Maslow's Peak: Reports From the Left

What is welfare?

11/25/2011

My mission for the next month, between now and Christmas, is to dispel myths and educate people about what welfare really is. By welfare I mean both bottom-line survival programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and housing; and broader social programs that seek to provide a bridge from poverty to self-sufficiency.

There is so much misunderstanding right now about what these programs are, how they are paid for, what their goals are, how their effectiveness is measured and what liberals/Democrats want for the future of the safety net. I will address these myths and assumptions over the next month - I would LOVE to hear from you now about it before I get started. What are your questions, opinions, hopes and concerns about government-funded social programs?

Private enterprise
and government
can work together
to eradicate poverty
in the US.

9 Comments

100 Years After Jim Crow

10/5/2011

28 Comments

A century after the height of the Jim Crow era, we have our first black President. Is a hundred years a long time? Are we where we should be? What has changed, what hasn't? On another front, our military rescinds its policy prohibiting gay soldiers from serving openly. Even moderate, apolitical Americans begin to realize that homophobia is wrong and that LGBT citizens deserve equal protection under the Constitution. Meanwhile, state legislatures all over the country work to enact bans against gay marriage. Is this a backlash that will lose its power in short order, or an ominous sign of entrenched opposition? Elsewhere in the country, Democrats and Republicans alike engage in heated debate about what wealth and poverty mean in our society. Is income level dictated strictly by behavior? Who operates with a greater sense of entitlement, the very rich or the very poor? This conversation has been a long time coming. It's the most explicit challenge to the idea of a national safety net since the New Deal era. People have grown quite comfortable expressing authentic reactions, pro and con, to the idea of social welfare and federal stimulus. Sound bites and judgmental rhetoric are tempting. I'm sure you'll find plenty of them from me on my other blog, Ignite the News. But here I'll try to step back and see the big picture - how we got here and what we most want. We all need to decide what kind of country we want to be.
This is RUCCUS.

28 Comments

What is welfare?

100 Years After Jim Crow

Race & Class

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