in collaboration with Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity

End government assistance

File under: welfare

(1 votes)

From: Joy W., Copperopolis, CA

Even during the Great Depression, there were no free government handouts -- no welfare, food stamps, unemployment, or job training. When these programs were instituted to ease those in poverty, they were meant to be short-term assistance, not a lifestyle. Instead of helping people out of poverty, these programs locked them in. Why work and take responsibility for yourself and your family when the government will do it for you? What a selfish society the War on Poverty has created.

What about people who paid into Social Security for the required number of years, but because of disability prior to retirement age, are no longer eligible for retirement benefits because they could not work up to their retirement age? All the monies they paid into their Social Security accounts that could have benefited them now is gone. If these people had been allowed to put these same funds into their own private retirement account instead of a government program, they might not be living under poverty conditions today.

The only way to win the War on Poverty, is to make each individual responsible for their actions or non-actions. Teach them how to become self-sufficient. We have become a society of lazy, self-absorbed, irresponsible people, thinking it is the government's place to fill in where needed. Government's role is to protect our individual rights and our borders from invasion, nothing more.

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