The welfare scam pays Americans to fail.
Tom Sowell has said it straight up; welfare and all other government handouts don’t help people get out of poverty -- they lock them into it.
If you fail at anything, money will flow your way. If you succeed slightly (even though that is impossible), the money will be ripped from your pockets faster than a politician can dodge a difficult question.
It is no accident. It is the plan. The system is designed to create dependency by rewarding people for being poor.
When you receive a raise, the money you receive is taken away. When you obtain a steady income, the “benefits” you were receiving will disappear. What incentive is there to continue working when sitting at home and collecting a check is better?
This is not an act of kindness. It is a trap designed by those who need a perpetual class of voters dependent upon the government for support.
The effects of the government’s scheme go far beyond the family unit. Look at what they’ve done to our schools. Schools perform poorly? Give them a large sum of tax payer money to “solve” the problems they caused. However, give a school high grades and produce students who can stand on their own two feet? Funding will be reduced. Success is penalized. Mediocrity is rewarded. That is pure insanity. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the graduation rates of students over the last few decades have decreased in intelligence and increased in dependence on the government.
Our expectations have become distorted to an extreme degree. Many people today expect to live a lifestyle that their grandparents would consider a luxury solely based on the fact that the government is providing them with financial support to achieve the illusion of that lifestyle. Sowell witnessed it first-hand during his time at the Center for Advanced Study. He received the same pay as a full UCLA professor, however he worked zero hours per week, had zero duties, taught zero classes. Why continue to work a real job when the system provides you with the same amount of money regardless of whether you do anything or not? Eliminate these types of subsidies and observe how quickly the priorities of individuals will shift.
However, the full extent of how this scam is designed to keep you chained to the government forever is one of the most important secrets that the elite do not want to reveal to average Americans such as you and I. By becoming a paid subscriber, you gain access to the entire blog’s content which reveals each of the dirty secrets that they do not want you to know.
Eliminate welfare immediately and what happens? The sky doesn’t fall. Sowell states it clearly: people find jobs. The statistics show that women in particular increase their participation in the labor force through real employment programs. Of course, many families encounter an immediate obstacle with regards to child care. However, here is the key point: rather than allowing families to resolve it themselves through higher incomes or community-based resources, the federal government jumps in and offers another layer of subsidies. More “programs” that claim to empower the woman by making her a taxpayer, yet quietly maintain her tied to the same corrupt system. This is not empowerment. This is merely dependency dressed up in a different coat.
Who benefits from this?
Not the struggling families. Not the children who learn from their parents’ examples of learned helplessness. The actual beneficiaries of this scam are the bureaucrats, consultants, and politicians who rely on a dependent electorate. They proclaim “equity,” yet structure the game so that failure is the safest option. Sarcastic? Not nearly enough. This is a prime example of the tyranny of big government at its most cynical -- exploiting human nature in order to increase its own power.
Critics love to argue that Sowell “begins in the middle.” As if poverty and unemployment are a predetermined fate, completely independent of the incentives created by the government. Give me a break. That is the same weak argument that every advocate for the status quo makes whenever the data becomes uncomfortable. Welfare did not exist to lift people out of a predetermined fate. Welfare created the very dependency it claims to remedy. Remove the perverse incentives for remaining down and observe how ambition responds in a free society: it soars.
Consider the single mother living on government assistance today. For every hour she works, there is a risk of losing food stamps, housing assistance, medical coverage. The arithmetic clearly states “do not try.” At the same time, her children learn a lesson: effort is not rewarded, the system is. Multiply that across tens of millions of families and you do not have a safety net, you have a multi-generational underclass that is perfectly happy to vote for more of the same. That is not compassion. That is calculated manipulation.
In the past, the U.S. relied on a formula of free markets and individual accountability. Work hard, take risks, and reward yourself. Now, the government’s solution is to eliminate risk and provide rewards for doing nothing. No wonder self-reliance appears to be a relic of the past.
Question time: How long will we continue to pretend that this broken system is inviolable? Each and every study, each and every empirical observation, each and every honest economist like Sowell demonstrates the exact same pattern. Entitlements inflate expectations, destroy initiative, and generate anger. And yet, the elites continue to double-down on this failed system and call anyone who recognizes this “heartless.”
Heartless is continuing to allow people to deteriorate in poverty created by government policies while congratulating yourselves for another massive spending bill.
The daycare trap is an excellent example of the infinite loop that the government has created. Woman obtains a job - great! But now she requires care for the children. Can’t afford private care? No worries, here is another federal program to assist. And, just like that, the federal program comes with its own set of rules, its own bureaucracy, its own means of preventing her from truly advancing. This is not a ladder out. It is a hamster wheel designed by those who have never had to run on it.
Immigrants came to America with nothing but determination and created the greatest nation in the world. Today? We tell people that the system is rigged, the system owes them, and that failure is somebody else’s fault. Then we are shocked that dependency increases exponentially. Sowell’s analysis is harsh because it is accurate: we are paying people to remain where they are, generation after generation.
Envision the explosion of real opportunities if we ceased to pay people to fail. Jobs will open. Families will adjust. Communities will rebuild without the burden of endless programs. Children will see parents demonstrating work ethic rather than waiting for the mailman to arrive. That is not theory - that is history. Anytime the government has removed itself from the equation and allowed people to retain what they earn, prosperity follows. Anytime the government expands the welfare system, stagnation and resentment follow.
The elites despise this discussion because it jeopardizes their power base. They require a dependent class of citizens to be angry, entitled, and voting the correct way. Sowell poses a threat to this entire racket by merely stating the obvious: incentives matter. Human beings react to them. Provide incentives for failure and you will get more of it. Penalize success and you will get less of it. Simple economics. However, in Washington D.C., it is treated as heretical.
Therefore, when the next group of “anti-poverty” spending bills are introduced onto the House floor, remember Sowell’s words. This is not help. This is a scam. A government scam that pays Americans to fail while the true producers of wealth fund this failed system. The only method to escape this scam is to terminate the subsidies, restore the incentives, and allow people to rediscover the pride of earning their own way.
For how much longer are we going to permit this machine to operate? The response begins with eliminating the myth that dependency is equivalent to compassion. True compassion frees people -- not maintains them on the dole.
