Very simple. If you’re on any sort of public assistance, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Want to vote? Get out of your situation. YOU are spending other people’s money without their consent. And the temptation will always be there to “keep voting for Santa Claus”, and thus ruin our country even more by voting in people that have never worked in their life, but have a bleeding heart to take care of anyone and anything…as long as it isn’t their money.
Not to mention this is a classic gateway into drug and alcohol abuse:
“If I can get drunk and high at home, and the government pays me for it, why would I work?”
I like the concept, but why don’t we just go back to just men and landowners while we’re at it? You’re right in that there’s a percentage of people on welfare like this, but I think there are more people on welfare for situations beyond their control. Unfortunately our current welfare system is designed to keep people on welfare and discourage them from reaching escape velocity or even trying to change their status, Let’s change that part. That’s why I proposed Empowerment-Oriented Social Safety Nets for Economic Mobility
This is an ignorant concept and insulting to those who have lost their jobs due to injuries or unprecedented circumstances. Going after our own citizens is the last thing we should be discussing on this website, we should be discussing how we can work together to help support each other – there are much bigger fish to fry Brother Chris.
Yes people do get into unfortunate circumstances and there can easily be tiers to something like this, BUT my point is a VAST majority are taking advantage of the system. These are the sob stories they want us to hear.
My initial post is harsh, but It’s not ignorant. You must not live near poverty. I see it often. And I’m talking about the folks that reek of BO, walk around drinking and smoking all day, and are a constant victim to everything. They gave up. It’s truly disgusting. It’s not “attacking” our own people at all, you’re helping them earn their pride back so they CAN vote again.
For the most part, public assistance keeps people in public assistance.
Your sarcasm was well constructed, but was not a serious reply to the OP and added nothing. The OP was actually offering an incentive to get off welfare: the privilege of participating in the republic’s democratic process? Why should a recipient of public welfare be allowed to vote for politicians offering public benefits? Sounds like perverse incentive to the politician to buy votes by offering benefits to tax consumers, paid for by tax payers.
Disagree. “Those who have lost jobs due to injuries or unprecendented circumstances” should be grateful for the support. If they want to participate in deciding where taxes–collected at gunpoint under force of law-- are spent, then they need only stop being a financial ward of the state. Seems straight forward. You are attempting to shame those with whom you disagree by mischaracterizing their actions.
On the contrary, I wasnt being sarcastic at all. I was being completely serious. Why should people who live in tiny apartments that can’t see past their asphalt echo chambers and have never intentionally raised or hunted and killed and eaten an animal in their life have any say in how the rest of the country lives? The answer is simple: because they’re first class american citizens. That’s it. End of discussion. The moment we let the government decide which citizen gets to vote, we lose. You have touched on an important subject that the Founders warned us against - I’m paraphrasing but it goes something like “once the people learn that they can vote themselves money, the republic is lost”. Do you know what their solution was? Can you make a constitutionally sound argument in favor of your proposal? Did you even read my entire initial post?
While I agree , but I think we should be careful. Once we go down this road where does it end? Mental health? I mean most democrats are mentally unstable. Should we take mentally ills right to vote? What about people who get all sorts of tax payer benefits like child support. Taxpayers spend 6.3 billion on enforcing child support. Should those who receive child support vote? I mean just like welfare they are living on taxpayers dime since we pay for the enforcement and jailing of non payers. Seems to be they were not responsible in who they chose to have kids with. We spend around 1.6 trillion on Welfare, over 6 billion on child support. Either way even 1 billion is alot of money. Our spending needs to stop.
It is an interesting concept to break the “bread and circuses” cycle welfare has helped create. I would propose that there be a time frame I.e. if you have been on welfare for 3 years or less, no loss of voting rights. But I would challenge that it is cruel to remove someone else’s right to vote to get more of the money another has earned.
Just as we restrict (rightfully) convicted felons right to vote, a persons circumstance certainly should be considered.
