Why Welfare Will Never Change
by Uncommon KnowledgeThe welfare state isn’t going anywhere. The current debate is, as our recent guest William Voegeli argues, simply “narcissism of small differences.” It will surely mean a nasty fight, but it won’t end with any dramatic changes to the public’s philosophy of government and what it is meant to do or provide. The truth is – people like getting stuff. And politicians have no incentive to be clear about how the welfare state works. Instead, they are comfortable with the vast majority of the public fundamentally misunderstanding social security and welcome the welfare state’s ability to buy off voters.
Why so pessimistic? As Voegeli argues in the episode below, “liberal victories advance liberalism. Conservative victories postpone liberalism.” Even in the reign of the Republican Party from 1980 – 2007 (where the GOP controlled any combination of the White House, House and Senate), the cost of the welfare state ballooned 77%.
No one under the age of 45 has any memory of government being organized any differently – FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society fundamentally changed the intellectual framework for our government, We went from a limited constitutional government to a more energetic, powerful government that can (try to) solve people’s problems. Voegeli, while submitting to the reality of a continued welfare state, argues that the GOP needs to find a welfare state that we can live with and admire. One that creates a social safety net that actually helps those who really need it, without propping up and enabling those that don’t and/or spending money that we simply do not have.
For a historical look at the creation of the welfare state, its growth and continuation (and thoughts on what to do about it), watch Voegeli’s full episode below:
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
70 Comments
Why will welfare never change?
Because they are entitled to it.
The Roman Republic fell because of welfare. In high school, I learned that "dole" is apparently latin for "bread". They gave away free bread because they had so much extra. This was very popular… until there wasn't any extra.
And that led to the Roman Empire.
Maybe you cannot end the welfare state as there will always be a never ending supply of half wits who can't manage a GED but you can reduced it by not institutionalizing whole families in a never ending cycle of generational welfare. If your unmarried mother raised you and you siblings on welfare as the baby daddy just ran off then you should not be eligible to receive benefits as an adult. That includes your kids. If the federal govt. just puts an iron clad limit on just how much welfare one family can receive then it can break the cycle.
We need to stop making welfare so damn comfortable and painless.
It won't change because there will always be poor people and some of them will always see their poorness as society's fault that they are who they are and those poor will always expect said society to provide for them. Personally I think those types are just lazy Democrats though.
Socialism works great…..until….you run out of other peoples money
Just like today.
Ben Bernanke runs his printing presses 24/7 printing dollars. The Government gives them away for free, in the form of foreign aid, to anyone that will take them.
Now there aren't any left, of any value, for US.
Bread, for circus, eh?
Your word "dole"?
The way I was raised, those who got on what you call the "dole", we called "the draw" (drawing public funds). We were raised that it was a sin, something to be ashamed of.
Prior to LBJ's Great Society, I can remember what was known by all as the "County Poor Farm". A place for widows and orphans to live. it was a working farm, where people earned their keep, working the farm, in exchange for three hots and a cot. It worked, and served its purpose. It was a safety net, for those too far down on their luck, or those who had no pride.
However we go about reforming welfare, and it will be done, it will need to be done incrementally to avoid
riots and civil unrest. The LEFT has shown us with the recent agitprop abroad that they have the means
and the formula to get 'er done.
People who have had a free ride all their lives won't give that up without noticing.
The only way we'll be able to push reform through over several years is to continue the TEA Party move-
ment, electing more and more conservative Congressmen every two years. We must pay attention to every
single vote they make, and never be too timid to ask for an explanation, especially if we disagree with their vote.
At the first sign a Congressman or Senator has caught DC-itis we must be ready and willing to kick them out.
.
Yep – you get more of what you subsidize.
Define "poor."
So what you're saying is we were doomed before I was born, and there's no reversing it.
Great.
Not! It will change when it all blows up…not much longer now. Hit the reset, I am not getting any younger.
Me too.
I'm not getting any younger either.
I halfway want to see the feces hit the impeller, just so that I might participate in the festivities.
Might as well get it over with, let the dust settle, and put some adults back in charge.
I agree. Letting the Congress members know that we want honesty and tight controls on Welfare in the form of Welfare reforms, is a great motivator. You're right that the Tea Party Citizens are the ones to do it because we are the Majority in America and we WILL follow up.
87 new Congressional members in one Mid-term election is very impressive, and there is a lot of respect and regard for We The People who have partnered up with our Congress. I'm looking forward to continuing our momentum and to clean out and return America to it's natural self before we were invaded by Socialists!
Don't fret though.
Work hard, and send all your money to the Government, so they can give it to some worthless schlub who refuses to.
