Would you support this program?

I was thinking.....and I came up with an idea of how to better use welfare funding.....

Instead of giving people money to use however they want, state and federal governments could set up a number of farms, clothing factories, ect that produce food and clothing and the essential goods for people who can not afford to buy it. These goods would not be free, but they would be sold at a much lower price than provate companies sell them for. The money made from the sales would be put back into the program to help cut the costs.

 

Do $500 T-Shirts and $10 apples sound like a good idea?

........for that is surely what government would deliver.........
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It shows how little liberals understand an economy. Artificially reducing the price of something increases consumption for the protected class and the resulting reduction in supply results in higher prices for everyone else. I had a friend who was looking for a used car to buy, but unfortunately for him, "cash for clunkers" was in full swing which more than doubled the price of used cars. The cash paid for used cars had an inflationary effect on the used car market.

The solution to our problems begins when liberals stop with their insane tinkerings and interferences in the free market. Think of it as the Star Trek Prime Directive. Starfleet cannot interfere in primitive cultures because any interference, even with the best of intentions, causes more harm than good.

Live long and prosper.

(yes, I just made a trekkie analogy)

 

I'll give you an "A" for THINKING and praise you for your efforts... but what I'm about to say may be a bit discouraging.

They can't even make this work in PRISONS where they can FORCE inmates to work. It doubt it will work in a free society.

 

And a very cleaver one. Where do I give you kudos for coming up with that?

 

No and that is why I dont shop at Macy's....

 

Realy....a person supports a party thatr beleives in trickle down economics is talking (*)(*)(*)(*) about someone else's understanding of economics....

I guess you were perfeer giving all the tax money to billionairs and watch nature take it's course as they put aside greed and other base human instinces and start businesses, which most of the time don't even get off the ground, instead of simply pocketing the money and using it for themselves.. (That was sarcasm by the way)

 

....and its why nobody wants government doing the insanity your prescribing.

Charity work is best left to Charities.......
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Could we use inmates as labor?

 

I see no problem with that. We alreadyt use them for doing roadwork and making license plates. Why not this too?

Hell, the Marion county jail in Indianapolis uses inmates to clean their offices so they can save on janitors. In exchange for their work the prisoners are given better quality cells and better food.

 

So what will you do to stop those who buy the goods at the subsidized price and resell them for a higher price?

 

With as questionable as it might sound to some, that's something I might be able to support.

We'd get a return on the tax dollars spent on incarceration (in addition to welfare savings), plus having worked in a max correction facility (for a short time admittedly) I think it would be beneficial to the inmates as well. Where I worked they were locked up for approximately 23hrs of the day. I'm not sure about others... but I'd much rather work for 8 of those hours (feeling as though my time served was reparation to society) if I were to find myself at that level of incarceration. I'd even support the inmates who work at the hypothetical production facilities getting a small wage and privileges (provided privileges didn't jeopardize security).

But I'm sure many would come out of the woodwork claiming that this perfectly rational idea is some form of slavery or a violation of Constitutional rights.

 

There would be a limit of how much you could buy and you would have to prove that you are in need of the goods... No one who really needs it is going to buy stuff for resell when they are only allowed to buy a certain amount.

Anyone who does who is caught buyig them for resell is punished with no less than 2 years in prison and no paroll....

Anyone actualy working for the prgram caught stealing goods for resell or selling them to people they know plan to resell them will face 5 years...again with no paroll.....

 

Proof of need? So now you will need a central planning bureaucracy that can, supposedly, accurately predict what people "need." It behooves anyone who benefits from such a program to take everything they can possibly obtain. Or, perhaps, you believe that the poor are virtuous and incapable of the greed you attribute to those who

So resale of one's own property, which is what those goods are after they purchase them, is to be punished. It seems to me that if what they need is money, then supplying them with things that they might decide to resell fulfills your desire to see that they get what they need.

Funny how compassion flies out the window when the precious programs of the "compassionate" progressive face difficulties in management. Civil damage becomes criminal, and light crimes become crimes against the state. Next there would be calls for a gulag to punish the wreckers who fail to meet the goals of the 5 year plan created by the factory central planners.

 

Need would be based on how much money you make, andhow much you pay in expenses every month. I know several people who can't afford food and proper clothing because their bills and expenses take up almost all of the income.

