Welfare Alternatives

After seeing that the so-called "Octomom" had planned on supporting her kids on welfare, I decided that I would go into a little more depth on what I see as a critical reform to the tax and welfare system.

The idea is extremely simple. Enact a dollar for dollar tax credit(not deduction) for charities that take the place of welfare, up to the full amount your taxes would be. Obviously, they have to be nonprofits, and some general guidelines would need to be put in place. As they take off, there will be less and less need to have any governmental welfare, and once it is unneeded, it can be ended.

The beautiful part is, it's voluntary. Pay taxes OR support private charity. Generally speaking, liberals give far less to charity than conservatives anyway, so both groups can be happy.

The critical component is this: it removes the role of government in a place it doesn't belong. No more governmental involvement in socialistic redistribution of wealth.

Indeed, this approach could be applied to virtually all functions of the government, outside of a few bare bones functions such as law enforcement. You know, the way the founders intended?

The real question is: why has this not been proposed by the Republican Party? It is in accordance to several of the key "official" principles of the party: limited government, reduced welfare and reduced effective taxes. But the Republican Party has been seduced by power. Truly reducing the power of the government would reduce the power they have when they manage to convince people to vote them in by complaining about things they have no plan to fix. Remember, it was Clinton who last reformed welfare, not either of the Bushes.

Without tax revenues, they couldn't invade other countries with their shiny toys that they spend 30-50+% of the budget they complain about on. They couldn't use earmarks to bribe the people who helped to elect them on a platform of no pork. With reduced government spending, there would be less lucrative contracts to sign immediately upon leaving office to lobby for government spending.

So Republicans really don't care about cutting down the size of government or taxes, at least outside of soundbites and campaign ads. That's why they don't do it when they have power. At least the Democrats tell us what they are going to do.

It's time for another way.