I am economizing at every juncture in my life. In the grocery last weekend I was getting Bologna on sale to boot and the fine folks in front of me were getting steak, shrimp and lobster, paid for with a EBT drawn off our taxes. Gas and energy prices go up daily stretching my meager dollar, maybe Bernanke could make the new dollars of a stretchy material and its all friggin Obama the kenyan A holes fault! In writing on the record, can I be a Journalist now that I am doing their job? Blow it up and hit reset, Madoff must get a chuckle to know that in jail for a small ponzi scheme he will get his three squares while politicians likely won't survive the collapse.
James Dale Davidson's precision is germane here:
The fraud continues under this administration: Sebelius Cracks! Admits the Obamacare Books Were Cooked http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukaIZ7pmabo&fe...
"Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality – an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order."
Friedrich August von Hayek
“One of the consequences of such notions as "entitlements" is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.” –Thomas Sowell
"it will need to be done incrementally to avoid riots and civil unrest."
A big part of the problem, no matter how well it's done, will be the main stream press. Those vile creatures would take even the best laid out plan and report it like it was the "crime of the century." I'm not sure exactly how we get those miscreants under control, but I think we're going to need a REAL President with the cajones to do it, and the communication skills to explain it. Even then, it'll be a rough ride.
Surely at some point they will have discredited themselves sufficiently that their tripe becomes
hollow, like the little boy who cried wolf.
Does that fable no longer hold water in American morality and ethics?
; )
American morality and ethics?
That's right. I think I read about those in a book one time. Haven't seen hide nor hair of those for a loooooong time.
Turn on the fan. Let it fly.
That is a very wise quote. Accomplishments in education have not improved due to having a federal DOE, obesity has increased with welfare and our freedom has decreased due to federal government. The root of the problem is the federal government- more failure is practically guaranteed.
I wouldn't go as far to say we're doomed. IMHO, it's that the whole program hasn't been thought through to the end game, so to speak. It's pretty well known that once a government entity-program is established, it lives on forever.
It's going to have to take some pretty strong willed legislators to break through that system.
Mitt Romney is speaking live in New Hampshire right now. This is the #1 story on Drudge, Politico, and there are a ton of reporters in the room. Watch it live by clicking http://www.facebook.com/mittromney?v=app_14237181...
Is Mitt announcing tonight?
I suggest starting with the most fundamental or items known as food. There are certain staples that virtually every single person can consume. Make them free for everyone at all government places. Beans, rice, powdered milk, powdered eggs and eliminate those monies from the welfare food monies sent to individuals. Gradually ramp up what is available to everyone while eliminating the option to buy (spending other people money). Once a balanced BLAND essential foodstuff is available to all, then all food assistance can be done with. One thing at a time and over the course of a few years and that cuts the cash in the plantations which is being misused by far too many.
That's weird, I was going to expand it a bit to say that very same thing – I guess I heard it before and forgot.
Here is why he's wrong.
He argues that LBJ and FDR changed the way government is organized, therefore nobody under the age of 45 can remember it being any other way so it can never be changed.
Think about it, that means that when those reorganizations occured NOBODY could remember the government being organized in the manner in which it came to be.
It is precisely because nobody can remember life without a welfare state that it will, at some point, go away.
Unfortunately, we can never get rid of welfare until we get a huge change in attitude about sex. It will always be a very difficult burden to truly raise kids with only one parent. How can you be in two places at once? Or make enough money to pay someone else to be the second parent for you? Most cannot pull it off. The answer to the welfare state is fathers.
Welfare needs to end. It needs to be phased out. One of the first reforms should be that any person receiving welfare of any kind is not allowed to vote until they are off welfare. We have to take the vote buying aspect out of welfare and this is a simple way to do it.
Once the Democrats can no longer glean an advantage with big government giveaways they will be inclined to find new ways to steal our money. But at least the welfare problem and the evils caused by it will start to dwindle.
Not a bad idea at all. So instead of getting your card automatically loaded up with more grocery store money, you go pick up your food. It would be logistically a LOT harder to pull off, but I suspect we would save a small fortune, even with the added costs of food transportation and distribution centers. Like the church distribution centers, they could pass out food from trailers in the parking lots of government buildings to keep overhead costs down. Better yet, the government should send some food to churches and allow them to pass it out as well. So you can get your food for the week at the local DMV or your corner church. But no more food stamps. Then we would have to offer cooking classes..I just read that only 30% of American women know how to cook a roast…..what would they do with dry beans and rice??!!
I didn't watch the video. But there's no reason a FEDERAL welfare state must continue. It cannot. We will go bankrupt if we try.
