Able bodied adults should work to receive government benefits!
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First of all, logic and reason are never wacko. They’re not. That’s what Joe Biden called the idea of actually forcing able-bodied adults with no dependence to actually have to work in order to continue to get government benefits paid for by their fellow citizens, their fellow taxpayers. How’s that wacko? First of all, I’ve talked about this
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for years and we went back to LBJ and his administration in the war on poverty and the trillions of dollars that have been spent since that period of time. And I equate the culture of dependency to a drug, to an addictive drug. It’s the same type of social pathologies occur when you get people hooked.
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on government handouts and giveaways in a column. I can’t remember the author at the time, but there was a study done. They went back to the town in Appalachia where LBJ basically kicked off his program. They’re on a porch in Appalachia and went back there and nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed. And they’ve talked to teachers and all the kids talk about is getting out of school so they can start getting their government check.
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To me, that’s evil. You’re getting people addicted to handouts and giveaways. It is, it’s evil. What’s the difference between that and getting somebody addicted to a drug? You’re harming the individual. Anyway, this Nick Steele piece today in the Wall Street Journal highlights what happened in Arkansas. Highlights in Arkansas. Again, you left these out there before you lose your shirt. Just listen.
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Listen before you start getting your underwear into a bunch. Anyway, anyway, this is this is what happened in 2018. Arkansas became the first state in America to implement a work requirement, broad work requirement for Medicaid. It did so under a federal waiver requiring that able-bodied, childless adults work at least part-time to
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very close to what’s contained in this debt ceiling bill by Republicans. The need for work requirements was obvious to anyone paying attention. In 2013, under Democratic Governor Mike Beebe, Arkansas became the first Southern state to expand Medicaid, expand it. Oh, we love everybody! The number of new enrollees was 50% higher than predicted. Of course, it’s government, right?
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It costs taxpayers $1 billion more than expected. And by 2015, 40% of state residents were on the program. The majority of new enrollees were able-bodied, childless adults. And half of them reported being out of the workforce entirely.
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Without reform, Arkansas was on track to have more people dependent on the government, more spending, and ultimately tax hikes, and a less dynamic economy for future generations. Again, it’s a death spiral. The work requirement, which phased in starting in June of 2018, turned things around. Medicaid rolls immediately began shrinking. Tens of thousands went back to work.
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And more than 14,000 boosted their incomes enough to leave Medicaid entirely. Moving people from dependence to independence as soon as possible should be the goal of safety net programs. Each and every safety net program that we have should be judged on that. We judge it that the left like say, Oh, how many people we signed up for this stuff? No, it should be how many people you got off these dependency programs.
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That’s what you want to have happen. My belief system, it is, it’s just, I believe that human beings, in order to be truly happy, in order to be truly happy, you need challenges in life. You need to overcome obstacles and you need to achieve goals. It’s true.
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true. What about all those really rich people, those trust fund babies? You know that they’re all happy? You know that they’re all doing well when everything is just handed to them? No. Overcoming obstacles and achieving goals is a path to being a happy human being. Anyway, taxpayers in this situation in Arkansas, significant rewards, fewer people on Medicaid,
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Again, savings was in about the $300 million range. The entire Arkansas experiment was cut short by an Obama appointed federal judge who paused Arkansas’s federal waiver on procedural grounds. It made its way to the Supreme Court in April of 22 and the order was vacated, but then dismissed because the Biden administration had already withdrawn the waiver, putting welfare ahead of work.
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instead of the other way around. Again, do you know people out there, you think you’re doing the right thing, you really think that you’re helping people out by getting them addicted? Again, I’m all for, I don’t have any problem at all with social safety, and that’s none whatsoever. Supposed to help people out when they’re down and out. But again, to get people addicted, just plain evil.
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Watchdogonwallstreet.com.