U.S. Republican Paul Ryan wants choice in delivering aid to poor

[MongGrel]

http://news.yahoo.com/u-republican-paul-ryan-wants-choice-delivering-aid-130355780--business.html

Just my thoughts.

Rubio can be at ground zero also

 

[theeedude]

Another Republican scam on the American people. Put toll collector middlemen in between taxpayer money and the people it's intended to help.

 

[ivwshane]

See block grant.

 

[cubby1223]

Another Republican scam on the American people. Put toll collector middlemen in between taxpayer money and the people it's intended to help.

The current way is placing an inefficient bureaucracy of government employees in between taking their cut at every step.

 

[kinev]

Another Republican scam on the American people. Put toll collector middlemen in between taxpayer money and the people it's intended to help.

I'm curious if this is how you actually think or if it's only how you react because a Republican was involved. If it's the former, there's hope for you yet! Unfortunately, it's most likely the latter...

 

[dank69]

"Instead, they could choose from a list of certified providers. We're talking non-profits, or for-profits, or even community groups unique to your neighborhood."

There it is. GOP question for everything: How can we make money off this?

 

[sandorski]

Take $X from a few bureaucracies and spread it amongst thousands, perhaps 10s or even 100s of thousands. Ya, that's sensible.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Another fine example of a defective conservative mind in our country.

 

[realibrad]

If I am understanding the idea correctly, its kinda how cities get bidders to compete for services.

So, you can have the local firm place a bid and a private firm place a bid. If the private firm can do the job cheaper and more efficiently than the public firm, then good. In theory if this is what is happening, I think its a good idea. You can't do it overnight though, because a lot of money is in these public firms. Start small, and instead of making the public firm bigger, put it to a bid and see who wins.

 

[Oldgamer]

I watched a snippet of Paul Ryan being interviewed by Chuck Todd on MSNBC (I couldn't watch it all) but it sounded like he was saying he would basically cut and gut a lot of things and he would choose to do this also with medicaid and medicare if he could. He is just spouting the same garbage talking points and ideas he did last year and the year before. Its all about killing off all the safety net programs, he isn't coming up with anything new.

 

[michal1980]

I watched a snippet of Paul Ryan being interviewed by Chuck Todd on MSNBC (I couldn't watch it all) but it sounded like he was saying he would basically cut and gut a lot of things and he would choose to do this also with medicaid and medicare if he could. He is just spouting the same garbage talking points and ideas he did last year and the year before. Its all about killing off all the safety net programs, he isn't coming up with anything new.

your just lieing. but you on the left are stuck in your bubble world and cant see out of it.

 

[realibrad]

your just lieing. but you on the left are stuck in your bubble world and cant see out of it.

Both sides are in bubbles.

 

[brycejones]

your just lieing. but you on the left are stuck in your bubble world and cant see out of it.

This may be the most ironic post of the year so far.....

 

[glenn1]

Another Republican scam on the American people. Put toll collector middlemen in between taxpayer money and the people it's intended to help.

In some cases government officials running programs are the absolute worst case scenario for recipients. Look at what's happened with the Veterans Administration and Indian Affairs departments and pretty much anyone else running it would have done a better job. That's obviously not going to be the case routinely and many agencies do great work well better and cheaper than it would be privately. Still, we can't and shouldn't just assume that's the case and never even explore if it could lead to better results being done another way.

 

[theeedude]

There is no need for a toll collector middleman when the government is giving food stamps or housing voucher to the poor. There is no benefit, and there is no need. There is only cost. It's another Republican scam, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[jackstar7]

Poverty Panels.

That should work out.

 

[Genx87]

Another Republican scam on the American people. Put toll collector middlemen in between taxpayer money and the people it's intended to help.

Not that I agree with his idea. But what do you consider the layers of govt that take their share of each tax dollar spent on social services in this country?

 

[crashtech]

Problem with this is that if private companies are taking tax money from the gov to perform service, the bureaucratic cut has already been taken, which would result in a double dip. For a private system to have a chance, it would have to be funded directly by taxpayers, which probably could never happen.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Here are my questions, excuse me I have not dug into the plan:
What is the expected benefit/cost savings
How do we know its working
How long until we see improvement
When will it be reviewed and what happens if the plan fails

 

[Oldgamer]

your just lieing. but you on the left are stuck in your bubble world and cant see out of it.

Please tell me, what particular part of my statement did you think I was lying about?

 

[realibrad]

There is no need for a toll collector middleman when the government is giving food stamps or housing voucher to the poor. There is no benefit, and there is no need. There is only cost. It's another Republican scam, nothing more, nothing less.

I think you are thinking of it wrong. Its not a middle man anymore than the current institutions are middlemen. So currently, federal funds are given directly to the institutions that in turn give money to the people. In this plan, the federal funds would go to a private firm, instead of the institutions to give out the money. Same amount of steps, its just that it chooses a different middleman.

 

[ivwshane]

I think you are thinking of it wrong. Its not a middle man anymore than the current institutions are middlemen. So currently, federal funds are given directly to the institutions that in turn give money to the people. In this plan, the federal funds would go to a private firm, instead of the institutions to give out the money. Same amount of steps, its just that it chooses a different middleman.

Yeah because that's always saved us money and made things more efficient! Let alone improved the lives of people it's meant to help.

So he wants to take a system he thinks is broken and give it to someone else and what? Hope that it gets fixed?

Please!

 

[crashtech]

I have to wonder about people who think that a bureaucracy is not analogous to a middleman. Their (relatively good) salaries and benefits don't appear out of thin air.

What might be interesting is to set up two half-size parallel bureaucracies to administer benefits and allow each to do so in slightly different ways with the same average amount of funding per beneficiary. Allow people to choose between the two and arrange salary bonuses for the employees who serve people most efficiently. A win for free market concepts AND progressives alike if this resulted in beneficiaries receiving more help for every tax dollar spent.

Ideologues would no doubt find a reason to hate it, since it would partially repudiate theories from both sides.

 

[realibrad]

Yeah because that's always saved us money and made things more efficient! Let alone improved the lives of people it's meant to help.

So he wants to take a system he thinks is broken and give it to someone else and what? Hope that it gets fixed?

Please!

Actually, yes, that is what he wants done. I don't know if it will work, but the idea has worked many times in the past.

NASA did some amazing things, but it did it a very expensive way. Along comes SpaceX and they found ways of doing things far cheaper. So now the government is going to pay SpaceX to fly supplies up to the space station, instead of paying NASA to do it. Far more efficient.

In fact, its a pretty well established idea in economics that the private market tends to do things more efficiently than the public. Thats not to say that all things run better in the private market, but typically it is cheaper.

So, instead of having the middle man be a government institution, it could be a private company if the win the bid. I think if the idea is to simply give private firms money to try and find ways of being cheaper, it would work our badly. But, if a firm can do the exact same thing as the public firm but cheaper, then the people in the program are far better off.

 

[theeedude]

I think you are thinking of it wrong. Its not a middle man anymore than the current institutions are middlemen. So currently, federal funds are given directly to the institutions that in turn give money to the people. In this plan, the federal funds would go to a private firm, instead of the institutions to give out the money. Same amount of steps, its just that it chooses a different middleman.

So we need another layer of middlemen? Instead of government depositing foodstamps or housing assistance directly to recipient, we need to give money to some random third party to take a cut before they decide to help the poor the way they see fit, with our money? Just because giving it to private sector is magically going to make everything better and not just add a layer of cost?
Or we can just steer clear of this Republican scam, deposit the foodstamps or housing voucher directly to the person we are trying to help with this money.