Domestic moment of truth issue: Can or should the Govt teach 'how to be a good citizen (or parent)'?
NYC Poor to Get Cash for Good Behavior
NEW YORK (AP) - Poor residents will be rewarded for good behavior - like $300 for doing well on school tests, $150 for holding a job and $200 for visiting the doctor - under an experimental anti-poverty program that city officials detailed Monday.
The rewards have been used in other countries, including Brazil and Mexico, and have drawn widespread praise for changing behavior among the poor. Mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to Mexico this spring to study the healthy lifestyle payments, also known as conditional cash transfers.
In New York, the two-year pilot program with about 14,000 participants will use private funds Bloomberg has raised because he did not want to spend government money on something that is highly experimental. More than $43 million has been raised toward the $53 million goal, Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs said.
The theory behind cash rewards is that poor people are trapped in a cycle of repeated setbacks that keep them from climbing out of poverty. A person who doesn't keep up with his vaccinations and doctor's visits, for example, may get sick more often and struggle to stay employed.
Bloomberg, a billionaire Republican, said he believes paying people in such circumstances to make good decisions could help break those patterns. The program "gives New Yorkers in poverty a financial incentive to look ahead and make decisions that will improve their prospects for the future," he said in a statement.
Well, as a pilot program I guess we can see if (to me) the slightly distasteful, and unpleasant idea of a government teaching what good behavior as a citizen is, and good parenting is, has some kind of value.
Somehow, a combination of Ted Kennedy (D MA) and or Mark Foley (ex-R FL) is not what I would prescribe for either set of lessons.
Never the less, the govt (i.e. - you and me) as a teacher of last resort must take some responsibility, somehow someway.
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