This pisses me off too.

First let me clarify that I am in favor of public assistance for those who truly need it. But the idea has gotten truly out of hand. The welfare system is rewarding and actually encouraging people to be non-productive. The more babies a mother has, the more money she gets monthly and the more tax deductions she has at the end of the year. With the cost of daycare, it is a vicious cycle. She cannot afford to go out and get a job, but with the rising cost of living, she needs more money as the children get older. The system is set up for abuse.

To take it one step further, since she has all that extra time at home (probably with the deadbeat dad), she has more time to have sex. After all sex is free and what else do they have to do? So the productive ones like us work our asses off all day to make ends meet are too damn tired to make babies when we get home. Plus we see the bigger picture, if we can barely afford to live within our budget, how can we afford another mouth to feed? And our budget is growing ever smaller from taxation to fund more public assistance programs. So looking at it from a pessimistic point of view, civilization as we know it is doomed. Just for the plain fact that in a short time, the productive will be outnumbered.

My solution: every able body on public assistance will have to spend time at the landfill. Create an assembly line where the trash is dumped on a slow moving conveyor belt. Each person will have the duty of pulling out a specific material, like newspaper, orange plastic, tin foil, you get the idea. Give bonuses to those that show promise and move them to a more profitable recyclable. Promote those who show initiative to supervise the others. Provide the daycare and staff it by those capable. Do this with RESPECT and not a punishment. Create a positive attitude, as a majority of people WANT to be productive, they are just in a hole they can't get out of. As a byproduct, the landfills could cut their space needed by 50%? And the positive publicity for the landfill and the city would be enormous.

I do not say this from a point of view that I am better that these people. I would be the first to volunteer to do my time on the line. There probably woud be others that would volunteer to do the same. It may not even save any money in the short term, because they would all be paid what they were being paid before, but this would bring people together to network and come up with ideas of their own. I truly believe it would be self perpetuating. After all "green" is the new catchword.

Now I know the nay-sayers are going to say "what about liability"? Well if they are on public assistance, we are paying the medical bills any way. right? Or we could all just stay home and make money on the internet ...