Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!qantel!dual!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!columbia!topaz!josh From: josh@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (J Storrs Hall) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Extent of hunger in America Message-ID: <3913@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Fri, 4-Oct-85 17:10:22 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.3913 Posted: Fri Oct 4 17:10:22 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 06:47:27 EDT References: <203@gargoyle.UUCP> Reply-To: josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 46 In article <203@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >How can there be hunger in America? Isn't there an abundance of >food, as well as private charities and an extensive welfare state? >Welfare benefits for the poor are minimal. Not only are they minimal, they are enshrouded in a mass of red tape that forms a protective coating between the poor and the money. The reason for this is that the *real* beneficiaries of the welfare system, the bureaucrats, have a vested interest in keeping it that way. My sister works for a church in Philadelphia, where for several years her job was to cut red tape for the poor there. She was a full time worker, and her entire effort (and considerable education) was used merely to undo the efforts of the bureaucrats, so the people she was helping could get the benefits they were nominally entitled to. To me, this says that we have a wretched system where the abilities of both the bureaucrat and my sister are being essentially wasted. Fire the bureaucrat, let him get an honest job. Let the people keep their money, maybe they'll give some of it to my sister's church. Let my sister and her church actually help the needy directly. *Everybody* will be better off. >There is "Third World" malnutrition such as kwashiorkor (a protein >deficiency disease) in places such as as Mississippi where the >welfare benefits are miserably inadequate. Look, I grew up in Mississippi and my mother was a case worker for the welfare dept in Natchez. People do *not* starve in the streets there-- all the horror stories that are current among Northern liberals are simply hogwash. References like this to Mississippi tend to make me mistrust your other references considerably more than I would otherwise. >Yet Ed Meese and other Reagan henchmen inform us there is no serious >hunger in America, while brandishing their budgetary meat-axe. Real social spending is *up* since Reagan took office, and means-tested programs are essentially even. Actually, as a percent of the budget, the means-tested "welfare" programs are unobjectionable. I primarily oppose them on the grounds that they have a horrible effect on the normal process of self-improvement by which the poor became the middle-class until the mid '60's. --JoSH