I am not in favor of the extreme of this road like land ownership becomes a priority, but it is grating to be mandated what the level of my forced charity will be by those receiving that benefit.
You don’t take away people’s right to vote. You take away the incentive that people expect to receive government handouts. This is a culture issue. Remove government handouts for only those that truly need the help.
Um, so I don’t agree. I get the path you may be looking to go down. ( limit people who vote for the party that will continue to give them “free stuff “ )
I just don’t think acceptance of a program our elected officials enacted should be grounds to limit a persons ability to vote.
Also , I know this may light up the room lol but consider that Medicare and social security fall int the category of social assistance. We just pay specific taxes toward them, but they are essentially huge government assistance programs. Most folks hate hearing that because they feel they are owed something, but the reality is you can get out more then you ever pay in.
Also any recipients of subsidies for d student loans, or grants . anyone who benefits from the farm bill are all recipients of taxpayer funded government assistance. People who rely on FHA or USDA for home loan programs.
I could go on for a bit listing government programs that I would argue an absolute majority of the population has utilized because it’s available.
Legal, citizen that can prove who they are with an Id should not have the right to vote restricted.
This is completely discriminatory and unAmerican!! Not everyone on welfare is milking the system!! I’m not on welfare and I disagree with this wholeheartedly because of the discrimination factor!! If you’re an American and of age, there should be nothing stopping you from voting!!
Good point and thank you for the input. But some of these are social safety nets shoved down our throats. But I do see your point. However I am specifically targeting this welfare class because it’s a rot on our society. Go to any Dollar General. It’s horrendous.
I didn’t ask for Medicare or social security, but I’m forced to pay for it, and in some ways supporting entire generations of people who didn’t think they had to save a dime because the government was gonna do it for them. How is that my problem?
I actually posted another topic about being able to opt out of Social Security. You could probably make quite an argument if you saved that same amount of money each month yourself, you could make WAY more. Especially if you wanted to open your own business with that money.
I really don’t think it’s harsh at all. The people with the skin in the game ought to have the loudest voice when it comes to voting. Not the leaches and the looters.
I know people who are receiving assistance that voted for Trump because they want out of that system and to be able to move up in the world not stay stagnant!! Our welfare system is completely broken and has been for years!! They should be giving a hand up not a hand out!! Helping people to learn their strengths and weaknesses and if they need to go to college or trade schools to do what is going to put them in a position of being able to get off of assistance permanently that is the help they should be getting!!
Do you know a lot of military families qualify for food stamps, because they don’t make enough money? So while the solider is deployed and his family back at home can’t afford food, you want to take away their voting rights. Military veterans that have been injured, because of military service can also receive food stamps and you want to take away their voting rights. Only 2% of the population signs up for military service.
As a maintenance man 6 years at section eight apartment complexes, I can indeed testify that if you feed the bears, they will rely on you for food and they will abuse the s*** out of every hand out possible. Its a trap many people have been in sec 8 for 4 generations
How about this; rewrite your post and use the constitution to create a valid argument for your proposal. That’s all that really matters anyway. Im curious if theres a way to legally do this.
Interesting concept. Voting for what directly benefits you financially (welfare) appears to be a soft hybrid of conflict of interest and receiving money to vote for a candidate (which is a crime 18 US Code 597) which is why this appears wrong. The ineffectiveness of a program that promotes chronic welfare recipients is the core of this issue. It shouldn’t be easy or without some sort of compensation. Let us look into improving the human services programs to see what can be done to ensure that we move people through the system rather than house them there. Also, although it is easy to assume which party will promote welfare programs, it isn’t necessarily a one-to-one correlation for each electable candidate. It’s a complicated subject and I totally get why you brought this to the table.
The downside to this is if unscrupulous individuals want to take away the rights of a given party, race, or religion to vote, all they would need to do is to create a poverty campaign.
The poor, who already have fewer opportunities than the rich, are those who would be on welfare, and taking away their opportunity to change their circumstances by vote seems very bad.
While interesting, I think this creates very bad situations downstream.