I’m proudly involved in my community and serve as a volunteer on a number of boards and committees.
These are boards full of people that I would likely not associate with in real life. Some are over-the-edge leftists who would love nothing more than a government that would take 90 percent of my disposable income over what they are making. They want everyone to be equal, don’t you know.
That does not mean I don’t appreciate what they do to make a living.
Just because some of the social programs the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have instituted are frightfully expensive does not mean they are neither needed or good. It just means the people running them are using a different yardstick.
They firmly believe if they house and feed even one person on their “Emergency Food and Shelter Program,” it’s worth it even if the people they help are living in squalor and it costs $1,000,000. “That’s one less homeless” they will chant. My retort is “They were housed in better conditions when they were institutionalized, and for less money”.
I believe I bring a slightly different viewpoint to their meetings. I want to help but also believe in fiscal responsibility and scale. How many can we help for the least number of dollars?
These are generally college-educated folks who know how to string a few words together, and are bold enough to call their congressmen and senators and register their indignation. Their internal communications includes a plea to activism, imploring the reader to reach out to their elected officials.
With the amount of money flowing into homeless and food programs, there is a huge amount of duplication.
Agencies are doing essentially the same job as an agency across town – and each of them has an Executive Director and an excessive number of minions, all of which receive a benefits package that’s probably better than what private industry providing it’s employees.
Of course, their wages are low – mostly because the “higher ups” in the relief game are quite busy proving how important they are by sucking up the funding for their opulent offices and obscene salaries.
They are incensed by Trump’s “skinny” budget which cuts out the duplication. They are appalled they may have to change how they conduct their operations.
There is so much money flowing that it’s no longer a big deal to get a “Section 8” housing voucher from HUD. It’s expected. More like demanded. They have “rights,” I’m told.
Monthly checks/vouchers for $900 in food assistance for a family of three is the norm. It has de-motivated the bottom rung of society. They are housed, they are fed, why do they have to change what they are doing? Spend 40 hours per week doing something besides hanging on the street corner and raiding the trash? Work? It’s just so overrated.
They have enough on their SNAP card to sell some to the local pimp to get a carton of cigarettes. They likely have a better smartphone than either of us, and it’s all paid for on our dime with an “Obamaphone” plan.
We have historically looked the other way on the “Great Society” failures, but now they are moving in across the street from our homes. They are setting up encampments under overpasses. Maybe that late 70’s band “Devo” was right. Maybe we are going through de-evolution?
I’ll be the first one to tell you the system as implemented is broken. It’s designed to keep people under their thumb. As soon as a recipient starts to get ahead, the system smacks them down financially. Zero encouragement, and they are cut off the program in the most heinous possible way.
“How DARE you to try to get ahead”.
The message is clear – the HUD senior leadership has to have poor people so they can weave a narrative that lets them keep their summer homes on the beach.
I’m all for helping people. I’m all for coordinated effort. I’m even OK with the committees.
But I can’t help but remember that old saying that “A camel is a horse designed by committee. A committee is a solution designed by the back half of a horse”.
Horses are less expensive than committees.
