We spent the last few decades dismantling whatever shambles of a social safety net we had, and we don't give a shit about people who can't afford to live. We say "get a job", and we just don't care.
I think there are solid ways to help people but that usually means investment in them, rather than increased dependence on the system. I'd gladly chip in for this lady to get a solar panel and battery, or a waterless toilet, or microhouse, or access to cheaper fuel.
There's some pro-liberty stuff that would be great for the working poor:
* less emissions laws on vehicles - it'd be cheaper to make fuel efficient vehicles at the expense of some NOX emissions
* fewer zoning laws - it'd make micro housing more accessible
* fewer renewable energy laws / less protectionism on solar - make off-grid systems more appealing
A $10k investment in this lady's life would dramatically alter it. It would give her a toilet, better housing, and energy.
Conversely, giving her an extra $100 or so per month might just go to beer and cigs so she can deal with how crappy her life is and doesn't really give her enough to get ahead.
And that line about her brother having a quadruple bypass is icing on the cake. How much do you think we spent on that? 120k? We should keep the expenditures the same but give people a choice on how to spend it. Maybe the brother would have rolled the dice with Indian quality of care (i.e a 10k surgery) and split the savings with him - give him 50k cash for saving public money.
Look at what people do with tax returns. They spend it on big items that they couldn't justify budgeting and saving for otherwise.
There are some people who would turn a lump sum into self-sufficiency. There are some people who would turn a lump sum into an overdose/bender.
I think we should take the total welfare budget and let people compete for using it the best. I think the best KPIs for welfare are 1) poverty reduction 2) violent crime reduction 3) QALY increases.
If a charity can demonstrate better results than say a county, the charity should get more money.
What isn't cost effective is giving a guy a titanium leg but such a bad quality of life that he would pawn his titanium leg. Don't you think there's a better allocation of money in that guy's life?
Most of the time, the issues aren't making the car pollute an illegal amount (or at least not usually), they're just making the car pollute more than it was certified to pollute (or the issues make it impossible for the car to verify that it's polluting the right amount).
And there's no Cost-Benefit analysis done for people. My grandma had to pay $3k to get her car fixed, she drives 20 miles/wk. IT would have been much cheaper for her just to buy offsets but that's not permissible. However, when Jeep builds gas guzzlers, they can just buy credits from Tesla and Toyota so the DOT doesn't fine them.
Even if her car is polluting more, it's polluting as much as I was when I was commuting 100 mi/day.
I live in a city that despises car pollution, but the traffic light timing really stinks and I"m sure that there'd be less pollution if they made the system work better. They want me to drive a hybrid, I want them to do the job I"m paying them to do: take care of the fundamental infrastructure.
Some states (mostly costal states) have rules that vehicles have to be inspected regularly. Some states inspect vehicles for safety reasons, other states inspect vehicles for emissions compliance, and a few states look for both.
It's well intentioned, but the checks leave something to be desired. In some states, a check engine light is an automatic fail regardless of whether or not the rest of the car is okay to drive. As the parent comment mentioned, it can be really expensive to fix check engine lights.
I have a car hobby and one guy I know spent like 30 hours diagnosing / repairing his 2000 Honda minivan to fix the check engine light. He tried to get a waiver, his car was producing a legal amount of emissions, but he couldn't get the check engine light to clear until he replaced a fuel pressure regulator - it's a total crock of crap. He's an older guy who only used the van to pick up his grandkids after school.
He couldn't get the minivan certified, so he had to pick up his kids in his pre-emissions car or else run the risk of a ticket he couldn't afford.
In this case, the law coerced him to drive kids in a car without seat belts or any emissions equipment than a safe car with a check engine light. IMO the laws are total failures.
You're asking the emissions testing people to: believe that random guy X is going to keep his car, that he's only going to use it for one short trip a day, that the check engine light only means one thing, that it's within legal limits despite the check engine light being on, and on and on and on.
You're asking them to make an exemption--or somehow modify the laws to account for "Grampa says he will only drive short distances"--on a whole host of things they have no way of verifying or even knowing, and that makes the laws total failures?
I guess I can't see how you're proposing that vehicle emissions be regulated at all, if "this car hobbyist says..." and "grampa says..." are relevant factors in determining the road-worthiness of a car.
If the law encourages someone to drive a pre-emissions car over a emissions compliant but not not emissions certified car, it encourages pollution.
Because the conversation in the right hasn't been about what policies are the best, it has been about getting rid of the government.
Most right wingers you would talk to (IRL - not on the internet that skews libertarian) are interested in cost effectiveness. Some of them say the current levels of 'quality' are alright and we should find ways to reduce the costs. Others say that we're spending enough but not getting good enough results.
I'd be fine with spending a lot more in welfare if the results were better. However, I would disagree with many left-wingers on what good results are. I think left wingers' ideal welfare state would be like a magical feeding trough, my ideal welfare state is one that invests in people so they can the State and humanity to the best of their abilities - if they stop serving the State and humanity, I think that merits less investment. A person who helps the less fortunate is more deserving of welfare than someone who plays WOW full time because they like crushing noobs.
I have no tolerance for young men who play video games in their parent's basement. If they have a disease, I'd chip in to help treat them. If they're just lazy, then that's on the parents who enable them. I'd also be concerned about pretending their personal failures are medical problems - which is one of the reasons I'm mostly opposed to SSI/SSD.
For people with gumption, we should try to find a way to make them productive. My pet proposal is to give these people priority for government jobs. DMV clerks can't such much more, we could at least give it to someone who's down on their luck. For people without gumption, I think we should put them on a nice beach and make sure they have food and access to basic health care.
The empirical evidence would suggest the opposite:
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fiv...
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fiv...
In any case, the largest area of spending growth has been social and entitlement programs, even if one excludes veterans-related social spending and controls for the effect of demographic changes on entitlement outlays.