I know this is going to be controversial, but I'm going to say it anyway. Giving money to the poor is a waste of money.
People are poor for a variety of reasons: laziness, lack of education, lack of transportation, alcoholism. drug addiction, a criminal record, or a family history of the above. Poverty is cyclical. Welfare recipients usually had one or more parents on welfare for an extended period of time.
The real problem for those in poverty is a lack of motivation to get out of their economic rut. If a person is standing on a street corner selling drugs or schilling for money from those driving by, they are not motivated enough to change their circumstances, and thus , dig themselves out of poverty.
Welfare handouts to the poor do little to solve their self-esteem issues that cause them to remain in their habitual economic situation. At one point in my life I drove a truck for the local Goodwill Industries, Inc. operation. I saw economically and physically challenged people working for minimum wage while the top five people of the organization made away with most of the donated cash.
More than 90% of the workers who received government assistance (AFDC, food stamps, etc.) quit after a few months, as they could receive more money watching television at home than from their labors at Goodwill Industries, Inc. which was supposed to be teaching them job skills.
Socialists programs which do no more than provide temporary financial assistance are a waste of taxpayer dollars. Once the money is gone, those in habitual poverty go back to their former station in life. They fail to have the continued motivation to change their lot in life to a higher economic status.
College financial aid programs, for instance, that pay for books and tuition, but fail to provide job placement fail because the student has yet to learn to stand on their own. Most college graduates move back home or in with a friend or relative until they find a suitable job because they failed to plan ahead.
I once met a man in North Carolina who complained, "Their aren't any jobs around here." My reply was, "There are plenty of jobs in other states. Jobs are only a bus ticket away." He decided that complaining and begging for quarters was a better way to spend his time.
Jesus said, "The poor will always be with you." In fact biblically, if you didn't work, you didn't eat, unless you received alms from those who were charitable enough to help you. Imagine a world in which the lazy were culled. Who then would te liberals buy their votes from?
Just as those in poverty waste taxpayer's money on drugs and alcohol, poorly ran government entities such as Amtrak and the US Postal Services who have been on government welfare for years waste the money they receive on pay raises, regulations, vacations, payoffs, and the like. Very little good comes from government assistance.
While the handout lasts, the recipients become lazier and lazier.
As an international consultant to governments I have seem austere conditions and wastefulness. Countries that plan ahead for at least ten years fare better when the economy turns than those with deficits abounding, adrift in a flood of wasted drunken spending.
Unfortunately, every time a liberal gets into office, they want to buy votes with other people's money.
Any economist worth their salt will agree that socialism is a failed economic model. Socialism quickly erodes into an oligarchy with an upper class and a lower class, both supported by the working class.
For a country to succeed, those who were elected need to have a long term economic goal. At the present time, I have yet to see any government in the world with a long term economic plan. Short term fixes work in the short term. But, the don't speak to the root of the problem.
The United States in 2020 was energy independent. With the stroke of a pen, an idiot cancelled an oil pipeline and has since caused a fuel shortage, a shipping fiasco, an immigration fiasco, and spiraling inflation, in the soon to be realized failure to usher in an oligarchy in the United States which will be bankrupt on its face.
Programs that would help the poor:
1. Home ownership - low interest 10-15 year loans to buy and rehab distressed houses
2. Community gardens on vacant lots at no cost
3. Low interest car repair loans
4. paid neighborhood clean-up jobs
5. no property tax for those on a fixed income- social security
6. free college education for all
7. free tutoring for adult education high school programs
8. Job placement services for those coming out of alcohol and drug rehab programs
9. government ownership of hospitals
10. Term limits for judges, and all holders of political office
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