RE: Absolutely absurd

It seems absurd because Americans have long been encouraged to believe that welfare recipients are lazy bastards who refuse to work. While examples can be found, there is no evidence that this is a fair description of any more than a tiny minority. The vast majority of these people are like the rest of us. They want to have a good life and a future for their children, and they are prepared to work hard to achieve it.

It makes us feel better to believe this myth because we can then bitch about the need to cut our taxes. That is an easy promise for politicians seeking election.

A sufficient but not generous federal funding for exhausted welfare recipients would be about $7.5 billion/year. This is easily affordable. For that we could lift millions of worthy Americans above third world living standards. If you don't think we have places that are in the third world have a look at how the poor have to live in the Mississippi delta and other high unemployment areas. With some wise public policy we could harness this resource and give them self respect and worthwhile employment.

The tax reform desperately needed in the USA is to find a way to get the wealthy to pay their share. This administration has been low taxing for the obscenely rich - not for the rest of us. W's cutting the tax on dividends from investments was a massive income boost for those with millions invested. It saved them about 20 times that reasonable federal welfare budget. So I would look there for the real welfare spongers.