S/O the foodstamps thread...

[HappyMommy2]

How could we fix the system?  How could we change it so that it rewarded the things you want to promote?  It seems like people get punished for getting a job, and rewarded for other things that aren't perhaps the best thing to do while on aid.

How would YOU fix it? Or specific parts of it!

[HappyMommy2]

Nobody?

[Usually Curious]

Reform is a pretty toxic subject, IMO.

[laohaire]

I'm stumped :) The issues are so varied and broad and fundamental. What we probably really want to do is reward good intent and punish laziness (meritocracy), but you can't define that by objective measures. You can't objectively have a system that can spot this family as needing just a little more help and then they are all set, and that family as going through a seriously hard time and needing extra support, and the other family as being lazy butts trying to screw the system for all it's worth.

I think the issues are broader, cultural, social. We have racism, and that absolutely does affect the social services system. We have sexism. We have health care problems in our country. We have an unsustainable economy. We have a workforce that has been systematically de-skilled based on the German model. The meaning of our work has been utterly excised. We have a problem with families breaking up. We seem to have a national depression of some sort which is affecting a majority of our nation - I'm talking about a physical depression, not economic here. Whether that's due to society, food, chemicals, emotions, whatever, it has a big impact on our social support system. We have a generational issue, with a huge baby boom population retiring. We have an election system that makes it impossible for our leaders to make real change. Mass media that paints us an ureal picture of life in America. We have anger toward the establishment, kids graduating (or not) high school angry at the bs they were taught and opting out of the conventional lifestyle. We have drugs. We have abuse.

So, yeah, I have no magic band-aid for the social support system.

[VisionaryMom]

I think housing is the place to start, but I have work to finish by 10 PM. I'm subbing so that I can write more later.

[Dar]

Minimum guaranteed income for all that phases out gradually when people are working (for example, everyone is guaranteed 1K a month and for every $2 you earn a dollar is taken from your payment... but I would make it higher than 1K a month).

No food stamps, no WIC, no section 8, no GA or ADC - let poor people decide for themselves how to spend their money. Free universal health care, run by the government. Because the overhead would be so much lower we'd actually save money over the current system.

A lot more free education on things like budgeting and cooking, both in the schools and in the community.

[Maluhia]

Originally Posted by Dar 

Minimum guaranteed income for all that phases out gradually when people are working (for example, everyone is guaranteed 1K a month and for every $2 you earn a dollar is taken from your payment... but I would make it higher than 1K a month).

No food stamps, no WIC, no section 8, no GA or ADC - let poor people decide for themselves how to spend their money. Free universal health care, run by the government. Because the overhead would be so much lower we'd actually save money over the current system.

A lot more free education on things like budgeting and cooking, both in the schools and in the community.

Hallelujah!

[EmsMom]

I had a crazy thought about a year and a half ago to go back to school and get my master's in public policy because a. I needed a career that would pay fairly decent and b. I had a passionate interest in food and sustainable food.  The masters is within the political science department at my local university.  Wow.  What an eye opener to study political science.  I had never even taken a class in it before.  Suffice it to say that any "solution" to any "problem" is going to have to be a political solution.  That is, it is going to need to be tossed around until it appeals to enough people to make it happen.  By the time it gets tossed around that much, heaven only knows what that solution is going to look like.  It might look like the recent health care bill.  Yikes.  What a mess.  But it is a mess that kind of works.  And that law will keep getting changed. No law is ever static.  But change always comes incrementally.  And the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  And every little change that might seem positive to you or to me will seem negative to someone else AND it will almost certainly unleash a broad spectrum of outcomjes, both positive and negative (or negative and positive depending on your perspective ).  Food stamps and farm subsidies were created to provide macro nutrients such as calories to a population that was in danger of inadequate food during the great depression and crop failures of the 30s.  To a large degree, the system worked.  (Libertarians may have decided that it was better to let a free market take its toll, but even libertarians don't like to actually see people starving to death, you know?)  Doesn't work so well anymore, though.  I think that what is needed is a national grassroots organizing/lobbying non-profit to study changes in food policy and start what will be a very long process towards incremental changes in the system of food production and distribution.  Our nation, and the world as a whole, is at great risk for food crises.  Dismantling the current systems and replacing them with more workable, more sustainable systems will not be easy and will not happen quickly.   One of my professors just gave me the go ahead to create a small forum at the university on sustainable food.  Small start to my career, anyway.  These threads have made me realize more strongly that the poor/malnourished cannot be left out of the forum and made me see more completely the system of food in this country and in the international context of globalization. 

[Juvysen]

I can never stay away from these policy type topics, but I don't have anything great to add right now.

[BathrobeGoddess]

Dar...I love you!

Dar for president!