Entitlements? vs Community Charity

I have been arguing with some home school graduates on facebook about public assistance, commonly called "entitlement" programs by those who resent them. Without exception, the claim is being made that the community or the church will step in and take care of the disabled, children of addicts, the unemployable mentally ill, etc. Personally, I find that concept completely laughable, but for argument's sake, let's say it should happen. How would the community band together to help the poor among them?

Well, it would be totally unfair and unsustainable for the compassionate among us to be saddled with the whole burden of assisting any of these terribly needy groups. I mean, I am a compassionate person, but I do not really want to bring a mentally ill unemployable person into my home and provide shelter, food, clothing and medical care for them. It's unsustainable. I might be able to do it for a few days, but to be honest I am unwilling to do that. The personal cost to my convenience, safety and net worth are not something even a compassionate person like myself is willing to bear.

So, the only way to keep this person from starving, or robbing and possibly assaulting or murdering people for money to eat, is to offer some at least minimal assistance. Let's say they are too out there for church: who will help?

If our community decided to help, how would that happen? The fairest and cheapest way would be for each house in our neighborhood to chip in a little something. It should be either the same for every house, or tied to income so that the burden falls evenly on everyone by some definition at least. That will cut down on the resentment factor. If we were to expand the community a bit more, and say pool resources together in the entire zip code, we could do a better job of preventing starvation, homelessness and crime in the whole area.

But how to collect that money? If it's all voluntary, a lot of people won't help at all. That means a large burden for the people with the foresight to see that starving people in your community is bad for everyone. So there would have to be some way to enforce a common contribution from each household.

Then there is the problem of distribution. It would be a full-time job for someone to oversee the funds and distribute them fairly. We would need some sort of guidelines to determine who was in need and who wasn't. Coming up with those guidelines in a community wide meeting would be a disaster. Anyone who has tried to set a social calendar for a small community group for the coming year can testify to that. The only way such a meeting would work is if we had a small committee of people making the decisions.

How would we pick the people to serve on the committee? The way that first comes to mind is to get a representative from each neighborhood to come. The people in each neighborhood could choose from a pool of volunteers who could represent them. I don't see any other way to do that except by voting. If there were more than, say, a half a dozen neighborhoods in the zip code, the committee would still be too cumbersome. We would have to pool neighborhoods together into something representing districts and let them vote of which of the people volunteering to do the job the most people wanted for the position.

And then what if no one wants to volunteer after a season? That sure happened with our home owner's association. What our community wound up doing was paying a professional management company to handle our community business. Eventually we would need to pay these community representatives for their work, if we wanted people from the actual community to make the decisions.

Let's say this works, a committee is chosen, and they establish guidelines for money distribution. There needs to be someone in charge of reviewing applications to make sure the money is being allocated according to guidelines. This would no doubt take a lot of time, and the person in charge of this needs to be trustworthy. A volunteer to oversee the distribution would be highly suspect. I think it would be decided the person in charge should have credentials, and should get paid. If more people are applying than one person can process in a timely manner, we may have to hire another person.

Also, it wouldn't be long before people would want some sort of follow-up, to make sure that the children of addicts were getting fed, the mentally ill unemployable was safe and the community was safe, that the disabled were being cared for and not lying in their own waste while the checks went uncashed because they had no way to the bank, the grocery store, etc. Maybe we could get community volunteers to do this, but probably that wouldn't last long. Who wants to be burdened with overwhelming need in your fact all the time? I sure don't. Some people might be willing to do it as a job though. We could offer a salary for people who were willing to be the eyes and ears for the community charitable distributions.

So there you have it. Doesn't it look an awful lot like government? People from the community volunteer for the position, the community votes of the proposed names to select a fellow neighbor to represent them. Those doing the representing get paid something for their time. They have to have some sort of regulatory power to collect a little bit from everyone, or the system won't be sustainable. They need to have guidelines for distribution, someone in charge of distribution, and some people checking up on the recipients to ensure the money is actually helping.

I have just described the role of legislators, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the social workers they employ. For me personally, I am THRILLED to have other people take care of the distribution of funds and checking up on the recipients. I don't want to do it. And I am happy with the system where everyone contributes according to income (taxes) so I don't have to get personally involved.

The government IS the community! That is how the community already is banding together to help the needy among us. Just cut through the propoganda you've been taught by Vic Lockman and use your God-given brain to think about it for a bit.

You're welcome.