Welfare is a great idea on paper. It supports our nations people when they are in trouble. Ideally this system should be used temporarily and only by people who truly need it, but people are people. Our current system is regularly abused by many types of people in many different ways. Since having more children gets parents more money they have more kids to get more money. Some states are trying to impose mandatory drug testing to help eliminate the use of federal handouts to fund drug addictions.

Government Welfare Hurts Society and Does Not Benefit the Poor

The Libertarian Party is America's third-largest political party. It encourages limited government and supports the rights of the individual.

The welfare system, which is unfair to taxpayers and doesn't help the poor lift themselves out of poverty, should be abolished. Those who require help should turn to resources outside of the government. In order to address poverty, barriers to business ownership must be mitigated and primary education options need to be improved. Temporary assistance for those who fall on hard times should come from private charities.

From across the political and ideological spectrum, there is now almost universal acknowledgement that the American social welfare system has been a failure.

Since the start of the "war on poverty" in 1965, the United States has spent more than $5 trillion trying to ease the plight of the poor. What we have received for this massive investment is—primarily—more poverty.

Our welfare system is unfair to everyone: to taxpayers who must pick up the bill for failed programs; to society, whose mediating institutions of community, church and family are increasingly pushed aside; and most of all to the poor themselves, who are trapped in a system that destroys opportunity for themselves and hope for their children.

The Libertarian Party believes it is time for a new approach to fighting poverty. It is a program based on opportunity, work, and individual responsibility.

End Welfare

None of the proposals currently being advanced by either conservatives or liberals is likely to fix the fundamental problems with our welfare system. Current proposals for welfare reform, including block grants, job training, and "workfare" represent mere tinkering with a failed system.

It is time to recognize that welfare cannot be reformed: it should be ended.

We should eliminate the entire social welfare system. This includes eliminating AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children], food stamps, subsidized housing, and all the rest. Individuals who are unable to fully support themselves and their families through the job market must, once again, learn to rely on supportive family, church, community, or private charity to bridge the gap.

If the federal government's attempt at charity has been a dismal failure, private efforts have been much more successful. America is the most generous nation on earth. We already contribute more than $125 billion annually to charity. However, as we phase out inefficient government welfare, private charities must be able to step up and fill the void.

To help facilitate this transfer of responsibility from government welfare to private charity, the federal government should offer a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for contributions to private charities that provide social-welfare services. That is to say, if an individual gives a dollar to charity, he should be able to reduce his tax liability by a dollar.

We call for the repeal of government regulations and taxes that are steadily cutting the bottom rungs off the economic ladder.

Tear Down Barriers to Economic Growth

Almost everyone agrees that a job is better than any welfare program. Yet for years this country has pursued tax and regulatory policies that seem perversely designed to discourage economic growth and reduce entrepreneurial opportunities. Someone starting a business today needs a battery of lawyers just to comply with the myriad of government regulations from a virtual alphabet soup of government agencies: OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], FTC [Federal Trade Commission], CPSC [Consumer Product Safety Commission], etc. Zoning and occupational licensing laws are particularly damaging to the type of small businesses that may help people work their way out of poverty.

In addition, government regulations such as minimum wage laws and mandated benefits drive up the cost of employing additional workers. We call for the repeal of government regulations and taxes that are steadily cutting the bottom rungs off the economic ladder.

Reform Education

There can be no serious attempt to solve the problem of poverty in America without addressing our failed government-run school system. Nearly forty years after Brown vs. Board of Education, America's schools are becoming increasingly segregated, not on the basis of race, but on income. Wealthy and middle class parents are able to send their children to private schools, or at least move to a district with better public schools. Poor families are trapped—forced to send their children to a public school system that fails to educate.

It is time to break up the public education monopoly and give all parents the right to decide what school their children will attend. It is essential to restore choice and the discipline of the marketplace to education. Only a free market in education will provide the improvement in education necessary to enable millions of Americans to escape poverty.

Hard Times Require Compassion and Charity

We should not pretend that reforming our welfare system will be easy or painless. In particular it will be difficult for those people who currently use welfare the way it was intended—as a temporary support mechanism during hard times. However, these people remain on welfare for short periods of time. A compassionate society will find other ways to help people who need temporary assistance. But our current government-run welfare system is costly to taxpayers and cruel to the children born into a cycle of welfare dependency and hopelessness.

The Libertarian Party offers a positive alternative to the failed welfare state. We offer a vision of a society based on work, individual responsibility, and private charity. It is a society based on opportunity and genuine compassion it is a society built on liberty.

Bibliography

Smith, Craig R. "Welfare Reform Has Not Gone Far Enough." Welfare. Ed. Margaret 
     Haerens. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2012. N. pag. Opposing Viewpoints. Web. 9 
     Dec. 2013. <http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/>. 

"Government Welfare Hurts Society and Does Not Benefit The Poor." How Can The 
     Poor Be Helped? Ed. Jennifer Dorman. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2011. N. pag. 
     Opposing Viewpoints. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. <http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ 
     ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/>. 