So, yes, we can change things… not just can, but it will happen, no matter what. Either by saving the nation, or it collapsing. Which do you prefer?
That or they became share croppers. Most of my Great Grandparents & Great Great Grandparents were share croppers who never owned their own land. The banks owned the land or private owners and it either sat idle or they could allow someone to live and work the land in exchange for a percent of the proceeds. That went by the way side with the industrial age when so many share croppers were forced off land they had been on for generations to make room for large farms that could produce far more with new farming equipment.
My Great Great Grandmother was a widow at a young age with 12 kids. Fortunately the two oldest boys were teenagers and able to take on a lot of work. The girls worked very hard as well though. My Granny and her sister were said to be able to handle a team to plow the fields as well as any man. In the winter they had to break the ice every day to get water to feed the livestock. During one summer drought, their brothers put a wheel base on a barrel and they had to go a mile for water, then push the barrel back home.
Bottom line is a widow with 12 kids survived with very very hard work and working together as a family. My Granny said they loved each other and took great care to make sure each other all had what they needed.
Most likely the "fine folks in front of you" had bought that EBT card for pennies on the dollar. That's another huge problem. If you are playing by the rules and feeding your family on welfare & food stamps, there's no way you can afford steak and lobster. Food stamp recipients sell their $100 card for $30 cash they can use for cigarettes, booze and/or drugs, or whatever. Now the purchaser can buy $100 worth of groceries for their $30 investment. That needs to stop. Billion, yes, I said billions of dollars are leaving CA every year via those selling their cards for others to spend in Vegas or wherever. It's disgusting.
I of course hadn't thought of that. It boggles my mind why states are not buying food at super wholesale prices and distributing the food to the truly needy. How many billions might theat save? To hell with their self esteem, they can earn that when they earn a paycheck!
People would figure out a way to scam that kind of a system too!
"…….“liberal victories advance liberalism. Conservative victories postpone liberalism.”………"
Nixon and Bush II did an adequate job and Reagan,……..
even replaced some amount of liberalism but,…..
the next Republican president is going to have to come in with a bulldozer.
otherwise the United States will be become mostly the Welfare States.
Let's rock and roll.
Never say never.
Wel fare is like a drug. Once they get hooked on free cash for nothing, they are hooked. I seen lazy bast ards driving around in Cadillacs when I am push starting my Dodge just to go sell some furniture!
These people are complete and utter fools if they truly believe the Federal government can just keep on borrowing forever in order to fund this seemingly endless list of entitlement programs. Sooner or later the credit's going to dry up and then what? Easy. The flow of entitlements is just going to have to stop, whether people like or not. Those that try to use this as a catalyst to foment violence should just be put down with the Second Amendment.
The welfare state will be undone when there is a philosophy that convincingly repudiates it and most people in turn agree on that philosophy, particularly the intellectuals. That philosophy is not Conservatism. America is doomed from welfare and regulation. The economy is in its present condition because of dramatic welfare and regulatory increases under both Bush and Obama. So what do we get from Republicans? Compassionate Conservatism, which fully embraces the welfare state as moral and promotes it. Don't expect them to make fundamental changes.
I will personally buy a First Class one-way ticket for any Muslim who promises not to return to my country.
The problem is that their promises are like Obamas, empty.
Hey, its in the Qu'ran.
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die." – Kipling
They get a debit card here with cash on it in addition to the federal Food stamp card which is no longer called Food Stamps but SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program! Many people with these debit cards have balances approaching $1,000 by months end dates. The here is AZ! They must really need the money with those high balances.
Welfare will end…because we're broke. It is time to allow the Free Market to use what money is left to rebirth. The intitled class must die. There is no alternative or it's the end of America. Not on my watch. I choose FIGHT! To End the welfare state and all those who enable it. Fight or die. Time for a Taxpayers' deal…a Capitalist Deal…a Free Market Deal…there can be no other Deal any longer. Welfare Rats must Cold Turkey….or get the hell outa here…it's warm in Mexico…PURGE them there.
Progressives, socialists, communists, Roosevelt and today's Democrats are bad for Business. You want a good free market job, walk a democrat to the border and push it across the line. Allow no further re-entry.
Writer misses the point that the end game for the Welfare State is POWER and CONTROL of all behavior by a ruling class…the top class never works…the control class is heartless…it means the death of Individual Liberty and a Free Market. Hell NO…. the leeches must be PURGED. Scammers…All of them…GTFO while you can. Stay and you will enjoy the rooms and views at Gitmo Max.
As i have stated before, never in history has a government moved back to the right,
can the US make history?
