Tough Love

Reminded by this link from Instapundit, there was a news report last night (I think it was FoxNews), about park and recreation budget cutbacks.

What is astonishing, in the realm of amazingly stupid, is that California (and most of the rest of the states and the nation as a whole) still doesn't get it.

It is the welfare and entitlement spending that is killing us. There is enough money to fund the police and fire departments, the parks and recreation services, the roads, prisons, and jails if the states would reduce their welfare spending.

But they don't want to be seen as being meanies as the worthless are draining our public bank accounts.

The rhetorical question (and how the argument will be framed in the media) is: Do you want to allow a destitute family to starve or keep funneling money to the parks so people can swim this summer?

The answer is Door Number 2. The media (and the Left) will always use emotion as a distraction to the truth. The people who pay taxes should see a benefit from it, and have use of facilities and public places that they have paid to build and maintain. They have a right to those facilities and parks and the states, counties, and cities have a duty to keep them open.

There is something motivating about the threat of starvation or risk of homelessness. The great welfare reform experiment showed that if you tell people that their welfare benefits will end on X date, they will pull themselves up by their proverbial boot straps and get on the productive end of society, rather than being a drain. Their lives (and the lives of their children) will be better. Their happiness quotient will rise as well.

Welfare, other than for the completely disabled (and by that I mean quadriplegics who cannot perform any work or the mentally ill or retarded) should be a safety net that ends after so many days (for example, six months). After that, people must work.

The funds going to support illegal aliens must end, regardless of their impoverished status. They must be denied medical treatment, because continuing to provide it sends the signal that it is a good idea to come here and feed off the welfare teat. Our emotionally-motivated kindness is used against us as a weapon. Those who come here illegally, who abuse the welfare system, do not share our values, nor have any claim to the rights maintained by citizens.

Welfare must, once again, tarnish the reputations of people who receive it. People should be ashamed that they are taking from others, and they must feel compelled to get off welfare as quickly as possible to restore their honor, dignity, and reputation. If they don't, then we must have the strength and conviction to withdraw our support from them, as a way of discouraging the behavior in others. It is tough love, on a national scale.