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Nikki Haley on Welfare & Poverty |
HALEY: Well, we're seeing homelessness is up 12 percent. We now have 650,000 Americans who are homeless; 35,000 of them are veterans who are homeless. It's shameful. This is not their fault. It's the fact that inflation is up. We're seeing a lot of families get squeezed. It's the fact that America refuses to deal with the cancer that's mental health. America refuses to deal with addictions, which we have to deal with. And there are answers to this. This is why I want to move as many programs from the federal government down to the states, because, right now, a lot of it's tied up in D.C. You have got over $300 billion that's spent on things like mental health and behavioral services in D.C. Only $1 billion of it gets down to the states for states to decide how to use it. Let's release those resources, so that every state can do what they need to, to get the mental health therapists they need to have.
Haley: Well, you're exactly right. My daughter just got married and I saw how hard it was for her and her husband to buy a home. Right now, the average homeowner in America is 49 years old. You've got young people everywhere, that used to be the American dream and now it's out of reach, but you look at what happened. Look at what the Fed did. The Fed did a terrible job when they allowed all of that money to go through. You saw the Treasury bond rates go up, that affected mortgage rates, and so now we have a high interest rate. And so, what you have is a lot of younger people who one, can't afford a home, but two, the banks aren't lending them any money. They've made the regulations so hard that they don't want to give loans on mortgages anymore. So, what we have to do is we have to open it up.
Previously, with Washington having its way, we would handle welfare recipients by asking a few simple questions, effectively checking a box, and handing over a check. Easy in, easy out.
But no one improves their lot in life that way. Now we do things differently. We dig deeper. We ask them about their skills, what they are good at. And then, we find them a job. Yes, it seems like a simple concept, but here's the deal: it works. Since starting this program in 2011, we have moved more than 20,000 South Carolinians from welfare to work.
We should all be proud of this program. But more than that, we should be proud of those workers, those South Carolinians who traded the false stability of a welfare check for the true dignity of a well-earned paycheck.