Welfare Must Be Cut for the Good of the Poor

The US government is frequently criticized for not reaching the EU’s levels of unhindered handouts and socialization of industries. Proponents of government control for the common good hold two contradictory principles at the same time without even recognizing the tension. They first believe that the highest role of any government is to promote the welfare of their own people and of the other countries in the world, while also believing that governments have a responsibility to provide an ever increasing range of services to people just for existing. While the desire to give more resources to people in need often comes from genuine care, it can actually make the poor, both domestically and internationally, worse off. Without even getting into the vast range of productivity advantages that freer countries have when compared with more socialist nations, countries with luxurious benefits for their citizens are making both themselves and other nations worse off. While intended as a sympathetic patch to poverty, the more these benefits diverge from what could be earned through work, they divert the poor from their highest long-term potential and incentivize people who could be improving their home countries to emigrate and reap the rewards of welfare. The most sympathetic rule for navigating both welfare and immigration policy is to cut out the depths of poverty while recognizing the proven tendency of welfare to enslave in the long term.

Welfare in America has been one of the single greatest enemies of prosperity and family structure for poor communities. When the minimal safety net of the past was eschewed in favor of a more expansive welfare program in the 1960s, incentives for the poor were so damaged that a perpetual cycle of poverty was created. Rather than merely stepping into situations that were already needy, the welfare state multiplied the number of broken families. Individuals doing cost benefit calculus between slaving away in a factory or not working at all for only marginally less, typically ended up creating a worse situation for both children and parents. The ever present nature of government support so distorted the short term payoffs of working that it made it almost impossible for people to see the long-term trajectory they could have had if they had worked. Millions of people who otherwise would have worked were given an all too tempting option to step back from responsibility while simultaneously hurting themselves and their children for decades. The problem compounded even more as children from these unstable situations had a low chance of ever escaping the welfare cycle. Welfare dependency thus perpetuated itself while the amount of tax revenue per citizen decreased. The more comfortable a welfare-fueled life is, the harder it will be for people to turn it down. For even the most principled citizen with low earning power, it would be difficult to find motivation to work for what they could have for free. Government welfare is a bait and trap that has enslaved generations.…