Keeping recipients placated is a natural side effect of any welfare system, as long as they are paid enough. Welfare was never meant to be a permanent solution, but it become a permanent solution to so many people who realized they could survive on what they were being paid and quickly accepted that as an easy answer to finding work. So many people adopted this easy solution, in fact, that it bogged down the system just as Cloward and Piven predicted. After all why should you look for a job if you are being paid ‘survival wages’ for doing nothing?

I’m not saying everyone on welfare is a cheat and is lazy and I am not saying that there are not deserving people in the system. I’m just simply ...

Keeping recipients placated is a natural side effect of any welfare system, as long as they are paid enough. Welfare was never meant to be a permanent solution, but it become a permanent solution to so many people who realized they could survive on what they were being paid and quickly accepted that as an easy answer to finding work. So many people adopted this easy solution, in fact, that it bogged down the system just as Cloward and Piven predicted. After all why should you look for a job if you are being paid ‘survival wages’ for doing nothing?

I’m not saying everyone on welfare is a cheat and is lazy and I am not saying that there are not deserving people in the system. I’m just simply stating that the idea was created for the right reasons but the execution of it is was poorly thought out and a lot of the blame falls on the recipients.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with the government helping people in need. My problem begins when those people take advantage of the system and continue to bleed it of everything they can get. Given the inherent nature of humans to take advantage of any handout directed their way, we need to find a different method of identifying and helping those who truly need it thereby forcing the others to find work where they can. In order to make this more ‘ideal’ system work corporations will need to hire more people. If you want to call this socialism then go ahead but I don’t see any other way of controlling the cost of welfare and unemployment (another government program).

But welfare and unemployment would, of course, only be a small part of any long term plan to ‘reform America’. I cannot, of course, deny any long term conspiracy to break the ‘very foundation of our economic system’, so for the time being I’m not buying it.

I did not know that ACORN sprang from the welfare system. I thought it came into play every other year to encourage people to register to vote. Thank-you for this information.

Admittedly, there are policies in place and policies being pushed, particularly concerning health care reform, that look like they are trying to break the ‘very foundation of our economic system’. But to what end? Who would benefit if this were true? I certainly don’t know. Can you shed any light on this?

The biggest barrier to a successful economy, and what we currently have in place, is people who work the system to get everything they can out of it. There are welfare recipients who are happy to live on survival wages and supplement this free income through crime. There are the unemployed who will work for pay ‘under the table’ to avoid taxes and keep their unemployment checks and there a...

Admittedly, there are policies in place and policies being pushed, particularly concerning health care reform, that look like they are trying to break the ‘very foundation of our economic system’. But to what end? Who would benefit if this were true? I certainly don’t know. Can you shed any light on this?

The biggest barrier to a successful economy, and what we currently have in place, is people who work the system to get everything they can out of it. There are welfare recipients who are happy to live on survival wages and supplement this free income through crime. There are the unemployed who will work for pay ‘under the table’ to avoid taxes and keep their unemployment checks and there are employers who will pay under the table so they don’t have to pay taxes. Health care providers cheat Medicare and Medicaid by over-charging in order to get money they were refused for other legitimate services. Businesses hide money in order to not pay their full tax burden. Individuals do the same thing. Etc, etc, etc.

The trend here is that humans will lie, cheat and steal to get over on the government. If there was some way to change this we would all be better off. Frankly, I don’t see it happening.