This is the rough draft of the proposal essay I wrote for my English class. The assignment was to find a topic in the community that needs some ‘fixing’ and come up with a couple viable solutions. It’s a little rough and needs some cleaning up before I turn in the final draft on Friday, but I think it’s pretty good for just sitting down and writing it all in one go. I could be a bit biased, though. haha. Oh, I might add, we weren’t allowed to do research or quote sources, so I just had to go off of the information I already knew. I did, though, look up the name of the TANF program because I knew about the program, just not the official name. My bad. 😉
Welfare Reform
In the United States, welfare is a system that was thought up as a way to help those who were struggling to make ends meet until they could get on their feet and support themselves and their families again. Welfare was designed to be a temporary assistance program for those in need, not a long-term way out of personal responsibility and hard work. Too often, people abuse the welfare system by either fraudulently receiving benefits and/or misusing the benefits they receive. The welfare system in the United State needs to have stricter requirements for new beneficiaries and have harsher punishments for those who abuse the program in order to more effectively prevent fraud and abuse.
The welfare system was created during the Great Depression to help those who had families and were struggling. The Great Depression was a time when the entire population had been touched in some way by want and need. During this time period, the government came up with several programs to assist families as they strove to move forward and climb up from the pit of poverty. Since then, several other programs have been added and to date, the welfare system includes WIC, Unemployment, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Medicare, Food Stamps and housing assistance, among others. None of these programs was designed to be long-term or permanent for any family that had the physical and mental ability to be gainfully employed.
Today, the welfare system is overwhelmed by individuals and families who take advantage of the system either for extra money or so they do not have to work. This selfishness and laziness has put a burden on a system that was intended as a stepping-stone, not a permanent stopping place. Because of those who fraudulently use the welfare system, hundreds, if not thousands, of families are unable to get the assistance they need. In order to remove those who are dishonestly using the programs and to prevent further abuses of the welfare system, multiple reforms must be done to the different welfare programs.
One area that needs reform is the application process. Several welfare programs only go off of the information the applicant provides on an intake form and that information is inadequately verified. This leads to aspiring welfare recipients withholding information in order to receive a higher benefit. One way to fix this area of possible fraud is that income and employment be verified through taxes from the previous year. Applicants should be required to provide their most recent tax forms showing how much they earned the previous year, including any W-2s, 1099s and other applicable forms showing where their income came from. If the applicant is no longer working at the company(ies) provided on the tax forms, they should be required to provide documentation showing their date of termination. If they do not have documentation, a form will be filled out by the applicant and verified by an employee of the program the applicant is attempting to receive benefits from. The applicant will be informed that if they are found to have misrepresented any information on the application, they will not be eligible for the program for the space of six months.
Another area where the welfare system is burdened is by providing benefits to illegal aliens. Illegal immigrants take up a large portion of welfare benefits, whether by openly admitting to being a non-citizen without proper authorization to be in the country or by having false documents showing citizenship. The WIC program, as well as Medicaid, allows illegal immigrants free access to benefits even if the applicant openly admits to being illegal. If assistance to the illegal population is denied, more benefits will be available for legal US citizens who are in need of aid but are unable to receive support due to the system being overburdened. The welfare programs of the United States of America need to be for legal US citizens only. In the event that an illegal immigrant does apply for a welfare program, they should be detained and deported. If a recipient of a welfare program is found at a later date to be an illegal immigrant with false documentation, said recipient should be immediately removed from whichever welfare program they receive benefits from, arrested for fraud and either jailed or deported. If it is possible to recover a portion of the money paid out to the illegal recipient, effort to do so should be attempted.
One more area in need of reform is the TANF program. One of the benefits of the TANF program is that a cash payment is received instead of food stamps or certificates for food products. This program has the widest margin for abuse since there is no regulation placed on what the cash can be used for. Recipients of TANF can, and do, spend the money received on whatever they choose, including drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. If the benefit money of this assistance program is used on illegal items instead of necessities like food, clothing, rent and utilities, there has been a colossal commission of fraud. TANF beneficiaries should be required to take a drug test upon application into the program and at random intervals to ensure that the money given to take care of basic needs has not been squandered on illegal activities. In the event a test comes back positive, the offender will either be denied access to the program for a period of 12 months or be immediately removed from the TANF program for the space of one year and should be required to pay back all money collected since the date of their last clean drug test. If the recipient does not have the means to pay back the money collected, they should have a lien placed against any future payout. To be eligible to receive a future payout, the candidate shall be required to complete drug rehab or drug counseling as well as be clean for the space of no less than 8 months.
The welfare programs instituted by the United State government are a privilege and not a right. In order to receive these benefits, we must show that we are indeed in need of assistance and we must then show our eligibility to continue receiving such benefits. Many people across this country have a need for assistance and are unable to receive the assistance they need because of the vast number of welfare recipients who fraudulently receive benefits. To prevent such abuse of the welfare system, we must reform the system to make it more difficult for those who wish to illegally receive and/or use benefits as well as provide severe punishments for those who exploit the benefits they receive. By doing so, more people who are truly in need of assistance will be able to receive the help they need in getting back on their feet and improving their lives.
