Columbia Tribune Runs Same Old Editorial About Same Old Story

Hey, doesn't this sound familiar? In replay of old story, Missouri welfare cuts hurt wrong families:

Now, however, Cheryl is thinking of quitting her job. That’s because on June 30 she received a letter from the state indicating that their Medicaid benefits had been cut. Previously, the much needed lifeline of state funding was provided for families at 100 percent of the poverty level. Legislators cut that to 85 percent this spring. Never mind that the federal poverty level is woefully too low as it is, a level with no real meaning in today’s world. It’s a joke with no punch line. With the death of a child and the legislative change, the Carriers are above the new limit that defines Missouri’s definition of poverty. The letter says they will have to come up with $120 a month - the state calls it a spend down - to maintain their benefits.

"It might not seem like a lot of money to some people," Cheryl says, "but we just don’t have it. I feel like I’m 5 years old and I’m in trouble. It’s like I’m being penalized because I have a handicapped child. I don’t think I should be penalized because I’m trying to work."

But wait! Is taking money from people working at $8.75 an hour and fortunate enough not to have a sick child the answer? According to Tony Messenger, a frequent inspiration for us at DMB2008, it is! The state and its enlightened proponents, among them Mr. Messenger, should compel students, teenagers, and other low wage workers, as well as everyone else, to help the needy.

To bad Mr. Messenger inadvertantly shows how the goodness of strangers, outside of confiscation and wealth redistribution, can help out. The column includes these examples of charity:

The town, she says, saved the family’s lives back in 1996. That was when the family spent much of its year at the hospital in Columbia. The Carriers couldn’t work. They had no money. Family and friends from Lancaster fed them, clothed them and did anything they could to help them.

and:

They found a small house in Hallsville, and local not-for-profit groups helped them remodel it so that the girls could get around in their wheelchairs.

Our kudos, though, to Mr. Messenger for his continued insistence that arbitrary but necessary limits on welfare always act as incentives for those just over the line to slack and fall under the line to get more free stuff for less personal effort. However, as we obviously lean Republican, we think these are good reasons to further reduce or eliminate welfare instead of continuing to raise the bar to not only cover more people, but to disincentivize higher and higher classes of people.