Destroying the Individual in Pursuit of the Welfare State......David Risselada

Most of us seem to understand the damaging effects of an over bloated welfare state that pays people to become lazy instead of forcing them to find a job. Our current system is understood by many trapped in its endless cycle of dependency to be ineffective, as gains of finding employment or getting a raise usually result in a loss of needed benefits. This results in a loss of motivation on the part of people who are trapped in the system because whatever gains have been made are often not enough to make losing the benefits worth it, so they forego the advancement in favor of continued benefits. This is where the initiative is destroyed and people become content with living a life of government dependence. As someone educated in the social service field I would view this as being one of the most important issues that America needs to solve, moving people from dependence to independence. I can say with a great deal of confidence based on the way my conservative ideas have been treated in the academic environment that this is not the goal. At this point I am convinced we are witnessing the Cloward & Piven Plan in action. For those who may be unfamiliar with the Cloward & Piven Plan, I will explain it to you. Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, both professors at Columbia university, wrote a plan that would aid in Americas transformation from capitalism to socialism. The paper was entitled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to end Poverty” which can be viewed here. http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty#  This strategy essentially calls for the creation of a welfare state where everyone is entitled to some form of government welfare. The idea was to destroy the economy to the point where government would be obligated to provide an annual income for everyone. It can be said with little doubt that our universities, which are teaching “social justice education” are aiding in the creation of the Cloward and Piven plan. After all social justice means little else than the redistribution of wealth from those who have earned it to those who have not. In fact, the actual definition of social justice is ensuring that everyone is entitled to an equal distribution of society’s recourses.

I have spent a great deal of the past five years engaging liberal professors on welfare policy. I simply sought to find out how anyone could believe taking money out of the private sector to pay people not to work could benefit society. The college environment is ripe with people who view America as an “oppressive meritocracy.” This means that people with abilities to accomplish their dreams are oppressing the rest of society. Socialist professors seek to teach your children that applying themselves leads to unfairness and unequal distribution of wealth. If you would stop and think a moment you would realize this is where the idea that everyone should get a trophy for playing comes from. This is why some high schools across the country are eliminating their valedictorian programs. In order to create a society where everyone is completely equal, the belief that people can achieve must be done away with. Only by destroying the initiative of the individual can the necessary conditions be created where everyone will accept the idea of socialism. This is all being done in the name of fairness by people who claim to not only be enlightened, but also intellectually superior and compassionate. How compassionate is it to ensure people are dependent on a government that can’t manage its own finances? If these people were so intellectually superior wouldn’t they realize that trying collective policies, that when implemented in other countries lead to the deaths of millions, will only lead to disaster here?

 Right now as it stands the United States currently brings in 5.6 trillion dollars from tax revenue. Yet we spent 6.3 trillion dollars for fiscal year 2013 folks, and no one seems all that concerned about it. Of that sum of money 422,000,000,000 dollars was spent on welfare. That is roughly 34% of the gross domestic product, which is $14,219,300,000,000. Most college students majoring in the social services could not even tell you what the GDP is.  They are just being trained to believe in social justice, which, as mentioned earlier, is nothing less than wealth re-distribution. It just goes to show the ill effects of socialism and social justice education. By training people to hate capitalism and embrace the welfare state they are actually creating a society that will not have the means to sustain itself. The day will come when there will be millions the government can no longer afford to sustain. What will these compassionate people advocating a transformation to socialism do then? What will it take to get them to listen?

Actually the majority of the money being spent on welfare is being eaten up by the administrative state that oversees the implementation of wealth redistribution. In other words the wealth is being redistributed to the government bureaucracy that takes the money from us in the first place. The cost of welfare per day is roughly 168 dollars per family drawing benefits. That’s compared to a median income of a working family of 137 a day. http://www.budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/budget-background?ID=f1f23669-79fb-4a25-bafc-6a28f82f9c75 How can a nation sustain itself when those not working are burning through more money than those that earn it? This figure doesn't even account for the cost of administering this system, which only drains more money from the private sector. Liberals supporting the welfare state just do not seem to understand that you cannot build up the poor by breaking down the abilities of those that know how to create wealth. I am not a rich man, I know nothing of how to run a business but I do know that if we did not live in a capitalistic society there would be no money to help anyone. People in the helping professions, if they really believed in empowering people would believe in conservative politics and capitalism.

One of the other aspects of this that has intrigued me over the years is the realization that there is a deserving poor out there that is unable to take care of themselves, and have no reasonable expectation to lead an independent life. This could be due to mental illness or physical disability or even mental retardation. It would be expected that the nation provide the means to help those in need that fall into this category. I personally believe that the homeless children should not have to go bed hungry, and that society has a certain obligation to take care of its children. These issues again demand that welfare policy be examined through the eyes of conservatives who understand economics and believe in the human spirit. With an over bloated welfare state that indiscriminately gives money to anyone there is a huge risk that needed resources are being spent needlessly and that someone who truly needs them could be going with less than what they deserve. This is the unintended consequence of allowing our welfare system to get so out of control. In the 48 year period since 1965 the United States government has spent 16 trillion dollars trying to alleviate poverty through means tested welfare programs, only to see poverty increase by one percent and the welfare rolls grow dramatically.  Nearly 50 million American are now drawing food stamps.

Welfare has done nothing but destroy the initiative of generations of Americans. Our nation continues to decline and we are seeing more and more people fall into the cycle of government dependency. Most of them will not look for work because the economy is not producing any. The jobs that are being created will only result in a loss of livelihood by those now enjoying the benefit of living off the backs of those paying into the system. It is way past time that these issues be reexamined and we divert welfare spending to those who really need it and start teaching personal responsibility to those who can learn it. I would suggest that young conservatives get involved in welfare policy and start to reeducate on the issues at hand. As I have said before this would put us in a position to directly affect the lives that if left in the hands of liberals will end up in a cycle of dependency, thus contributing to the continuing decline of our nation.