"The assumption that spending more of the taxpayer's money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family- which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars and depressions- began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to 'help'."

- Thomas Sowell


Statist Problems

• Stretching the Poor
  The Left is running out of the poor, who serve as a justification of their drive to extend their power over all the rest of us. - Thomas Sowell, January 22, 2004 [Capitalism Magazine]

• A Retrospective on Johnson's Poverty War
  The War on Poverty was in reality a State-sponsored war on the opportunities of the poor and on all Americans. - Adam Young, December 31, 2002 [Mises]

• Welfare: Temporary and Forever
  Now that the economy is in a slump, many of the workers who gave up their welfare benefits are finding themselves without a job. - Christopher Westley, January 3, 2002 [Mises]

• A Free Ride for Free Willy Whale
  One of the great lessons about welfare that we all should learn in life is that anytime a person, place, thing, or animal is put on the dole, it remains there in perpetuity. - Karen De Coster, December 5, 2001 [LewRockwell.com]

• Too Much Presidential Power
  President Bush's proposal to subsidize private religious charity is a disaster in the making. It would wreck good charities by making them dependent on federal loot. It would compromise their religious mission by making them squeamish about evangelizing. - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., June 29, 2001 [LewRockwell.com]

• Helping the Poor
  In her April 12, 2001, column in The Washington Post, ominously entitled 'Think of the Children,' Mary McGrory concludes that the government should help out more...Describing the situation that Ms. [Elizabeth (Cookie)] Jones and her three children face, Ms. McGrory remarks that 'the institutions in Cookie's life are spectacularly unresponsive.' Yes, but it is a tale of public failure at every turn. - Adam Young, May 3, 2001 [Mises]

• Reinventing America's Poor
  A strong economy is the mortal enemy of the welfare bureaucracy. If Americans are productive and prospering, who needs all those welfare bureaucrats? - Thomas J. DiLorenzo, January 2000 [Mises]

• Welfare Is Welfare
  A few years ago President Clinton and the Republican Congress created the Children's Health Insurance Program, which gives state governments money to provide free medical insurance to children whose parents make too much money to qualify for Medicaid. - Sheldon Richman, November 1999 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]

• Welfare As A Benefit Of Citizenship
  New immigrants collected $735 million in welfare benefits in 1997. - Audrey Hudson, June 29, 1999 [NCPA]

• Scamming the Poor
  One of the biggest scams in American politics is the bromide that government officials use to justify America's paternalistic welfare state and the federal income tax: "We love the poor, the needy, and the disadvantaged." The primary victims of the scam are the poor themselves. - Jacob G. Hornberger, May 1999 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]

• Our Corrupting Welfare State
  Champions of the free society have long warned that the welfare state-in which the government does for people what they ought to do for themselves-has a corrosive effect on the character of human beings. - Sheldon Richman, August 1998 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]

• The Genesis of Welfare
  Far from having been reformed, much less abolished, welfare continues to grow. - William L. Anderson, July 1998 [Mises]

• As Need Falls, Welfare Programs Grow
  - Tony Snow, January 10, 1998 [NCPA]

• HUD Goes Berserk
  The welfare state keeps being reinvented under new labels. - Thomas DiLorenzo, March 1997 [Mises]

• The Welfare Trap
  It should be abolished because it is inconsistent with liberty. - Sheldon Richman, January 1997 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]

• Many States launch Welfare-To-Shuffle
  - Laura M. Litvan, November 26, 1996 [NCPA]

• A Wrecking Ball for Your Neighborhood
  Thanks to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), welfare recipients are using government handouts to move into middle-class and upper middle-class neighborhoods. - James Bovard, October 1996 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]

• All "Our" Children?
  In the welfare debates, Congress spared what is perhaps the most objectionable part of the welfare state, cash subsidies for illegitimate children.- Michael Levin, April 1996 [Mises]

• U.S. Welfare Luring Elderly Immigrants
  - Robert Rector, February 20, 1996 [NCPA]

• Measuring Poverty
  Government Poverty Policies Based on Flawed Data - Dana Milbank, October 5, 1995 [NCPA]

• The Folly of Participating in Government Welfare
  - Paul A. Cleveland, September and October, 1995 [Acton Institute]
  
  
• The Work vs. Welfare Tradeoff: An Analysis of the Total Level of Welfare Benefits by State
  Shows how much a person receives when wealth is redistributed. For example, in Pennsylvania, the 1995 wage equivalent of welfare is $19,700 per year or $9.47/hour. - Michael Tanner, Stephen Moore, and David Hartman, September 19, 1995 [CATO]

• Relationship Between the Welfare State and Crime
  Testimony of Michael Tanner, Director of Health and Welfare Studies of The Cato Institute, June 7, 1995 [CATO]

• Welfare and Abortion Mix Too Well
  - Robert A. Sirico, March 19, 1995 [Acton Institute]

• Welfare State Fails in its "Compassion"
  - Robert A. Sirico, March 14, 1993 [Acton Institute]

• Social Programs? Whose Values do They Serve?
  - Richard Hammer, January 1, 1991 [Libertarian Nation Foundation]

• Welfare Fraud
  The president says that he has 'ended welfare as we know it.' Congressional leaders brag that they have forced an end to the failed 30-year experiment of the welfare state. Think again. The welfare reform bill that President Clinton signed into law may be one of the biggest examples of welfare fraud yet perpetrated on the American people. - Naomi Lopez and Michael Tanner, December 3, 1996 [CATO]

• Why the Welfare Reform Will Fail
  ...the cruelty springs not from the new system's work requirement but from the pervasive barriers to unskilled employment thrown up by unions, licensing boards, and governments at every level. - Robert Higgs, Ph.D., October 16, 1996 [Independent Institute]