I think it can …..these entitlements were put in place slowly over time, they must be dismantled slowly or people will reject any change to the right,
there are things that can be done faster like totally reform of the EPA, an other monstrosities that have been created,
no policy should be made by any of these programs.
agreed. thx
agreed, thx
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz rino
time limit, forced work to pay it back, no breeding for more…loss of vote and citizenship rights suggested…I understand.
The welfare state is bad for business…kill it.
Preferably adult, working fathers.
How about fingerprinting? New York State suggested it a few years back and you wouldn't believe the "invasion of privacy" outcry. No mention of the invasion of my income.
PS
I could also get behind random drug testing of recipients.
Ultimately, Voegeli is wrong. You can stretch a Ponzi scheme but, it WILL eventually collapse. When it implodes, reality strikes. Regardless of what people want or believe.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
If we do not rein it in, we will be destroyed. Reform must be undertaken, but too many people already have a vested interest in preserving the Welfare State. The prognosis for our country is not good unless the culture of Welfare changes.
Because a tax eater's vote counts the same as a taxpayer's vote.
If you keep this up, you're going to get into positive territory. Are you sure you can't find some way to blame this on Israel or the Jews?
Anyway, thumbs up!
My ex-father-in-law grew up on a "Christian" work farm because his mother divorced his father because of physical abuse and she didn't have enough money to raise him and his 3 brothers.
BTW: The reason I put "Christian" in quotes is because it didn't sound very Christian. The punishments he and his brothers endured for even minor infractions were not very Christian IMHO.
But he and his brothers, despite the bad stuff, worked on the farm and learned other skills that likely kept them employed no matter what the situation – carpentry, farming, construction, etc. etc. etc.
To me, it's best handled by private institutions as long as there is a way out for those people – in other words, they aren't stuck there for life doing slave labor. As long as it is a good way to give them a Hand Up, rather than a Hand Out, I'm for that rather than for just sending people checks to sit on their @sses.
My parents would see big fat women at the grocery store with a gaggle of kids, no father, grocery carts full to the top, and then see them get into a Cadillac. In the meantime, both my parents worked and they drove a 1976 Pontiac Ventura until 1988 and then my mom got a modest Honda Civic. My dad was only lucky to drive a Ford Taurus (and later a small Jeep Cherokee Sport) because it was a "company car".
My paternal grandparents were a coal miner/carpenter and a seamstress – never a day on welfare.
My maternal grandparents lived in England as Polish refugees after WW2 and they worked in the factory. Never collected a day of welfare or unemployment, even when the unions, which they were forced to join, went on strike. They just went out and got other temporary jobs.
I was taught that no job was ever beneath me, no work was ever bad unless it was illegal or immoral.
I have a law degree and hit bad times starting last year (and I'm barely out of it even now). I worked at JC Penney for a month during the Christmas holiday and I'm currently working an Executive Assistant part-time job, while trying to find other work.
Now, I have received state disability insurance when I was home after giving birth, but that was for 8 weeks each time and that was it. And I actually paid into that.
Delaying liberalism via conservative actions is a great way of phrasing the problems we have trying to roll back the welfare state. Ain't gonna happen until we really know what is happening in the welfare state. Unless, and until, we can track all the "income, redistributed" there will be NO change. Every government redistribution must generate a 1099-GOV! Only then will the obvious failures of the government become focused. When your neighbor gets most of his house payment, food, and income from the government with no reporting, you will feel better getting your W-2 or 1099-MISC as long as the money taken from your pocket also gets reported on the 1099-GOV.
"As i have stated before, never in history has a government moved back to the right"
When the Supreme Court declared a number of FDR's acts unconstitutional, that helped.
I don't believe that the welfare state will continue "ad infinitum"…the finances to support it will not always be there. Of course that doesn't stop the poverty pimps from trying to convince the American public that they are owed something or from making ridiculous decisions because of the governmental safety net. The champion of more section 8 public housing in Houston is at it again and this time she's been busted for being the worse boss in America. Check out this funny parody of her antics… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC3sYWTsZw0
Excellent idea.
)
that's half of the equation. the other half is the politicians & bureaucracies that are equally dependent on having a dependent class to pander to and justify their jobs.
one of the scarier things i've seen in recent years was a program about the beginnings of the welfare state. i couldn't believe how solidly middle-of-the-road people like Hubert Humphrey would be today. it's shocking how far to the left this country has slid…
Yes it is, i do not want to be Europe or any other place, an who would want to become Mexico? If the Progressives aren't stopped that will be our future,
Progressives really dont know that if what they are fighting for comes to pass they can forget ever owning a business or free speech, an all the other freedoms they enjoy now,
blind leading the blind is the progressive movement now.
You must be logged in to post a comment.