With welfare, traditional American ideas have generally differed in one of two ways: either the lazy and immoral poor must be able to leech the public treasury through a liberal system of welfare, or we must let the truly unfortunate fall through the cracks with a more libertarian approach.   Either way, the American public has been forced to deal with one of two evils.  And quite frankly, neither one is just.

But supposing we could devise a compromise between the two systems, in which the moral poor could receive a hand up without giving the immoral poor a hand-out, we could strike a deal which both Republicans and reasonable Democrats would appreciate.  The funny thing about this compromise is that, for Christian conservatives, the answer has been under our noses almost since the beginning of civilization.

But first, let’s discuss the downsides of our current welfare system.  One of the most obnoxious evils we presently deal with is the person who refuses to hold down a steady job, produces children out of wedlock, uses drugs, and still collects a welfare check.  These are the kind of people we can classify as the immoral poor: the people who aren’t poor due to circumstance or a lack of ambition, but rather because they refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and then expect their neighbors to pay for it.  Studies done by the University of Washington actually show that an increase in welfare payments to these kinds of people supplements and increases their unsociable and dangerous behavior, actually having [1] a direct and radical correlation with violence and illegitimate pregnancy.  And to explain this abominable system a little further, I have a friend who actually reported a horrible story about an ex drug-addict who has his rent paid by the city, just because he used drugs.  If someone can explain how this is supposed to curtail drug abuse, I would like to know.

Of course, most people–excluding social-justice touting crypto-communists–are well aware that subsidizing layabouts isn’t really justice: it proposes that other people’s reckless behavior should be funded by the working majority, and ultimately leads to more [2] dangerous and poverty-stricken neighborhoods.   Those people should know that in Washington State at this very moment, [3] we spend 34% of our budget on the poor through the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), which is silly because–theoretically, at least–if the goal of DSHS was to reduce and/or eliminate poverty, far less people should be poor than 20 years ago.  But the [4] US Census Bureau reports that Washington State had  8.0% of its inhabitants living in poverty in 2006, while in 1990 it had 8.9%.  Not a whole lot of improvement for 34% of the budget. 

So if our DSHS has been shown to be incapable of eliminating poverty while giving money to the lazy, the best way to curtail this kind of welfare abuse is by scrapping our state’s entire system of welfare almost altogether, and going back to a very old idea: the workhouse.  Now, the workhouse is going to be state-funded with the tax dollars from alcohol and household incomes, and it will have a very simple system for those who need help: three months of available work, at five hours a day.  At the end of those five daily hours of paid labor, the needy will be given access to a public computer and given guidance from a counselor so that they can find either a new job or scholarships to attend a school.  If at the end of those three months the person will not find a job, they cannot work at the workhouse any longer.  This system is incredibly simple*, requires far less money to operate, and it helps the people whom society both wants to help and has a moral obligation to help: the hard-working and unfortunate poor. And of course, other welfare benefits for the truly disabled (that is to say, “crippled through genetic happenstance or accident,” not “ate so much that they require a wheelchair”), orphans, refugees, and widows will still remain in place.

As far as our current system of unemployment benefits are concerned, the amount of money taken from employees will be severely reduced and paid to the employee upon termination from their job, in a single check that will only last about one month.  This will help stimulate the economy and help the poor by letting businesses–the organizations responsible for hiring people–take home more of their earnings in a tumultuous economy, while giving the unemployed a short safety period to find a job before turning to the workhouse (and remember: the more people we have employed, the more people buy things).  No more will the American public hear stories about people collecting their unemployment checks for months without getting off the couch.  [5] This last year, Washington State paid about 4 billion dollars in unemployment benefits, while businesses bore the brunt of it, getting an [6] increase of nearly double their unemployment tax rate.  And in case anyone was wondering, [7] this year we have a 2.6 billion dollar deficit.

