Tag: Obama Voters
Welfare Applications
For those unfamiliar, Welfare payments are made in the US to individuals and families with income below a level. The following quotations are taken from actual letters received by the Welfare Department in applications for support of receiving payments.
- I am forwarding my marriage certificate and 6 children. I had seven but one died which was baptized on a half sheet of paper.
- I am writing the welfare department to say that my baby was born two years old. When do I get my money?
- Mrs. Jones has not had any clothes for two years and has been visited regularly by the clergy.
- I cannot get sick pay. I have six children can you tell me why?
- I am glad to report that my husband who is missing is dead.
- This is my eighth child. What are you going to do about it.
- Please find for if my husband is dead. The man I am now living with can’t do anything until he knows.
- I am very much annoyed to find out that you have branded my son illiterate. This is a dirty lie as I was married a week before he was born.
- In answer to your letter, I have given birth to a son weighing 10 lbs. I hope this is satisfactory.
- I am forwarding my marriage certificate and my 3 children one of which is a mistake as you can see.
- My husband got his project cut off about two weeks ago and I haven’t had any relief since.
- Unless I get my husband’s money pretty soon, I will be forced to lead an immortal life.
- You have my changed little boy to a girl, will this make any difference?
- I have no children yet, as my husband is a truck driver and works night and day.
- I want money as quick as I can get it. I have been in bed with the doctor for two weeks and he doesn’t do me any good. If things don’t improve, I will have to send for another doctor.
- In accordance with your instructions, I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope.
Obama Issues Orwellian Executive Order
Will this nightmare ever end?
Welcome to President Obama’s brave new world.
Federal agencies have been directed to hire psychologists to experiment and find ways to better manipulate the American people to the federal government’s will.
“A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights – research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them – can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people,” Obama wrote in an executive order released Tuesday on WhiteHouse.gov. The origin of the order can be traced back to a 2013 policy proposal entertained by the White House called “Strengthening Federal Capacity for Behavioral Insights.”
The president’s new order said streamlined applications for federal financial aid and automatic retirement payments are two examples where behavioral-science lessons applied to government programs have been effective.
“[T]o more fully realize the benefits of behavioral insights and deliver better results at a lower cost for the American people, the federal government should design its policies and programs to reflect our best understanding of how people engage with, participate in, use, and respond to those policies and programs,” Obama wrote, the Washington Examiner reported.
Obama has not hidden his interest in using federal resources to employ behavioral science techniques on the public. The White House launched a Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, or SBST, in February 2014 and then celebrated its one-year anniversary on the White House blog.
“SBST had a successful first year, launching a wide variety of evidence-based pilots with objectives ranging from connecting veterans with employment and educational counseling benefits to helping struggling student borrowers understand their loan repayment options,” the Obama administration wrote Feb. 9, 2015.
SBST will now move forward to identify programs that will “most effectively promote public welfare, as appropriate, giving particular consideration to the selection and setting of default options.” The team’s work is done under the purview of the National Science and Technology Council.
Two figures whose research played a key role in bringing the new initiative to fruition were Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein (once deemed Obama’s regulatory czar), and Richard Thaler, a University of Chicago economist, the Daily Beast reported Tuesday.
“The two behavioral scientists argued in their 2008 book ‘Nudge’ that government policies can be designed in a way that ‘nudges’ citizens toward certain behaviors and choices,” the Daily Beast reported.
Obama’s executive order requires SBST to issue guidance to federal agencies on how to implement his policy directive within the next 45 days.
SBST will also consider different ways of labeling “benefits, taxes, subsidies, and other incentives” to “more effectively and efficiently promote” the president’s policy goal.
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