Welfare

2 Pages 613 Words

When it was originally conceived during a time of economic
distress, the welfare program supplied aid to those in need.
Welfare aid was received primarily by widowed and divorced
mothers, and it served as a cushion to break their fall into
a different lifestyle, so that they could get back on their
feet and walk on there own with the intent to get there life
on track. However today it has come to serve as a paycheck
for irresponsible Americans. Welfare is like patching a
water main with duct tape; you have to constantly make sure
that you keep putting more tape on it to keep it in check, I
believe. Welfare programs should show the poor they must
learn to fish for themselves if recipients are ever going to
work again to support themselves. With this in mind, we
must change our welfare system. In 1935,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “I can now see the end
of public assistance in America.” FDR’s declaration did not
come true considering the amounts of money the federal
government was giving out to the poor. The sums were
intended to give the needy a boost that would theoretically
start the poor towards economic success. That didn’t work.
Since then, and over the past 25 years, welfare spending
designed to achieve FDR’s goal has totaled hundreds of
billions of dollars. Since then, income support to welfare
recipients multiplied more than five times in constant
dollars. That is, relative to inflation and cost of living
adjustments. Since then, the idea of ending public
assistance in America has become more and more absurd.
Since the early days when welfare helped widows or divorced
women make the difficult change to a new start, it’s major
function has changed. In a Los
Angeles Times poll from 1985, 70 percent of poor women said
it is “almost always” or “often” true that “poor young women
have babies so they can collect welfare.” Two thirds said
that welfare...