Also, the [8] San Francisco Chronicle reports that millions of tons of food are currently wasted every year, enough to fill gigantic warehouses with edibles.  Using an efficient state-oversight program which is contracted out to civilians, we could devise a standardized method for recovering foods which would otherwise be thrown away.  Currently, most states have protections for companies which donate foods so that the companies will not retain liability if the recipients become sick.  But with a little work and a little planning, we could ensure that the food is saved and delivered to the unemployed at their particular workhouses, perhaps by instructing the recipients to not eat the food after a certain time*.  This would allow their families to eat well, while supplementing their rent and bills with the wages they earn through their own labor.

As far as drug problems for welfare recipients are concerned, drug testing would be done upon entrance into the new welfare program, but only to filter the applicants into different groups.  If a person is found to be a drug user, they will be sent to a different workhouse with special programs to help the addicts get back on their feet.  My own logic–which is based upon my own past addiction to cocaine and methamphetamine, and my experience in the world of drug-abusers–is that if a person was fired because their drug abuse made them unemployable, they’ll probably be back in the same position again later, which will waste both the time of their prospective employers and state funds.  If they are fired a second time and register for welfare while on drugs, they will be sent to jail.

And this brings us to our next point: what exactly about this plan makes it conservative?  Well, considering that conservative government [9] must be based upon either a people’s common theology or culture, we must understand that Christian conservatism is predicated on the idea of justice and proper law provided by the Bible itself.  Since according to the Christian, there can be no higher moral principle than one of Jehovah Himself ([10] as confirmed by Jesus), we should look to His own personal preferences in regard to public welfare.

When God gave His law through Moses, he set [11] specific boundaries for protecting the poor, and decided that true justice (as is acceptable according to His character) necessitates a safety net for the lower classes while not lending them too many rights over the rich and destroying the economy.  And this is the reason His welfare system is important: because both the Left and the Right have their own ideas about “fairness,” and Christ’s law deals specifically with fairness in a government which Yahweh Himself instituted, which means all the principles involved must be supremely just.  If the principles weren’t just, He wouldn’t have given them.

For instance, since ancient Israel was an agrarian society, the Lord commanded his people to [12] leave the edges of their crops unharvested, so that if the poor found themselves needing food, they could work to harvest it themselves.  So while a flat tax was imposed on the wealthy through their crops, we find that it couldn’t just be distributed to the lazy: rather, they had to turn their wood/stone televisions off and work in the sun.  If the poor person didn’t want to work, they wouldn’t have any food.  In the same manner, the Lord commanded the Israelites to provide a suffering person [13] with temporary shelter, which this program would do by providing wages for rent.  These provisions are mirrored in our more post-industrial age, by having people work for their food and providing them with certain temporary benefits.

The reason I refused to restrict welfare payments to the widows, orphans, and refugees is because the [14] Bible specifically states that we are to take care of their immediate material needs.  In Yahweh’s ancient Israel, oftentimes the foreigner’s very survival depended on hospitality, so the Israelites were commanded to treat foreigners with respect and hospitality (although the foreigners were [15] under strict obligation to follow the laws of the land, which would immediately exclude illegal aliens in today’s US).  The Christian conservative–if indeed they do base their ideas of justice and morality upon the Bible–has an overwhelming responsibility to ensure the protection of these limited groups.  But on the other hand, any steps beyond these groups would violate God’s commandment to [16] not favor the poor simply due to their poverty.

In short, this program is workable, cost-effective, and Biblical.  There’s really no good reason that a true conservative can reject this plan, and reasonable Democrats–not to be confused with liberals–should find many benefits involved as well.  Pass it along, and see if it catches!

*OTHER STIPULATIONS FOR THE PROGRAM:

The pay will vary by locality, but will never exceed the last job’s pay.

After another six months of labor in the free market, these three months of safety labor will be recharged in case of future necessity.

If a person cannot find a job after making a good effort in their job search, the workhouse may allow them to file for an extension of time.

If two of the social workers involved find serious problems with the welfare-recipient’s work ethic, they can fire the lazy or disruptive person after filing two formal complaints.

No meats would be given to people over a certain age, to prevent illness