Welfare Reform Has Not Gone Far Enough

"Frankly, I am fine with a nation that does not feed people who are not willing to work."

Craig R. Smith is an author and conservative commentator. In the following viewpoint, he asserts that despite attempts to reform welfare, the system is in trouble again. Smith argues that it is time to reevaluate a system that allows unproductive citizens to receive government assistance. He believes it is time to get tough with all government assistance programs. His suggestions for stricter policies include instituting surveillance of recipients to crack down on cases of fraud; taking payment for emergency medical treatment for the uninsured out of future earnings or welfare benefits; and sending medical bills for illegal immigrants to their native countries for payment.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What percentage of American households does Smith maintain depend on some form of income from the government?
2. How many working Americans pay into Social Security for every one recipient as of 2003, according to Smith?
3. How many additional baby boomers does Smith indicate were about to get SSI benefits at the beginning of 2010?

The time has come in America to let the pains begin.

Over the last 87 years our politicians have been slowly building a welfare state in America with an abundance of unproductive takers and a steadily increasing deficiency of productive participants.

With 42 million Americans now receiving food stamps and 50 percent of all households depending on some form of income from the government, just how long do we think we can keep the system afloat? How many more nonproductive citizens, who have grown very accustomed to their bills being paid by the government, can we add before our system collapses under its own weight?

FDR [US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt] introduced the first of many government dependence programs falsely called "Social Security." By 1950, there were 16 working Americans paying into the system for every one beneficiary. By 2003, there were 3.3 contributors for every one recipient. It is projected by 2033 that ratio will be 2:1. That is a system with a low chance of survival.

Social Security Is Doomed to Fail

This admonition was offered by [US Federal Reserve chairman] Alan Greenspan in February 2004 in a AP [Associated Press] story: "As 77 million of the baby boom generation become eligible for Social Security starting in 2008, this dramatic demographic change is certain to place enormous demands ... demands we will almost surely be unable to meet unless action is taken ... as soon as possible, the country will go from having just over three workers supporting each retiree to 2.25 workers for every retiree by 2025."

He was right!

I know what you are going to say. There is a trust fund. Once we start taking in less than we pay out, we tap the trust. Wrong sparky! Your wonderful politicians spent the money. There is no "lock box." The FICA payments paid were spent just like every other tax dollar.

Social Security was a tax spent wastefully and foolishly by a bunch of nit wits thinking they could make a program work. But it was doomed from the start.

But that is just one of the many programs destined to fail.

As the number of illegal aliens receiving free medical care and social services increases, how long will it be until other states face what the bankrupted state of California is facing? So much for the unbridled success of "sanctuary cities."

We have come to a point in America when we just need to say no!

Just Say No

Will it be painful? Very! No doubt. But it is surely coming and steps must be taken immediately if we are to remain a nation with freedom and liberty. The ability to succeed or fail is the backbone of freedom and anything short of that is slavery in a glossy wrapper.

I know we don't want people dying in the streets for lack of medical care, and I doubt America's image in the world would improve if photos of starving people living on the street were broadcast like the pictures from Abu Ghraib. However, we must come to grips with reality. We cannot afford to pay for all this care for everyone who allegedly needs it.

It is now clear that, without substantial entitlement reform, it is impossible to stop future deterioration of the economic wellbeing of the country. We just can't continue to provide what many have grown accustom to receiving. The math no longer works. The day is rapidly approaching were we must face the music.

For far too long we have avoided these burdens to our budget. Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and welfare have been "reformed" several times in the past only to be in crisis years later. That should make us question the viability of these programs going forward. I know the intentions were mostly pure, but we can't afford them. The pathway to hell is paved with good intentions.

Time to Get Tough

Frankly, I am fine with a nation that does not feed people who are not willing to work. I have no problem putting someone out on the street when they believe they are entitled to be taken care of because of where they were born. Not everyone who claims he or she needs help should get it, only those who truly do. How many times have you watched a person on disability busted by a camera crew as they are boarding a ski lift or playing softball when they claim they can't walk? There are many people willing to lie to get a check.

I am fine with people who walk into a ER [Emergency Room] expecting to receive free treatment being told no. Or at least being handed a bill when they leave. They can pay the bill slowly out of their future earnings. Or at least a percentage of the winning lottery ticket they bought with their welfare check.

Maybe sending a bill to the country of origin's government for the illegals who receive care would be appropriate. Why should you and I have to pay? I didn't ask them to break into our country.

With 42 million citizens on food stamps and 50 percent of households requiring some form of government assistance, we have an unsustainable economic model for our country. Unless that country is willing to trade its freedom and liberty for the promise of a hot meal, a roof and medical care.

Soon we will have an additional 77 million baby boomers getting SSI benefits and millions more on unemployment. Add to that the millions on welfare and disability. At what point do we say no mas?!