Welfare – Start Paying Back the Taxpayer

Disclaimer: This post was written at about 3am in a sleepy haze while watching the news so please excuse the grammar and spelling as well as the thoughts that stray some.

I am a government employee. The American taxpayer is my employer and pays my salary and provides me and my family certain benefits. That said, the salary and benefits don’t come to me for free. I have to work anywhere from 40-60 hours a week on average. Bottom line, I pay the American taxpayer back with my service. So if someone like me can pay the American taxpayer back through services provided, why can’t others who receive government assistance like food stamps, section 8 and others forms of welfare, pay back the taxpayer?

Unless someone has a full time job, which I consider 40+ hours a week, and they receive government assistance, they should be required by law to provide 40 hours of community or public service. If they have a part time job, lets say 20 hours a week for simplicity sake, then they provide 20 hours of community or public service.

So what I would like to do now is play out a scenario. The local city garage is overwhelmed do to the recent heavy snows and flooding. The city’s vehicles are taking a beating, snow blows, dump trucks, rescue vehicles are all going through maintenance at a cyclic rate. The need help to get them caught up, the vehicles back in service and back in service for the community. The city garage manager contacts the local government assistance agencies and lets those agencies know the city garage needs one person to help with some paper work, cleanup around the garage and assist the mechanics occasionally. The agency ads this requirement to a database for “job postings”. If there is an individual that does not have a job who is receiving government assistance, they would be required by the agency from which they receive assistance, to go out to a city garage and they would work off what they receive in assistance. They would not be allowed to receive a second payment from the agency until they had paid back, with their time, what they had previously received.

The assistance providing agency would provide the recipient a time sheet that would need to be verified and signed by the city garage manager or appointed representative then after hours are completed the time sheet would be returned to the agency. Now, if a person is provided assistance and they fail to pay that assistance back in time worked, the agency will place a checkage with the IRS so that when you do get a job, wages will be garnished to pay the American taxpayer back.

So would this require more government oversight, larger government? No, the local unemployment agencies are already equipped to track these type of things. We could actually have the government institution or non-profit organization contact the unemployment office about the opening. The unemployment office would enter them into a database. Then the assistance providing agency would check with the unemployment office to see what institutions or organizations require work and “place” recipient in those jobs. The work would be completed, time sheet returned to the unemployment office who in turn makes an entry that the work was complete thus making the recipient eligible for more benefits.

Now lets look at the potential for job training using this method. Let’s say the local city garage does need help, but they need some part time mechanic help due to a surge in broken vehicles. When the person receiving assistance reports to the garage, they can help do basic mechanical work as well as assist the paid mechanics and learn a skill at the same time. Use this same example and make it an office assistant for the city council office. The city council office has a surge in work, someone reports to their office with a time sheet and that person learns some office assistant skills to help build their resume and even get some good references and network.

Tagged with: american taxpayer • assistance agencies • food stamps • full time job • government assistance • job postings • part time job • section 8

Filed under: Politics

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