successful competition with other groups. Loskiel reported some Indian tribes of the northeast as ‘so lazy that they plant nothing themselves, but rely entirely upon the expectation that others will not refuse to share their produce with them.’ Since the industrious thus enjoy no more of the fruits of their labor than the idle, they plant less every year.”³

Rauschenbusch notes in his book, Christianity and the Social Crisis that with the advent of industrialism, “Modern poverty, strangely enough, began when man for the first time in history began to escape from poverty.” He also pointed out that paradoxically, “The instrument by which all humanity could rise from want and the fear of want actually submerged a large part of the people in perpetual want and fear. When wealth was multiplying beyond all human precedent, an immense body of pauperism with all its allied misery was growing up and becoming chronic...the moral forces in humanity failed to keep pace with its intellectual and economic development. Men learned to make wealth much faster than they learned to distribute it justly.”⁴

When Maine first became a State, in 1821 it was the job of the local towns—not the State government— to take care of the poor. Any social welfare system had to be funded by the respective towns and administered by a board of selectmen, not to exceed twelve, called the Overseers of the Poor. This social welfare system was not the stay at home life of luxury some have converted it into today. The law stated that the Board of Overseers had to see that the poor were “suitably relieved, supported and employed, either in the work house or other tenements belonging to such towns, or in such other way and manner as they at any legal meeting shall direct.”⁵

The law further stated that if the poor person had any relatives or family members who could support them, they would be required to “support such pauper in proportion to such ability.” The Board of Overseers of the Poor were also empowered to bind out the children of paupers receiving local assistance in order to employ them (the children) in “any lawful art, trade, or mystery, or as servants to be employed in any lawful work or labour.” The Board was also in charge of making sure those children were not exploited and defended them from injuries.⁶

The Board of Overseers of the Poor could even bind out the paupers by having the power to “set to work, or bind out to service by deed...all such persons...who are of able body, but have no visible means of support, who live idly and exercise no ordinary or daily lawful trade or business to get their living by.”⁷

This meant that in order to receive what we would call “welfare benefits” the poor, or their children, had to be gainfully employed by the town which was supporting him/her, based upon their ability to work. We’ve come a long way from this model with what are essentially “free handouts” from the State welfare office in perpetuity.

This is not to say welfare systems don’t have a place in society. Some people have become too old to work, others are disabled. Some have been forced into temporary poverty either through the death of a spouse, or divorce. We’re sure most people can recount a story of a friend or family who had been forced into poverty, received financial assistance from the State and recovered to the point of being able to take care of themselves. This is the origin and intent of social welfare, but somewhere along the way it went out of kilter, it began to be exploited and perhaps relied upon much to heavily by a generation that grew up within it and whose only frame of reference is waiting for a state stipend to provide for their continual support.

But, most children are innocent bystanders; the victims of circumstance. The conservative crowd in Maine continues to tout its “Pro-Life” position, but many times when it comes to taking care of the children after they’re born, they are the first to cut programs that would help those children. Whether it’s food assistance, or youth programs, extreme conservatism may save money, but at what cost to society? Children don’t get to pick their parents and some end up with some pretty irresponsible adults (in too many cases, teens) in charge of overseeing their care and well-being. From meth addicts to chronic video gamers who can’t pull themselves away from the screen, these parents are not the best caregivers for a young child who needs love and attention as much as food and clothing. Of course, a burgeoning, impersonal state bureaucracy that is the Department of Human Services really isn’t that much better at raising children. So, we as a society have to make up our collective mind that we do care for each other and take the necessary action ourselves rather than rely on a bureaucratic administration to do the caring for us. The old adage that the youth of today will be the ones taking care of us middle-aged people when we retire tomorrow is apropos here. If we don’t properly provide for and raise our youth, they will not be equipped to take care of us when we are no longer able to.

While government has assumed the role of caregiver and, in many respects, our “parent” when it comes to providing for the needy, churches and other faith-based and secular benevolent organizations throughout modern history have also stepped up to take care of those in need. Various church food programs, and any number of the private, non-profit service organizations, have systems already in place to care for the poor through a network of voluntary donations.

From a Judeo-Christian perspective, it is argued that rather than the Biblical method of voluntarily giving to provide for the needs of the poor, government has created a counterfeit system - a system that is based upon the antithesis of that outlined in the Bible - a system premised upon forced confiscation of one group's property in order to provide for the needs of another. It's been suggested that such social welfare programs which obtain their funding from coerced, confiscatory taxation are destructive in two ways: 1.) Through the compulsion of forced taxation to take care of the poor, the person paying feels “stolen from” as he/she is coerced into involuntarily giving up a portion of his/her produce to a strong, impersonal central government; and 2.) the recipient’s eyes become less focused on the Lord's blessing through a voluntary giver and becomes more focused and reliant on man’s system of coercion-based, legalized theft for their sustenance. At the end of the day, the poor are taken care of by both systems. However, with the Lord’s there is love and compassion through the act of voluntary giving; government's system of compulsory confiscation, breeds hate and animosity - the exact opposite of the Biblical system.

While it would be nice to rely on voluntary giving, a certain segment of society simply are not going to contribute—that’s the reality. Children shouldn’t be allowed to suffer because of this adverse quirk in human nature. Faith-based and private service organizations do a good job of raising money voluntarily, but often times it’s not enough. This is when government has found the need to step in to raise money where they have fallen short. This isn’t government’s fault, it is society’s.

Regardless of which system is in place, there is always the opportunity for abuse. Ask any convenience store clerk in Maine and they’ll recount instances of people coming in to pay for food with an EBT benefits card while displaying wads of cash obtained from unknown, “off the books” sources. These people game the social welfare system as a means of skirting their responsibilities to provide for themselves or their families; ending up essentially “retired” and living on the money forcefully confiscated from those in society who do work and do want their taxes to support those truly in need. Other means of prematurely depleting social welfare funds, can be found in the litany of illegal immigrants, some of whom sign up for and receive a multiple benefits package under different names and social security numbers. This group has not initially contributed to this society either socially or financially but instead relies on its charitable heart to provide life-long care for them. Legislators, attempting to appear sympathetic to their plight in order to gain votes are often too willing to give away the store, leaving nothing but crumbs for those who are native to the State and have contributed throughout their lives.

In many ways government has perhaps gotten too big, bureaucratized and politicized to be able to efficiently and effectively track and control this litany of abuses. The end result being those who truly need help, such as children, the elderly and disabled, are often left wanting with precious little state funding left over for them.

The two-party political system in Maine is perhaps not the most efficient way of handling the social welfare problem. On one side, the Democrats are too hasty at giving away too much money to everyone with their hand out, and who reciprocate the favor with Democrat votes on election day. This model of social welfare quickly depletes state funds and all end up suffering. On the other side, Republicans, trying to correct this egregiousness, often times pull too hard the other way by causing highly restrictive policies to be put in place where those who are even temporarily disabled, are willing to work, but have to be out of circulation for a couple of months due to doctor’s orders—or are perhaps in between jobs—are stuck wading through a pool of bureaucratic red tape only to be denied temporary assistance that truly is needed. We wonder whether the political system is the most efficient, personable and effective way of both acquiring the resources and redistributing them to those in need in a most timely and efficient manner.

At the end of the day, political system or faith-based, social welfare is up to all of us individually to decide we want to take care of each other for the good and betterment of the whole.

Notes

3. op cit pp. 17-18

5. Laws of Maine 1821, Vol 2., pp. 531-532.

6. op cit. p. 533-534

7. op cit. p. 535