What is wrong with the welfare program?

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Website owner:  James Miller

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What is wrong with the welfare program? The problem with welfare is that it creates the very problem that it is supposed to solve — multiplying it. It creates more welfare families instead of less. It treats a trickle and turns it into a flood. How does it do this? It gives women an incentive to have children outside wedlock. And then it trains their children and grandchildren in attitudes and skills conducive to doing the same — teaches them welfare mentality, gaming the system. And women having children outside wedlock creates dysfunctional, messed up children. And large numbers of women having illegitimate children brings crime and general social dysfunction. And all of this crime and social dysfunction costs taxpayers a gigantic amount of money. How much do you think it costs to house and feed a welfare family for a year? Check into it. Do some calculations. And how many welfare families do you think our government is supporting? What do you think the total policing and legal costs are stemming from all of this crime arising in our ghettoes? How much do you suppose it costs per year to take care of those millions of messed up people that we are housing in our prisons?

It is important for a child to have impressed into his mind the image of a good, honest, hard-working, moral father. When I was only four or five years old I can remember my father, who was only in his mid-twenties at the time, installing hardwood flooring in our house, building a garage, and working out in a large garden next to our house. (Although it was before my memory, he also built a brick chimney for the house.) He was doing all of this in addition to working a 8:00 to 5:00 job. I remember I was impressed by my father. I was impressed by all of the things he knew how to do and by his huge capacity for hard work. We get opinions of people by their actions, the things they do. All of this impressed me. At this young age I was capable of making judgments on people. I understood character and merit when I saw it. My father grew up in the days of the great depression. He grew up poor. When he was in his early teens, his father, who had worked in a factory, lost his job. Then, to provide for the family, he found work cutting out oak railroad ties with a cross-cut saw. And my father and his two brothers had to help him. It even caused my father to have to drop out of school for a couple of years (he later went back and finished high school). Just after marrying my mother he had some very hard, dirty jobs — jobs requiring heavy lifting, lifting that was just too heavy for him. They were all he could find. He was not a big, heavy man. He was a slender man, about 5 feet, 8 inches tall. At one time he was working for 50 cents a day for a farmer. He was prudent enough to save money and when I was 6 he had saved enough to buy a farm. And in those days, after buying that farm, I saw him do a really amazing amount of work: He tore down buildings, built new buildings, built a new milking parlor in the barn, poured a lot of concrete with that little electric cement mixer, completely remodeled the old farmhouse. And he did all of this in addition to raising corn, wheat, oats, hay, cucumbers, red raspberries, and taking care of pigs, chickens, and around 35 head of cattle (we even had a horse at one time). And all of this while he worked at a regular job. And he never had any help except for me, my younger brother, and my mother. (He never hired anything done.) Then when I was a teenager, he bought a building containing nine apartments which he owned for the most of the rest of his life. And when he died he left an estate worth 1.5 million dollars. He was a very honest person and I don’t think he ever cheated anyone.

What are the influences influencing a young child growing up on welfare? Where is the image of a good father? In most cases he probably has the impressions and experiences associated with a succession of men living with his mother. What does he see? Good, moral, hardworking men or bad, profligate loafers? What kind of people surround him? Good people? Religious people? Or sluts, drug dealers, pimps, con men, ex convicts? What kind of language does he hear? Clean, decent language or the lowest kind of filth spiced with all kinds profanity and four-letter words? Where does he see examples of Character and Goodness? What kind of slanted view of life does he get? What kind of life-training is he being raised in? What kind of children does he associate with? Who are his friends? Good, decent, well brought up children? Or rough, untaught children roaming the streets? Is it surprising that he starts using and selling drugs and murdering people? Where is the example of a lawyer or physician parent who might inspire him to study hard in school? Who around him believes in hard work and getting a good education? All around him are experts at ripping off the system. And blaming others for their problems. That is their skill and their life outlook.

It is a fact of life. Life is hard. That is what I have seen. I think life is hard for most people. I think it is important to understand that. It takes character to deal with it. (I think liberals, isolated as they are up in those ivory towers, need to be informed of all this. I don’t think they understand it.) And dealing with life can build character, improve people. Some people are made better and stronger by it. And some are destroyed by it. (If you drink and use drugs and party, it will probably destroy you.)

I don’t think most Americans today work very hard. At least, you don’t see many Americans out doing hard, manual work. All of the hard, manual work today seems to be being done by Latins who have come up from Latin America. In Latin America jobs are hard to find, the countries are dysfunctional, and Latins are very happy to come up here and build houses, mow lawns, and clean motel rooms. I often wonder how many men who are selling drugs, pimping, or are gigolos living off some welfare woman, might be out mowing lawns if they wished to. That kind of work doesn’t pay much and just isn’t to their taste. They know easier ways to make a living.

July 2019