The conservative approach to social programs has evolved in sophistication over the decades. With frontal assaults on Social Security and Medicaid having been badly beaten back, the GOP has repackaged its attempt to roll back these programs by putting recipients to work.
Work requirements were the cornerstone of the 1996 welfare reform, and each subsequent assault on public benefits has used them to kick in the door. Want food stamps? Work. Want Medicaid? Work. Want disability? Work.
After all, if a person is physically able to, why shouldn’t they work just like everybody else?
But an approach catching fire among activists and even some high-level elected Democrats answers the question by turning it on its head, drawing on an idea with a storied history in American politics. If working is so important, then why shouldn’t the government provide a job directly to somebody who can’t find one?
For years considered the province of renegade economists, the idea that everyone should have a job if they want or need one — and it’s the government’s job to make that possible — has begun once again to creep into mainstream conversation.
You can read the rest @
https://theintercept.com/2018/04/01/federal-job-guaranteed-jobs-program/
They had something like this in the former USSR. I guess what goes around comes around.
Do you get the impression that no one in DC knows what the hell they are doing?
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