I guess my main concern (other than the example of peter’s uncle) is that voting, especially on a local level is one of the only ways that less powerful groups of people can influence the government. Kind of a check and balance system. If politicians never worried about being voted out of office (and maybe the whole point is moot with our one party system- politicians* seem to do whatever they want anyway), they aren’t going to be truly serving the people. They’ll only be serving themselves, which doesn’t really help any of us.

*I realize that not all politicians are corrupt or self-serving, but it sure seems that way.

The only incentive I saw in your list was the knowledge of an end date for welfare payments – which I can totally support. The rest of it is not incentive, it’s what welfare should be.

You are right to be concerned about how we have a hard time getting people active in the political process. In fact, that is what prompted my thought initially on the subject. It may be a bit counter-intuitive, but making it a bit harder to vote might encourage people to take the opportunity more seriously.

This was never a fully fleshed out idea – not one I would be pushing for anytime soon, but it has generated some very good discussion. The end goal is to solve two problems (independently or through a single action): increase voter participation (even if we decrease the total number of voters a bit) and eliminate perpetual dependence on welfare.

Your last statement, that this “incentive” that I proposed would only affect those cases like Peters uncle who are most deserving to vote (as those welfare recipients who don’t deserve to vote probably don’t vote anyway) is probably the strongest argument against my proposal – especially if we had the data to prove you right. (I have no data on this, just hunches.)

As for ways to reward people for getting off of welfare- that’s a good question. I’m thinking that giving people job training, money management training, help with finding an affordable place to live given the job they can get based on their completed training- with the knowledge of an end date for welfare payments.

Maybe that’s not a reward enough for some people, but I think it’s better than removing the right to vote. We have a hard enough time getting people to be active in the political process, and this just makes it even more unlikely that politicians would feel any responsibility toward those who are poor and struggling.

And as has been said before, people on welfare are less likely to be voting anyway, so the ones who would care the most would be those few exceptions like peter’s uncle.

Do you have any suggestions as to what would be a reward incentive to get off welfare?

The immigration problem is largely the result of poor immigration policies. Cases like Peter’s uncle wouldn’t happen if we were more worried about helping people be healthy than making big money for health care insurance companies.

I’m all for incentives- I use them all the time with my children, and find them pretty effective. But incentives that punish are much less effective than incentives that reward good behavior.