[Daseal]

Welfare is a really difficult subject. I've met quite a few people that were/are on welfare, and it's interesting. I worked with a guy that worked his ass off every day that had kids too young, and was on welfare. He hated it, but it was a hell of a lot better than his kids going hungry. He worked the whole time and got off it as soon as he could. I then met a friend of my girlfriend, at the time. She grew up on welfare her entire life. She ended up getting a full ride to a top tier university. Upon finishing her degree, she went and lives back home with her mother, on welfare. These are two examples. One of the system being used correctly, the other of the system failing. To be honest, meeting that girl was eye opening. Her comments constantly hinted that she was owed something, and people should be handing her things at every turn. She was given many opportunities and failed to capitalize on either.

The real problem to me, is you have to have a safety net for people. Having a class of people with no money, no prospects, and no hope is bad for countries. Ideally we find a way to shrink welfare programs, but get more people back on their feet. Personally, I feel like pushing for a higher working wage is a step in the right direction. We're paying more one way or another (taxes vs slightly higher prices).

To me, there's a big issue when the single largest recipient of welfare benefits are members of the US military. My guess is this may be more of a loophole than anything. Their paychecks are small, but they also don't have to provide housing for themselves. We need to find ways to help make people self sufficient. Sadly, it's more efficient for a single mother with 2 kids to stay home on welfare than to work a full-time minimum wage job.