You get something like this in social paradise:
Welfare advocates regularly urge Americans to look to the European welfare state as a model. At least in the case of the Netherlands, they might be on to something.
The Dutch have just announced a massive reform of their welfare system, designed to reduce dependency and put a new emphasis on work. For example, welfare applicants will now be required to prove that they spent at least 4 weeks actively searching for a job before they become eligible for any assistance. And once they begin to receive benefits they will either have to work or perform volunteer community service. Dutch welfare recipients would be required to take available jobs even if they had to move or commute up to three hours per day.
Given that just 42 percent of U.S. welfare recipients are engaged in even broadly defined work activities (including job training, college, or job search), and that an attempt to restore work requirements to the food stamp program has been met with a storm of resistance, the Dutch appear to be much more pro-work than we are.
Other reforms would reduce benefits by treating families as a single unit, rather than as separate individuals. For instance a mother with two children would receive a single payment rather than three separate payments. The combined payment would be less, based on the assumption of “shared expense.”
This is just another change in the whole unsustainable system. A few years back they reformed their healthcare system to provide catastrophic coverage for all while leaving it up to the individual to provide the other coverage needs. Oh yeah, while the article isn’t clear on this issue, I bet that like they did when they reformed healthcare in the Netherlands, they kept the taxes untouched.
People clamoring for European style welfare, be it around healthcare or otherwise, in the US should be weary. There is no such thing as a free lunch…