box_in_the_box: (K-Box cartoon)Shooting You with My Smile ([personal profile] box_in_the_box) wrote in [community profile] scans_daily,
@ 2009-11-23 02:19 am UTC
Entry tags:char: superman/clark kent, genre: public service announcement, publisher: dc comics
I look forward to seeing the perfect storm of wank calm and rational debate that will ensue in the comments, between competing factions of both superhero comics fans and public policy ideologues.

Superman supports health care and welfare!



From back in the day when Superman used his moral force to say we should do this because it's the right thing to do for our neighbors, never mind if it cost us some tax dollars.

Of course, today he'd be attacked for his position because, after all, he's an illegal immigrant.

And like so many other illegals, we just want him to clean up our messes and do the jobs we can't do for ourselves for non-existent pay, but that doesn't mean we have to acknowledge when he might have a point.

But I could be mistaken. Is there someone out there who can explain why Superman is wrong?

(Hat tip to Kevin H and Wesley Osam.)
This was originally posted online near the end of August, but I don't recall seeing it on this comm, so I thought I'd share it with you all.

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nothingbutcake: (GrayMan)


[personal profile] nothingbutcake
2009-11-23 06:00 pm UTC (link)
"On the topic, Superman's optimism fails to take into consideration those that would willfully abuse the system for their own ends."

Compared with the low uptake rate of services, where the number of people who qualify for services is much higher than the number of people who do receive services?

Social services have many other problems to address before it needs to address the minority that abuses it.

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[personal profile] psychopathicus_rex
2009-11-24 08:55 am UTC (link)
The EXTREME minority - apparently, there was a study done to find out just how many of these welfare cheats the Republicans keep screaming about there actually were. I don't remember the actual number (I read about it in a magazine somewhere a few years ago), but it was extremely small - something like eight people in twenty years.

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nothingbutcake: (GrayMan)


[personal profile] nothingbutcake
2009-11-24 09:28 am UTC (link)
Hmm, I would like to see that article, because there has to be some major qualifiers for it to be just eight.  Like, maybe eight that have been caught doing something specific with a certain program or something, in some city.

I am the last person to argue that welfare cheating is a reason to abolish public assistance, but I accept that it happens to a good extent.

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[personal profile] psychopathicus_rex
2009-11-24 12:16 pm UTC (link)
Well, maybe it was a little bit more than eight, but it was something close to it. It was some seriously tiny number. I doubt it even got into double-digits - it certainly didn't get into triple.
As I recall, there weren't any particular modifiers, though like I said, it was a while ago. It may have been listing PROVEN cases of welfare fraud only, but that's not much of a modifier.

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nothingbutcake: (GrayMan)


[personal profile] nothingbutcake
2009-11-24 01:33 pm UTC (link)
That can actually make a big difference.

I have just not run into such a statistic in two and a half years of studying social work, and looking at anthropological work that has documented, for example, the under-economy of trading and selling food stamps, which is pretty common. I don't think it could be the same eight people doing it in multiple cities across the US.

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[personal profile] psychopathicus_rex
2009-11-24 10:19 pm UTC (link)
I'll do a little research and see if I can find that statistic again. I don't blame you for being skeptical - I just remember being blown away by this, since it IS so absurdly low. (It wasn't in any trash mag that I read this, either - it was something respectable. It may have been the New Yorker or something like that.)

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