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Ending welfare (by Peter Lagios)

BLM2(Op-ed by Peter Lagios)

(Revised and updated 7/31/2011)

My plan to eliminate welfare begins with certain assumptions and beliefs. If you do not share these assumptions and beliefs then you more than likely will not agree with my proposal. It starts with the belief that all humans are entitled to a piece of land. The assumption is the present welfare system needs to rethink itself in a dramatically new way.

The location, and size of that land can be debated, but the general sentiment remains in place: A person must have a firm foundation to build a life and grow. A tree does not grow sturdy and tall until it has soil for its roots to go into, deeply and with expanse. You cannot grow a giant cedar tree by digging it up every year and moving it around. It will wither and die, or remain stunted. Humans also remain withered and stunted when they don’t have land to plant their roots deeply into.

The first step towards ending welfare: RETURNING PEOPLE TO THE LAND

Accomplishing this first step requires the Federal Government to stake out land for every citizen who asks for it. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the United States oversees some 253 million acres and has additional land in subsurface mining lands which it leases out to oil and mining interests. This is 1/8 of our total land mass. The total number of people in the USA as of June, 2011 is 311,860,000. This means every living citizen in the USA could be given .811 acres of the 253 million totals. 1 human= approximately 1 acre. The land could be traded (amongst other BLM acres) or forfeited as the human sees fit, but never sold off or used in any way that would violate environmental quality standards, or jeopardize the security of the nation e.g. no terrorist training camps, no chemical or refuse dumping stations. When the person dies, the land would go back into the BLM estate.

A cap on the number of progeny would need to be enforced as excessive reproduction would deplete the BLM of its resources. For example, a family could have 4 kids, but only 2 of them would be able to acquire BLM land of their own when they reach the age of 18. This way 2 parents die, and 2 children continue on to take the 2 acres that the parents left behind. This is a sustainable formula. If one of the kids of the family of four decided to forfeit his acre to the other sibling to go into the free market and work and pay rent or mortgage, they would be able to…but 4 kids would not be able to possess 4 acres. Any number of people could live on your land if you wanted them there. Addressing population management thru reproductive management is a detailed discussion we need to have as a nation. Eventually population numbers will be unsustainable, and with higher numbers come war, strife, poverty, imprisonment, rejection, anarchy, violence.

No one is forced to occupy or use the BLM land, but it is an option if a person wants it….and a requirement if the person cannot afford to live in an apartment or buy a home or other pieces of land. The BLM land is a protective sanctuary that insures the human has a place to be free from hassle by law enforcement, landlords, or banks. If the person wants to camp on their land indefinitely, they are free to do so, if they want to build or farm, they are free to do so.

I realize many lands are cold, extremely wet, dry, or very hot…but the total number of people who would invoke this right would be small enough to manage. Advances in housing designs and food production techniques have pushed the envelope on where and how people can survive in various climates. See www.earthship.com for more information about futuristic housing. Figure in the total number of people on welfare and you would get a general idea of how many acres you would need.

The benefit of this proposal to the taxpayer is that most welfare programs for food and money would be eliminated. If you have a piece of land free from rents, or fees, you could dwell on the land, and grow food to survive. Welfare would be unnecessary unless you were of complete physical / mental disability to an indisputable capacity, and would therefore need convalescent care. People who are truly disabled would continue to receive assistance.

Training programs would be developed by the Federal Government to teach people how to live on their land successfully, in a sustainable manner to grow food, build shelter and survive. Once the government did its job of helping train and educate people in the basics of survival, water purification, food production, storage, pest control, disease control etc. they would be off the hook financially, and would not need to continually pay out money for the warehousing and maintenance of humans as they do now. Food stamps would end. Rent subsidies would end. H.U.D. housing would end. The only thing that may remain is health care, and that is a separate debate. And as far as Social Security goes, expenditures for 2010 were 712.5 Billion. Under my proposal at the age of retirement you would be able to receive one lump payment for exactly what you paid into it…plus interest. This is the fair way to do it. It’s your money. You don’t have to wait around until you die to get it.

I would gladly trade off any rights for welfare checks, food stamps (now or in the future) if I had a piece of land to firmly plant my roots. It is this lack of root planting that has so many humans dependent and needy in the first place. This level of dependency is kept in place because of the landlords, who profit off of subsidies to keep their rental units occupied. Realtors and employers would also lobby against this proposal, because their grip over the land and bodies would loosen.

I don’t see people not working to improve their situation (you’ll always have to work in this world to get anything done) but I do see the economy becoming more pure. The types of jobs would become fair and necessary for both the worker and the environment. In the past, with homelessness looming on everyone’s horizon, under constant threat of eviction, people were forced to work jobs they didn’t believe in. By having land security, a person could be more selective in how they applied themselves and what types of work they performed. It’s your body…use it as you will, not as others would will you to.

With guaranteed land, we could take the steps towards removing endless welfare culture by giving people land to reside on and farm. If they chose to do nothing with their land…then they truly deserve to get nothing. If they chose to work and raise food on their land, then they would survive. If they chose to work for employers in the towns and cities or on farms, then life would continue pretty much the same as it is now. If they developed a trade or craft on their BLM land, they would be able to offer their service or product to the community in the same way a tradesman or craftsman does now. The difference would be the billions in taxpayer handouts that wouldn’t be present.

One of the main hindrances towards financial independence is owing so much money on your land, or house payment, that you cannot keep up, pay it off, or acquire it in the first place (Trans Union, Equifax, Experian=The Unholy 3 stop most poor people in their tracks). If this burden were relieved, humans would have no other excuse but to go to work and survive on their land. It would appear callous at first, as the masses look for their monthly handout and find it isn’t there, but in the long run, they will learn the necessary discipline to survive for themselves and manage their behavior accordingly.

My proposal is radically different from what is being done now, but capitalism teeters on the balance. Most of us are but a few months away from total collapse and chaos. I believe a more perfect union can be formed in this nation, by constantly evolving our thinking and looking for innovative solutions to old problems. I’m not one limited by the chains of traditional thinking and the past, and my hope is that many of you are not either. We can shape our world the way we would like to see it. We can create a system that works for everyone.

Peter Lagios

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