Why Welfare doesn’t work by Justin Alexander

“Programs that are labeled as being for the poor, for the needy almost always have affects exactly the opposite of those which the well-intended sponsors intended them to have.”
-Milton Friedman

Why is it that the lowest among us stagnate? Have you ever noticed that generations of families continue to live in the projects again and again? Have you ever noticed that those who are below the poverty line must have the thickest resolve if they want to make an honest living? We cannot defend, but certainly we can understand why some in this situation would turn to selling drugs or committing theft to supplement the income that the government steals from them. Government sponsored housing is the biggest scam since the Great Depression and it’s time that it be unmasked for the penny-pinching monster that it is.

In 1964 President Johnson started his infamous War on Poverty and it worked,… temporarily. The Johnson administration saw the impoverished population go from 34million to about 24 million, a modest improvement. It was successful enough that the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations continued different yet similar versions of the policy; however to their dismay the numbers stagnated. Reagan thought that adding lower taxes would help the poor,…it did not, in fact by the end of Reagan’s first term the numbers were right back where they started and by the end of Bush 41’s tenure it was a whopping 40 million! The Census bureau’s said in 2005 that the numbers are around 37 million, but it is expected to be higher in 2010 due to the recession.

So, why didn’t it work? Tens of billions of dollars later, why do we still have all these people on government assistance? The “War on Poverty” is no different than the war in Nam, or the war in Iraq, or a War on drugs. Not only can it never be won through conventional means, but it’s not supposed to be won. No, the truth is it is to be endlessly continued in order to exploit both the poor and the well-to-do while giving the illusion of helping society. The government provides amenities like cable TV, cell phones, and other non-necessities in order to make a life of poverty as comfortable as possible. The amount of aid given to the poor is based on income so for every step forward you take the government pushes back to insure that you will not rise above the fray. If your rich and you are punished for your successes, what do you do? Well, you angrily write a check as you pay more taxes while maintaining your lifestyle, but what if you’re poor and punished for your successes, what then? The only way to keep the government out of your wallet when you’re poor is to go under the table, become a criminal.

“Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”-Milton Friedman