Do you believe the government should continue to establish more and more assistance programs?

Question

Do you believe the government should continue to establish more and more assistance programs?

Answer 1

No.  Look at the programs that already exist.  Fraud is rampant.  The costs to administer these programs generally exceed the amounts actually spent on assistance.  And once in the "system," there's little incentive for for people to be responsible for themselves and stop relying on a government handout.

What happened before the state and federal governments started taxing people to give away money to "the poor" or "the deserving" or "the unfortunate"?  Why, a person in need had an immediate family and an extended family who would take responsibility for them.  Churches organized assistance.  Local communities took care of their own.  The saying that "charity begins at home" is very true, and it WORKED.  

Studies have shown over and over and over that Americans are the most generous people on this earth.  Don't tax them in order to establish an entitlement program.  Let Americans help the needy and the struggling in their own families and in their own communities.  Without government interference and red tape, Americans will give the money or the things that their communities need.  When they can see the results for themselves, they tend to give even more.

Which sounds more reasonable: forcibly taking one person's income to pay for a government program, or letting the person keep the income and choose for themselves who to help and how to help to get the maximum results?  To help the truly needy among us, or to enable people to make bad choices and reward them for doing it?  To give assistance to people while they get their lives in order so they can support themselves, or to create families with multiple generations waiting for their handouts?

Look, the theory behind the entitlement programs is good.  In reality, none of the programs work to lift the truly needy out of poverty.  The government is the wrong entity to put in charge of "assistance."  The only way to lift people out of poverty is for people to make better life choices - study hard in school, develop a good work ethic, get a job and work your way up.  The government can't do any of those things.  These are character traits that are taught in the home by the parents.  It's our choices, not luck, that set our course.  Government assistance rarely helps anyone learn to make better choices.

Answer 2

Each one saps a little of the life's blood out of the working class.

Answer 3

No, I don't.

With all the government assistance programs available, there's almost no need for the homeless and 'under privileged' to work. They can just sit at home and siphon money off of the government because it's convinced that sending them money is going to solve the problem.