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