WELFARE IDEAS AND CONCLUSION

Submitted by: William Bissell

WELFARE IDEAS AND CONCLUSION

Or a partial list of ideas I have.  The (authors wise cracks)  are all italicized  but didn't show up in this format. formatting is killing me. I will try today to set up a PDF.      

This is part of my conclusion;

      Catherine Fitts, fund manager of Solari Report, went to some city meetings where she lives. She listened to the bickering and arguing over budgets and investment spending. She got up and made some quick over view points and suggestions. "I've looked at your budget, there is plenty of money to go around. Look, we can all hate each other poor, or we can hate each other Rich. You decide." She is still waiting to hear form any of them. "If you're going to burn down your house, you don't bother to fix or paint anything first. You rip out the copper wire and pipes first."

My Best friend is a police officer in our home town. He told me a story; went to a traffic accident. A women started to talk to him. After a few minutes she was telling him about all the various benefits she was receiving. Housing, HEAP, Foodies, WIC, Free Taxis, Obama phones, Welfare cash and more. She then bragged that she gets $1500 per month, Extra, for babysitting. "Babysitting?", he asked. "Yeah, I take care of my sister's 3 kids. I put in for baby sitting and get $500 a month per child."  "So she goes to work and you babysit?"  "Oh No, she applied too, cause she babysits my 2 kids. She gets $1000, and I get the $1500 per month," she winked at him. (What a country!) 

In Watervliet, NY{upstate})there is public housing I call, Sandra Day O'Connor Apartments. Fact; they have sprinkler systems for their lawns. Every 3 years or so they get new carpeting, the hard wood floors are sanded and refinished, new windows & doors. Every 5 years or so they get brandi new appliances and many get the Furniture voucher, new couches and "Lazy-boy" chairs. Not one of the 'Residents,' Ha, have to lift a finger to shovel snow, mow a lawn, rake, fix a faucet or mulch. All this is done by Housing maintenance or the local city DPW. They are far too busy shopping, going to Doctor's appointments, working under the table, going to the Methadone clinics, selling drugs, going to soup kitchens & day old stores (Freebies}, hanging in Casinos, playing Bingo, or getting another ugly tattoo. (While you work)
 

Our Ideas:  
We don't have a money problem, we have a spending problem. Not ONE politician should be considered to run unless He/She can demonstrate they have good credit themselves. We should look at their credit score first. If they are responsible with their own personal budget, are caught up and haven't been bankrupt 2-3 times, then maybe we should vote for them. They should not be allowed to touch public money unless they are personally fiscally sound.  

We should examine their Plans, make certain they will at least attempt to cut taxes. Will set up audit groups to examine current programs and cut those that overlap and duplicate other programs. While shrinking Government is a No No, it has to be looked at.

 As Governor, we would ask agencies inside the state to find and cut budgets and would offer a 3% finders fee for Every employee inside said office, as a Christmas bonus, for 3 years, depending on the savings within. 

Simple math; Say an agency could save $2 million. 3% is $60,000. If that agency has 100 people, each employee would receive $600's on December 15th as a Christmas bonus. I would give them $1000, ha. The agency would still kick back $1.9 million. We would go to every Office and ask for such cuts and give employees the chance to get Christmas bonuses that mean something. (Give them skin in the game) 

How you incentivize employees is you demonstrate you will fully fund pension and 401-K plans, rather than 60%. Offer a Wellness savings plan for those who don't overuse their healthcare. Once you start proving you are serious and employees are getting bonus checks, you should see a flood of cost saving ideas flow in. This gives the Governor more chance to cut even more taxes-fees-penalties-surcharges and the like.

  
With savings like that and Medicaid Search and Destroy Fraud missions it wouldn't be hard to start making real tax cuts, 10%? Freeze large purchases within the state, fleets of cars, equipment for 2-3 years and put a fraction of the money into repairs. The state could hire local mechanic & body shops, welding Co.'s, electricians to do some of the work to stimulate local businesses. (This will move large back logs of work out)

Get rid of the Competitive Regional council competitions that force regions to beg for their tax dollars back. Just cut their taxes and lower the burden, Unfunded Mandates, that the state puts on these Counties. Once they see their burden drop, they can then ease their taxes within their own districts. (This is not Rocket Science)

 Sell off buildings that are state owned, 25% under market value. This will get buildings into the hands of investors/developers who would spend money hiring local labor and tradesman and create more jobs, local business. The money is transferred to the state via sale, and the buildings will go back on the tax rolls. The Bronx alone had over 4000 state owned buildings. 

 Ask Counties to adopt the 3% stimulant Christmas bonus savings plan. Offer their employees the same incentive. Do this after the state proves it works and tax cuts are distributed

.
 Start involving the school districts. 26,000+ regulations strangle the schools. Start meaningful regulation cuts to save $ Billions. Give ALL $9.8 Billion Lottery money to the school districts, not less then half. Cut school taxes in half. (Lotto dollars go to the General Fund)

 Finally, we can start to pare down Welfare benefits. We can give them for a 10 year Total Life time package. We prefer 5 years. But we must tell the recipient that they will receive benefits for a total of 10 years with a review process after 5. You must be looking or training for a job during that time frame. Benefits will not be offered, after the first  years unless your plan FORCES you on to the next 5 years. You will continue to collect SNAP - WIC benefits and perhaps HEAP but this will go away over the next 5 years.

 I would like to see both SNAP and HEAP dissolve 20% per year until the 5th year is up. So that the individual is fully set free by year 10 of all Welfare-SNAP-HEAP-Section 8 and just possibly on Medicaid or some Insurance package with incentive to get healthy through Well-Care. This way the abuses and life long recipient cycle stops and everyone knows you have 10 years total coverage. As you ease off the programs with 20% reduction a year until its gone.

 Obviously you could not do this with handicapped, elderly, severely disabled or Vets but with the monies released, cuts made and continued incentive to find more, there would be plenty of money to help those in Real Need. While we gently remove those that need to be in the asset column. You just need support from your legislature, and we think we have the solution to that. Explain and ask them to follow the program. if they Agree, we will give them 'ALL' the credit for the Tax cuts, 'ALL.' They will be voted in forever! If they Disagree, you will go public with names, hiding budgets and No tax relief. You will run someone directly against them on their next campaign and expose their unwillingness to cut their constituents taxes.

 (Why the Benny Hill pictures?  Not only for levity, but Benny conceived, wrote, played, directed, produced, edited all of the skits on his show. He observed people and constantly turned everyday action into animated comedy. He truly was the Master of  'Designed Chaos.')

 (Well,  that's enough)                     

Thank you very much for reading.