Corporate Welfare Reform

Keeping drugs illegal will only carry on the on-going drug related cycle: people get caught with possession of drugs, their third time getting caught they get a sentence, go to prison, come out,

selected the article Phantom Welfare: Public Relief for Corporate America because it plays a crucial role in explaining the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Many Americans know the gap is there but don’t know why the gap is so huge and that the gap is only widening, not shrinking.

Although many Americans believe the top one percent should have higher tax rates there are also many people who believe that the wealthy pay more than their fair share of taxes.

Changes within the welfare system as a result of policy shifts and by new thinking, more generally in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have had many methods, but the one that seemed most important, was that welfare recipients were required to do much more to justify their income support payments than before. The foundation of this new idea is that income support programs should allow individuals to maximise their participation in work. Due to the general shift in welfare administration, the number of activity test requirements an individual in Australia must meet in order to receive unemployment benefits, has expanded significantly since the early 1990s. This complex, overly bureaucratic process means that disadvantaged individuals cannot access the income support payments they require.

The federal and state governments provide the American citizens with all of the basic necessities within our communities and society that is taken for granted. Programs responsible for assistance in times of need, providing a quality standard of living, and maintaining the strongest military in the world costs incomprehensible amounts of money and could never exist without taxes from the American people. Taxes are payments made by individuals and businesses to support the government and its services. The constitution grants that congress “shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises and to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the people”. Taxes paid by Americans redistribute

Even the U.S. is considering loosening up on drugs right now, over half of americans support marijuana for its recreational and medicinal purposes, it’s already been legalized in two states so far, setting up legalization for more states in the future (Huey). Huey also claims- “Drug reformers nationwide continue to argue that legalization will free up more resources to fight harder drugs, deny traffickers billions of dollars in profit, and generate tax revenues for prevention and treatment through state-controlled marijuana sales” (Huey). If there are more resources to fight harder drugs than funds used only to punish minor drug felons, there would be a lot less problems with the prison system and inmate

All throughout history welfare services have been available to the general public. While these benefits have changed over time, the basic intentions of the welfare system has stayed the same. The welfare system provides benefits and monetary assistance to those who qualify. Different acts over the past two hundred years have been amended in order to try to help the poor, and while not all have been practical and successful, many programs have indeed done an outstanding job in aiding those in need. But, just like with all good things, there is a negative side. Even with all the reforms to try perfect the welfare system there are still some holes in it. Not only is the welfare system easy to manipulate, according to usgovernmentspending.com, eleven percent of the federal budget is spent on welfare, leaving tax payers livid. (usgovspending.com) It 's obvious there is a need for a welfare system in the United States, but with the abuse the welfare system has endured a major change needs to be seen in order to ensure the welfare system be used as efficiently as possible.

I found that after reading this article that a lot of different reasons why the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Post-Secondary Reform movements have been so successful. We always hear about students dropping out of college or not going to college because they can’t afford the tuition. The two case studies that we will talk about are Kentucky and Maine and how they succeeded in getting this reform to work.

Thesis: The President knew that there was no truth behind the accusations that he was responsible for the changes to the welfare reform; the United States Congress had a meeting and discussed rather or not they would allow changes to be made to the requirements for citizens receiving welfare assistance; in a close decision, the United States Supreme Court said that it was not fare for the lawyers to be able to challenge the current welfare cases.

What would happen if the government made changes to the welfare system? There are approximately 110,489,000 of Americans on welfare. Many people benefit from what the system has to offer: food stamps, housing, health insurance, day care, and unemployment. Taxpayers often argue that the individuals who benefit from the system, abuse the system; however, this is not entirely true. Many of the people who receive benefits really and truly need the help. Even though some people believe welfare should be reformed, welfare should not be reformed because 40% of single mothers are poor, some elderly people do not have a support system, and college students can not afford to take extra loans.

During 1996 President Bill Clinton signed The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which is a comprehensive bipartisan welfare reform that would change the world’s welfare system into one that is obligates work in exchange for limited time assistance. The law consist of durable work requirements, achievement bonus to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs, child support implementation, state maintenance of effort requirements, and supports for families willing to work rather than stay on welfare. It also provided money for child care and medical insurance. “From Clinton’s perspective, the challenge of welfare reform is simply to find the money, the mechanisms, and the generosity of spirit to make this

By giving the federal government control over the nation’s drug laws and giving the states less say, America’s economy can benefit greatly, it would be easier on law enforcement nationwide, tourism would increase, problems with jurisdiction issues can be resolved, incarceration and crime rates will dramatically drop, and so much more.

The current policy in use by the United States concerning illegal drugs is both outdated and unfair. This so-called war on drugs is a deeply rooted campaign of prohibition and unfair sentencing that is very controversial and has been debated for many years. The war on drugs is designed so that it will never end. This current drug was has very little impact on the overall supply of prohibited drugs and its impact on demand seems non-existent. United States’ taxpayers are spending billions of dollars on this failure of policy. They are spending billions to incarcerate drug users instead offering drug treatment which could help lower demand. Legalizing illicit would lower abuse and deaths from use and could have a positive economic impact on the United States. Certain industries are making massive sums of money by capitalizing on the drug war.

Corporate welfare, otherwise known as crony capitalism, is when the government and businesses are working together to get rid of competition and to favor a few large companies. It is said that corporate welfare has been around since at least the Boston Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party actually involved in a corporate welfare tax cut to one large company, the East India Company, and this allowed them to have a huge advantage over American tea companies and also over other imported tea companies. This corporate welfare tax cut made the colonists angry, which lead them to dumping the tea into the harbor. The tax cuts and favoritism to certain companies is still very relevant in today’s society. (129 words)

“Miron and Waldock also estimate that in 2008, states across the country spent a total of $25.7-billion on drug prohibition. U.S. tax payers are paying for them to stay in jail. We would save a lot of money in prisons. California by itself spent an astounding $5.4-billion (one-fifth of the national total) that year.” (Gholsh 2). Legalizing narcotics would lower costs of keeping prisoners in prison. People get caught with drugs all the time and taxpayers have to pay for them to stay in prison. It seems like a waste of money to me. “In a study for the Cato Institute, Jeffrey A. Miron, senior lecturer on economics at Harvard University and a senior fellow at Cato, and Katherine Waldock, professor of economics at New York University, estimate that legalizing drugs would save the government approximately $41.3 billion annually on expenditures related to the enforcement of prohibition.” (Ghosh 1). If narcotics were legal the government could tax them and make more money. “Approximately $8.7 billion of this revenue would result from the legalization of marijuana, $32.6 billion from legalization of cocaine and heroin, and $5.5 billion from legalization of all other drugs.” (Ghosh 1). This would be very efficient because the government is in a lot of