You're right, none of the current programs are working. But none of the previous programs worked, either, and in every single case, the proposed and implemented remedy was to throw more money at the problem.
Comparing social problems with the technical problems of putting men on the moon is a fallacy. Putting men on the moon was mostly a matter of science and mathematics, i.e., if you do this, then that will happen, and it will always happen. Those kinds of technological certainties do not work with people, unless you start removing liberties wholesale and start controlling thoughts and behaviors to the point where they become more of a scientific and mathematical certainty.
You want to get someone off drugs, lock them in a room and don't give them any. That'll work, but it's unconscionable. You can't force someone from falling through cracks when they don't care, or especially if they want to fall through the cracks. We can educate, but there are very few people who start using drugs who have never heard that drugs are bad.
We have all kinds of problems, both here and around the world, and the one thing that is consistent around the world, and through out history, is that more money for social programs has not cured the problems of society, that the opposite has, in fact occurred, where societies become dependent on the social programs. Welfare is a prime example, where it started off with a small number of people for a short period of time, and it's now a large number of people for increasingly longer periods of time. It's the same ol', "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for life," kind of deal. Nearly all of the high dollar social programs in existence, and those proposed, involve little or no teaching, only the handing out of fish. If I knew I was going to be given fish every day, I'd have little incentive to get a fishing pole and learn how to use it.
As for the Full Employment Program, I'm all for it. Not sure that I like the name "Full", becuase it's a little too idealistic, too Utopian, to work with people. A line would have to be drawn where you work, or you get zero. I've said something similar here before, a few times. I think the last time was right after the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, where people were lamenting the sad state of bridges and other infrastructure here in the country. My solution was to take those on Welfare and take the same exact money and put them to work inspecting, repairing and building bridges. If the government is going to spend that money anyway, might as well get something to show for it in the end.
That's also why I am livid with Obama's "stimulus" package, since a very, very small percentage of it deals with public works and infrastructure issues that would directly stimulate the economy and create new jobs. The majority of it doesn't address anything even remotely close to anything that would stimulate the economy. Any idea how many brand new jobs were created during the period between Sputnik and Apollo 11? A snotload.
Incidentally, I'm also one who advocates a mandatory 2 year stint in the military or some other type of local, state or federal community service. If you can't physically handle the military, that's fine, you can answer phones at the DMV, or put books on shelves at a library, mow the lawn at an air force base, push a broom at the capitol. Something, anything, to get people hands-on involved with their government, to take back control of the government, to take back ownership of the government, to take responsibility for their government and their own lives. It will get people out of the ghettos and show them there really is something else out there for them, and it will let them grow up a little and have the time to figure out what they really want to do, what they are good at, instead just giving up and never even trying in the first place.
But with mandatory service, and with a full employment program, you're still gonna have those that say, "I don't wanna." And at that point, you're just gonna have to give up and let them fall right down through those cracks.
Now, who you do suppose I stole all of the above from?
