Monday, January 23, 2012

I started researching Social Uplift: Welfare and Unemployment Insurance.  I discovered to my surprise that this topic--so far researched-- is not as muddled as is 'Entitlements.'

In the latter topic I found that somehow the subject of what the government pays out as benefits to construct an individual's safety net is, by some fiction, inextricably tied to what funds it receives under this or that specific account rather than from simply its general funds, irrespective of the accounts from which the construct is drawn.

In the present topic (and I'm thinking primarily of welfare in the US), I have come to realize--thanks especially to Tanner's treatment of the topic in his book (1996; Cato Institute)--that the welfare uplift project has been a tremendous success to government's credit, despite Tanner's negative evaluations from a libertarian viewpoint.     

Frankly, I was not expecting to discover the many areas of poverty and human destitution that government programmatic intervention has had a remedial effect.  I probably won't find in the unemployment picture as many programs at work, but my approach to that area will be to apply what has been learned and successfully implemented among the poor recipients of welfare grants.  Especially heart-warming is the way in which government has not attempted to mold the recepient to a code of behavior deemed better than that which those in poverty exhibit, but to adjust the governmental programs to how the poor act in situ, making them more relevant and important.

Well, I just had to give a present progress report, because of its surprising features, to my mind!