Yeah, it’s tricky. Lots of places will directly submit bills to the insurance carrier / state entity, and if they go unpaid, just bill the claimant.
My pet project, though, would be work-for-welfare. Unless someone’s totally disabled, in order to receive welfare, one would have to do some kind of work. Make it uncomfortable, based on benefits, and don’t make it something they can get through without working.
^ Joe, Fry and I had this all worked out. You setup and 800 number that taxpayers not on public assistance can call and the state sends over some unemployed person to do the tasks around your house you don’t feel like doing. Then the people paying all these taxes for people who aren’t working are getting some real value for their dollar.
Don’t want to pick up the dogshit in your backyard? 1-800-give-job
Don’t want to shovel your driveway? 1-800-give-job
Really, the amount of jobs here is almost unlimited. Toss in a requirement that only individuals can call so some crafty business owner doesn’t use it as a way to fire his employees and get free replacements and you’re all set.
Cleaning up dogshit in my back yard a few days a week is going to motivate you to find employment in a hurry.
I like it in principle, but I’ll be damned if we need another excuse to be lazy. And it does present some pretty nasty liability issues. “I don’t want to clean my gutters. Oops, I forgot to shovel the snow and he fell off his ladder and broke his arm when he came to do it.”
Trust me, if I had the legislative support to get something like this passed I’d have more than enough power to get the major tort reform needed to address the lawsuit side.
:lol: I’m with you on the welfare reform, but I think a lot of the tort protections we have are important.
That said, people committing trespassing with the intent to commit other crimes deserve no tort protection, that much tort reform I will admit is very necessary. Too many criminals suing for falling down stairs or through skylights.
Ah yes, our bipartisan dog shit picking up program. Knocks out so many issues in one. Say every taxpayer gets a flat x amount of labor they may redeem on the tasks of their choosing, subject to basic safety requirements, and you’d see a lot of neglected tasks get done, and a lot more motivation to get jobs when you make unemployment less enjoyable than employment. I also want to see forfeiture of benefits if you have a kid while you are on public assistance and have been for 9+ months. Can’t afford for yourself to eat? You can’t afford to raise a kid. Adoption time.
I can actually get behind some of that in theory. With safety requirements, limits on the amount and types of labor that are allowed, that’s not a bad idea.
I also agree that people on public assistance should not be having children. Long term unemployment recipients’ children should probably be put in foster care.
+1
Ah yes, point and laugh economics. I think cougarspeed had a major hand in developing that school of reform.
Here’s my fix: If you’re living off of the rest of us, you don’t get to vote. :uhh: Suddenly politicians only have to please the contributing members of society to keep their jobs, and welfare reform becomes easier.
Let me guess, people on welfare don’t vote much. It’s actually morons who like giving hard earned money away that prevent reform?
cougarspeed brought in the point and laugh portion that was pivotal. You are encouraged to point and laugh at the people as well. The idea being their feelings will be hurt and they will want to prove you wrong and/or stop being pointed and laughed at.
Yep, people on welfare aren’t very common voters.
And, while I like where your heart is coming from, there’s this pesky thing called the Constitution that prevents you from disenfranchising adult citizens of the United States.
Yes you can, its called being a Felon. If your on welfare, and caught commiting any crime (drug use, robbery, cranking out 14 kids which is child endangerment in my book when you can’t suppor them) then you should be charged and found guilty of a felony. Your voting rights removed like every other felon and only the big grown up will get to vote.
that’s a dangerous and stupid slippery slope to climb onto.
Fry, You are 2 for 2 with me today. :tup:
+1. I hope this is all tongue-in-cheek. Felony murder makes sense. Unemployed felony does not.
Yeah, until you lose your job due to the economy and Obama wins by 1 vote for re-election, because you lost your job and the right to vote.
Sucks when you’re on the other side, don’t it?
P.S.: I’ll just get a job for elections and then get fired again so I can continue getting welfare.
OK, you were to have held a job for at least a part of the previous year or 2. That will still weed out a lot of people. Not just people of bad circumstance that are actually trying.
I don’t think I honestly could live with myself if I had to go on welfare. I’d try my hardest to make sure I made ends meet and didn’t spend over what I knew I didn’t have.
Yeah, I know people through my family who work as contractors during the summer and then go out on unemployment during the winter. Scum.
Did someone say newds?
thanks jetlounge, I was just thinking “man I hope something keeps me from having an appetite for two weeks”
That looks so unhealthy in so many ways. Were humans meant to naturally carry 8 children at once?
It happens once in a while. There’s not really a “meant to,” about it, it just kind of happens or it doesn’t, and the mother dies, or she doesn’t, and the children die, or they don’t.
It’s a rare enough occurrance that natural selection hasn’t really put much selection into us for it, so, to answer your question: not exactly.