 

Putting prisoners to work is always a double edged sword. As much as it makes sense fiscally, prison is supposed to be about justice. Justice has no business sleeping with profits. I tend to lean towards preserving the virtues of justice, over fiscally responsibility, especially in a nation where the private and public sectors have lost all meaning and intent. We need less non-violent laws that institutionalize our disenfranchised. This would surely encourage more.

 

The idea has it's problems indeed.

Ideally there would be no profit motive. Certainly, most definitely, not for the public institutions which have control over production. Ideally the inmates would receive some benefits for their effort, and only the most well behaved inmates, those who have the greatest chance of rehab, would have the opportunity to work.

Another problem I can see is that there would be a certain stigma surrounding the products produced by inmates and those who qualify to use them. Also, privatized business who provide similar products and services might have some complaints.

Even with that said, I think it's worthy of trying. It might prove to be quite beneficial.

 

Prison labor would be a finite number, and surely cheaper than normal labor. This inherently brings kickbacks to whom awards the contracts, kickbacks to judges to guarantee inmates, etc. Slavery, using the justice system as a mask. It is bad enough we have places like Arizona where the head of the prison system makes all inmates wear pink underwear, that of course is supplied by his wife's company. There should be no profits to make in the prison system outside of the paycheck for the job. Otherwise, "justice" is nothing more than a joke. And "justice" being a joke is to encourage crime and corruption on every level of society.

 

So you are saying that judges would send innocent people to prison because people who ran a non profit government program bribed them?

I said in the beginning that anyone money made by this system would be put back into the program or given back to the people as a tax credit on their returns. For there to be kickbacks it would have to involve profits, which it would not.

 

If you are just talking prison farms and the like, state labor, that has always existed and makes sense. There is nothing to change. Our current form of "justice" is hardly that. Plea bargains are the name of the game, under the threat that the judge will "throw the book at you" if you go to trial. You don't need double jeopardy when cops can stack charges for one incident guaranteeing a plea. Therefore, 99% of the people who are under suspicion of doing something wrong are guilty automatically. They WILL plea to the lesser charge on "advice" from their attorney, whether state appointed or not. The judge merely picks the amount of time, and can sleep at night, no matter what, under the assumption that all admitted guilt. Our system is corrupt from top to bottom, and I trust nothing about it.

 

It's been demonstrated that privatized correctional institutions do indeed provide the circumstances for corruption.

But if the contracts can only go to institutions who are using inmates as labor, where no profit is being returned to the institutions or agents thereof, and the product is going directly to those who qualify... where is the motive to abuse? (other than the valid point raised by bleedingheadken where recipients might sell or hawk the products as is done with current welfare benefits). This would be a non-profit effort ideally, the goal would to be to use an available volunteer labor force to produce a product for next to nothing for a demographic who has next to nothing to spend. This would be a return on money spent incarcerating inmates (around $30k per head I think) and the monster amount of money spent providing welfare for essential goods.

I think the pros might outweigh the cons.

 

I am simply saying that the need for food and other essiential goods for people who can not afford them could be met fairly easily by simply using prisoners to produce them. The prisons would have axess to a percentage of the food and it would also cut costs of feeding them. Most states already do this with things like license plates, so why not do it with food and clothing for the poor. It would be a cheap way to feed and cloth the poor. The prisoners who take part would have to volenteer. also.

 

Ideally, sure. America is too corrupt at this point to think that any outcome will match the intent. All you will be doing is handing those in power yet another tool to abuse. If Americans don't have the balls to revolt, for lack of better words, the least we can do is fight everything. "No's" across the board, at all times. Make those in charge force new things down our throats and expose themselves for the monsters they truly are. Then perhaps, balls will grow. Every new gain they make is on approval of the "people" who's intentions were pure. This formula has been tested too many times to count. It would not end up as you intend.

 

If money is changing hands, corruption will fallow. It is written in stone. When you give $10 to starving kids in Africa, because they look so sick on the commercial, you are lucky if they see a dime of it.

 

You may be right, but if I had the power to put this plan in motion I would.

It has too much positive potential to write off, it's one of those things... like Florida's recent attempt to reign in welfare cost... that has major potential if only people would give it a chance.