This isn't a loaded question, I'm genuinely interested. I've heard people indicate opposition to workfare, so I'm curious: for those of you who are opposed to a system geared towards self-sufficiency, rather than giving monetary allowances for an extended period of time, why are you opposed to it? Is it an opposition to the general idea of workfare, or to the specific implementation of it?
I'm not in principle I think though the government should pool all welfare funding and social services funding including medical into one agency, which would assure a basic place to live, food, medical care, access to mass transportation and in return the government would use its power to channel work to these people as far as it can go. And people would have to work and give up half their pay for these benefits. If you add in vocational courses for free or low costs to the mix it could work. And people who decide to not work could be cut off from the system and those who truly cannot work at all will be provided for and those with less ability to work will work what hours the system says they can when offered. It would be better than we have now.
I'm generally opposed to welfare, but like anything else, its supporters are somewhere between sheep and smart - on one extreme end you have the occupy believing that they are entitled the full consumer lifestyle by right of birth, and evil corporations can and should pay for it. On the other end you have people that believe that true free market is not ideal (demand-side economics etc.), that everyone has a right to X standard of living and everyone can and should pitch in Y to enable that, and in the ideal scenario where an individual would use the programs as intended, for a limited period of time, to rebound from tough times so they can go back to contributing toward the system.
I think workfare is great. What I do not like is those who say all people on welfare are just lazy slackers and need to go get a job. There is such a thing as disability and being disabled can rob people of the ability to be gainfully employed.
The only logical opposition to workfare is when it ultimately costs more to implement than welfare. Requiring able-bodied people to work for their assistance is a good thing that makes sense in most cases. It only ceases to make sense when applied to those who are mostly helpless or when the work provided is badly managed.
