to save these people who really need help, you will create another group of people who uses it to not to work, just relies on the govt for living, do you think the price to pay for helping these small group of people is worth it? can you take it if you work hard everyday for 60 hours per week to feed your family for example your neighbor who play guitar everyday and relies on govt welfare. This is the price to pay for, can you except it now and 20 years later, will you say the same. Social welfare is evil.
Back to the main discussion. Good to know some people feel passionate about their opinions. You are against welfare because it creates dependency and there is abuse of the system. Are you prepared to change your mind if it can be administered without the well documented problems of the welfare state?
Let me introduce you to the concept of "Workfare", which is probably the amalgamation of "work for welfare". It ostensibly addresses the problems caused by a lack of minimum wage and the west's utterly unimaginative way of administering a social safety net. That is welfare no matter how you cut it, because it transfers payments from the government to the needy citizens.
Does it mean there are no flaws to the social experiment? Badly administered, this can lead to unnecessary subsidies for corporations, because nobody knows for sure how much companies benefit from selective substitution of foreign labour to justify the employment of a citizen on Workfare at the wage level of his foreign colleagues. Paradoxically this reduces labour productivity (from immigration of unskilled foreign workers) across the entire labour force where Workfare is present, and makes COMPANIES lazy instead. I suspect it is the COMPANIES that are gaming it today in Singapore.
Before you conclude smugly that social welfare is evil, please make a stand and acknowledge whether mutual support among the common man is a worthy aspiration. If so, you may arrive at the same conclusion as I did. That it was never a question of whether we should have or not have social welfare. It is a question of
how we should do it.
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Recap GE2011:
WP said workfare should have a larger cash component. HUH? Ya I know it makes sense but clearly this party is still in reactionary mode from all the MPS and I question the exhaustiveness of their method of inquiry.
NSP argued for income floors for import of non unionized workers, while failing to notice that the entire foreign workforce can be classified under 3 or 4 categories (E-pass, S-pass, etc. Don't qualify for one, apply for the other) regardless of any artificial line of demarcation.
SDP argued for minimum wage which leads me to wonder if they are still living in the stone age (or more insidiously the FW Party for recommending a raise to all FWs). Never underestimate schadenfreude.
That is not to say it is all the PAP's credit for introducing workfare. It was introduced despite flaws and that requires moral fortitude or an unshakable representation in parliament, more likely the latter. I don't think one should expect PAP MPs to ask the tough questions because they are obviously conflicted, so the responsibilities eventually fall on the other Parties to point out the weaknesses and inadequacy of Workfare. Knowing the PAP they will find ways to tax more instead of acknowledging externalities and looking to correct the weaknesses of their own programs. One day, WP needs to convince the electorate that they too can form the government without a PAP coalition. Don't expect the PAP to handhold them like babies in the meantime.
P.S. Cruxx, rugged individualism sounds cool but you risk looking like an ill-informed bigot.
