Snoopy:

In reponse to this:

>  why should any decent hard working person have to pay for someone else child to
>  have the same has theyve had to work hard for.

We can make the same argument for a lot of things.  Why pay for somebody else's healthcare?  Why should my money pay for somebody else's education?  Why should my tax dollars be used to buy food for the poor?  They can get jobs and pay for everything themselves.

The thinking probably is that in our modern world a child without a computer is at a disadvantage because computers are supposed to be educational tools.  The logic behind this might be to give low income families an opportunity to get something that they could not afford otherwise.  In that way their children would not be at a disadvantage at school.

Let's say that instead of computers they had said:  "We will give people vouchers to buy books if they find jobs".  Would the reaction be the same?  Probably those who object to it would not object as much, and those who would receive the voucher would not have been so happy about it.

We know that computers are more than educational tools.  They are also toys, and weapons.  They can be abused, like everything else.

Will there be abuse under a program like this?  For sure, in the same way that there is abuse in anything to do with giving people money.

There are people here who get a divorce so a woman can claim income support for a single parent.  Then later the government finds out that the ex-husband has become the woman's "roomate"!

Money always brings out the worst in people.