• Rating the Poverty Rate
  Official poverty statistics in the United States, most economists agree, are quite suspect and should be approached and interpreted with great care, especially when used to formulate policy. - Lowell Gallaway, May 1995 [Independent Institute]

• Immigrants are Scapegoats for Welfare Costs
  - Jim Christie, October 25, 1993 [Independent Institute]

• The Church: Lobbyist for the Welfare State
  The specific problem this confusion presents to the church is that it disintegrates charity into an entitlement and collapses love into justice. - Robert A. Sirico, December 20, 1992 [Acton Institute]

• The Agony of the Welfare State
  There is plenty of experience that can induce a man to analyze scrupulously what the progressive propaganda has taught him, and to think twice before again casting his vote for the apostles of socialization and advocates of public spending. - Ludwig von Mises, May 4, 1953 [Mises]

• Why the Economy, Along With Everyone's Standard of Living, Will be Destroyed by Our Big-Government Welfare State
  Communism, socialism, and our big-government welfare state are all based on a criminal-mind assumption. What is meant by a 'criminal-mind assumption?' Consider Dostoyevski's analysis of the criminal mind in his masterwork Crime and Punishment. The criminal mind assumes that one has the right and the authority to take or confiscate values earned by others so long as someone else has a need for those values. Communism, socialism, and our big-government welfare state are all based on that criminal-mind assumption. - [Neo-Tech]
  
  
• The Single Mom Welfare Plan
  Explains the failed logic of the government welfare state. - Paul Ciotti [Larry Elder]

• Fatherhood & Crime
  A 1988 study published in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency found that the best predictor of violent crime and burglary in a community is not race or income, but the proportion of households without fathers. - [Family First]

Libertarian Solutions

• Seeking Riches From the Poor
  Wizzy Digital Courier is just one of a number of similar business ideas cropping up in South Africa, as entrepreneurs in this country aim for a new market: the continent's poor. - Megan Lindow, April 23, 2004 [Wired.com]

• Other People's Wealth Benefits All of Us
  Without capital and the liberty to deploy it, none of the great industries that make life livable would exist. - Wayne Dunn, March 1, 2004 [Capitalism Magazine]

• Capitalism Key to Ending Poverty
  Wealth is the only remedy for poverty, and capitalism is the only real way to create wealth. - Radley Balko, October 20, 2002 [Capitalism Magazine]

• Capitalism: The Greatest Charity
  - William H. Peterson, September 2002 [Mises]

• Americans Generous Towards Charities
  Nearly 90 percent of American households donated to charities in 2000 -- giving an average amount of $1,620 or 3.2 percent of their income -- according to a survey by Independent Sector entitled "Giving and Volunteering in the United States 2001." - Cheryl Wetzstein, November 06, 2001 [NCPA]

• Selfishness, Charity and Libertarianism
  Studies show that a free nation is wealthier than its regulated counterpart and that income is more evenly distributed. Wealthy nations get that way by letting their poor work. - Mary J. Ruwart, 1999 [Self-gov.org]

• In Praise of Working People
  The principles of libertarianism -- the same principles that sparked the American Revolution -- appeal to working people. - Wendy McElroy, September 1998 [Freedom Daily]

• Poor Before Welfare
  ...once the fraternal societies were pushed to the margins of social welfare, Americans began to become dependent on the vagaries of hierarchical organizations controlled by government. - David T. Beito, May 6, 1996 [Independent Institute]

• Welfare Reform: True and False
  If it had the will, Congress could kill the redistributionist monster, the Welfare State, that's consumed at least $5 trillion in wealth since the Great Society. - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., December 1995 [Mises]

• Escape from the Welfare Trap
  Even the perception of cuts in welfare helps people realize that independence is in their own interests. - Robert A. Sirico, September 1, 1995 [Acton Institute]

• Christian Charity versus Government Welfare
  - Thomas L. Johnson, December 1994 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]

• Charity Without Force: The Bishop's Storehouse
  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (commonly called Mormons, although they seem to prefer LDS as a short form) has established a welfare system that does not depend on the use of force. - Bobby Yates Emory, Winter 1993-94 [Libertarian Nation Foundation]

• Circles of Support: A Libertarian View of Charity
  - Richard Hammer, Winter 1993-94 [Libertarian Nation Foundation]

• Philanthropy and Freedom
  Early in our nation's history, Americans - farmers, laborers, merchants, and manufacturers alike - understood that charity was the re-sponsibility and privilege of individuals and religious organizations. They never dreamed of relegating this duty to any other institution, especially not to government. - Dennis L. Peterson, October 1985 [Liberty Haven]

• Transforming Welfare: The Revival of American Charity
  The contributors to this volume do not pretend to have all the answers, but they do agree that the present system cannot and should not last. For too long, federal, state, and local social policy has ignored the principles of charity that once guided our actions toward the poor. By offering an alternative, this book hopes to contribute to the restoration of an ethic that can be the foundation of a truly free and humane system of social assistance, one that replaces the increasingly questionable, centralized welfare state. - [Acton Institute]

• Welfare -- A Hand Up or Hand Out? The Role of Private Charity
  The academic and public policy communities have paid surprisingly little attention to private-sector charity, which plays an important role in providing for the poor. During the past several years, total charitable contributions have run from over $120 billion to $130 billion per year with approximately 40-50 percent going to religious institutions. If the value of volunteer labor is included, private sector contributions are probably as large as the poverty budgets of federal, state and local governments combined. - [Family First]

• Fraternal Societies As an Alternative to the Welfare State
  - David T. Beito [Acton Institute]

My Thoughts

• Think of it this way...if you were given a gift certificate to the Olive Garden for $50, wouldn't you feel less restrictions on the items you purchase? You might order wine or cheesecake or some expensive entree. You are given money without earning it, so you feel less of an attachment to it.