De Facto Welfare Reform
With the Workforce Investment Act locked up in the Senate, the Leadership and Administration slipped in their desired changes in omnibus budget cutting legislation last year. The Washington Post reports that the regulations are about to take effect.
Christian Libertarians take no delight in this development. It is certainly not Christian to keep people in poverty. Neither is it libertarian. The Administration's reforms will not work because they do not provide for educating the chronically illiterat or providing a path to higher education. While cooperative education as part of subsidized higher or technical learning might be a component of a holistic, employee sponsored education reform, it HAS NO PLACE in a program to education people to basic literacy. These individuals should have only one job - becoming literate at a tenth grade level. This is not only morally just but it makes social, economic and political sense.
A class of illiterate workers makes our lives as consumers that much harder. It frustrates both and leads these unqualified workers to seek income in less savory ways - leading in time to more drug abuse, illegitimacy, prostitution and violent crime and their attendant costs. There is nothing libertarian about that.
Our Party offers a better program. Literacy education through faith based adult education programs using credentialed teachers at accredited institutions can be combined with public assistance programs so that the only way to get a check is to go to school. The same education providers would also administer the benefits.
Higher and technical education would be sponsored by employers. Students would have a work requirement, but it would support their educations, not detract from them. They would also have a service requirement, in much the same way that the military services require a term of service for academy and ROTC graduates. Workers would be paid to go to school and would pay student loans only if they leave employment before their term of service is up.
For more information on both of these, see:
http://www.geocities.com/xianleft_michael/education.html
http://www.geocities.com/bindner_space/careers.html
Christian Libertarians take no delight in this development. It is certainly not Christian to keep people in poverty. Neither is it libertarian. The Administration's reforms will not work because they do not provide for educating the chronically illiterat or providing a path to higher education. While cooperative education as part of subsidized higher or technical learning might be a component of a holistic, employee sponsored education reform, it HAS NO PLACE in a program to education people to basic literacy. These individuals should have only one job - becoming literate at a tenth grade level. This is not only morally just but it makes social, economic and political sense.
A class of illiterate workers makes our lives as consumers that much harder. It frustrates both and leads these unqualified workers to seek income in less savory ways - leading in time to more drug abuse, illegitimacy, prostitution and violent crime and their attendant costs. There is nothing libertarian about that.
Our Party offers a better program. Literacy education through faith based adult education programs using credentialed teachers at accredited institutions can be combined with public assistance programs so that the only way to get a check is to go to school. The same education providers would also administer the benefits.
Higher and technical education would be sponsored by employers. Students would have a work requirement, but it would support their educations, not detract from them. They would also have a service requirement, in much the same way that the military services require a term of service for academy and ROTC graduates. Workers would be paid to go to school and would pay student loans only if they leave employment before their term of service is up.
For more information on both of these, see:
http://www.geocities.com/xianleft_michael/education.html
http://www.geocities.com/bindner_space/careers.html
posted by Michael Bindner at 11:54 AM
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