Oh boy...
Let me start by saying this. Single mothers, particularly in black communities, are a fact of life. Unless everybody here is all for quadrupling enforcement of child support, this is going to happen.
The question comes down to this: What is really most important for a mother of young children? That she have the ability to raise them the best that she can, or that she stop being a leech on the system? When you look to see the origins of welfare, it is clear that the role of mothers has shifted in this country. It originally came about because single mothers of young children used to be counted among the "worthy poor" along with seniors and the disabled. They needed public assistance in order to do the best they could to raise healthy children. That's changed. You think that's because of feminism? Okay, consider this:
There is still a notion of women being irresponsible and having children so they know they can be lazy and get government assistance. Does anybody here know any welfare moms? Have they told you they like getting paltry sums and living at or near poverty? Do you honestly think the majority of them would tell you that they have no interest in seeking work again? Don't tell me it ain't so bad. The amount paid to cash welfare recipients has dropped since the 90's -- particularly with the TANF act signed in by Clinton.
Among the problems we face is a deincentivization of obtaining decent work for single moms (insert stripper joke here). Put yourself in one's shoes. You're a 23 year old mother of two young children, not yet old enough to be in preschool. You can't afford childcare and putting together a patchwork of babysitters is difficult and inconsistent at best. Do you: A) Get a minimum wage job at 32 hours a week, significantly reducing your ability to provide for your children and cutting back or eliminating your welfare amounts and most importantly jeopardizing Medicaid benefits, or do you B) maintain welfare status so you can ensure medical coverage for yourself and your family knowing you can scrape together what you need on a month to month basis, though you have no ability to save?
SCHIP has made some advances in providing care for children. I don't think anybody would be alright with penalizing kids for being born into crappy situations and denying them basic healthcare. But their mothers?
Everybody in this debate sees the same goal: Getting as many people off welfare as possible. But a simple look around will show that poverty as is, is a cyclical thing. Many people revert to an individualist approach to the problem, that if people wanted out they would pick themselves up by the boot straps and improve their lot. But once somebody is in a cycle of poverty, that happens at a very, very low rate.
My point is that welfare and Medicaid as it exists is a crappy patchwork system that only results in more poverty. Instead of providing people with enough to not starve, how about providing a way for them to take themselves and improve their value of human capital, so that they have a decent shot at pulling themselves out of poverty and eventually pay more back to society than they take from it? And one that allows single mothers to raise healthy children that won't grow up to be truants and eventually criminals? Or maybe the ability to work towards a four year degree should they decide to work hard enough for one.
There is a lot of inefficiency and many holes in our POS patchwork public assistance programs. They need major overhauling, but making these massive cuts is making the choice to cut off many of these communities to fend for themselves. I can promise this will result in a lot more problems than we currently face. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
