Just as sure as refined sugar makes you fat, welfare destroys families, and both of these hit our society in a big way in the mid-twentieth century.
Look at a photo of people in 1920, and you will see skinny, independent, and happily married folk. Welfare did not hit the scene until 1935.
The early form of handing out taxpayers’ money was strict, but 84 years later, it has lost all attachments to common sense, as it was always bound to do. “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” Walter Morrow told us in 1938. Our great-grandparents tried to tell us this, but our grandparents were too busy enjoying handouts to listen. “Durned younger generation,” the oldies would mutter.
Do-gooders could not understand that they were creating more poverty by giving people welfare. The situation is similar to what happens when you feed seagulls. Lefties notice that one percent of the community is in poverty and ask, “Why not take a small amount of money from all taxpayers to put that one percent back on their feet? Nobody will notice very much, but it will make a huge difference to the poor.”
That’s the theory.
As soon as bureaucrats give welfare to the one percent, thousands magically appear out of the woodwork, crowing, “We want money too.”
“Are you poor?” the pencil pusher asks.
“Why certainly,” a woman replies. “My husband left me last week, and I have nothing to feed my kids.”
“Well then fill this form in, and we will get you some welfare,” the bean counter drones.
Benjamins in hand, the woman rushes home to tell her husband. “If anyone comes to the door,” she instructs, “tell ’em you’re my brother in law, hence the same surname. I’ve told ’em my husband left me.”
“Why’d yer do that?” her spouse asks, wide-eyed.
“They’re givin’ away free money!” the woman laughs. “A week’s wages, each week, fer nuthin!”
After telling all her friends and neighbors, she hears that more applicants for the dole ooze out of the woodwork down at the dole office.
Pretty soon, six percent of the community is “in poverty,” and growing. Hapless do-gooders shrug and conclude, “Well, it just goes to show how much we underestimated poverty!”
Drugs – welfare’s bastard son.
Sugar’s partner-in-crime was soda and ice cream. Welfare’s was drugs. The two combined to make the perfect storm. Today’s sidewalk gremlins from Seattle to San Diego are there not by choice but by a cruel and impossible trap laid for them by State Governments that became a paradigm for all welfare.
We’ll start with Mike and his girlfriend Tan, who live in an imaginary non-welfare California. Renting an apartment, Mike earns $1,110 after taxes per week. He rises early, showers, shaves, brushes his teeth, dresses nicely, and goes to work. Valuing his career, he works hard and honestly, hoping for a promotion or a raise. Eventually, Mike and Tan marry and buy a house. Like most people, Mike has problems, but he sorts them out because he cannot afford to lose his job. If he starts drinking or drugging too much, he has to fix that problem because his work is all-important. Though Tan sometimes thinks of separating, there is no welfare, and life would be significantly more difficult. The couple perseveres and raises a family. In time Mike becomes a manager, earns more, and they upgrade to a larger house. They both made mistakes but overcame them. Their children have a father and a mother.
Now let’s look at the same situation in a California with multiple types of welfare. Mike leaves school and considers his options. He could take the $1,110 after-taxes per week job or apply for and receive three different kinds of social security. Together, it adds up to $580 per week. Someone points out that he could supplement this by selling weed, providing a total income of $1,200 – $2,000 per week.
Soon, our man is living the “good” life, playing games all day, smoking joints, and selling weed to his buddies. Familiarity breeds contempt, and alcohol and drugs make Mike cranky, so he and Tan begin to fight. She moves out, which is easy because she can go on welfare. This crushes Mike.
Suffering depression and loneliness, poor old Mike turns to drugs and alcohol for relief and is soon hooked on meth, heroin, cocaine, and whiskey. Moreover, he begins to develop a range of symptoms that make his life more miserable than ever. These include constipation, diarrhea, anal fissures, mental confusion, hostility, psychosis, depression, paranoia, delusions, memory problems, and brain damage.
In order to combat these problems, our welfare-dependent gremlin requires a range of expensive medications. Some, but not all, are covered by the State (more handouts). His bad memory makes Mike forget his meds or take too many, risking daily overdoses. To pay for all this, he uses his rent and grocery money, which is insufficient, so he steals. Shoplifting has become a habit, as well as snatching purses from women. Mike borrows money from anyone he can, and when someone offers drugs for a blowjob, he finds himself taking on the job. He hates himself but needs the drugs.
Mike sells his car and his furniture. His landlord tells him to pay the late rent or get out. Upon gathering the rent money, Mike considers his options: pay the rent or have drugs on the sidewalk.
Mike chooses drugs, and voila, another homeless sidewalk gremlin is born. When people see tramps living in their garbage and feces, creating a reemergence for defeated diseases like typhus, they assume bums would much rather live in a house without drugs. They are wrong.
Sidewalk gremlins would much rather be on the footpath blitzed out on drugs than in a dwelling without drugs. For sidewalk gremlins, lying in the gutter, ripped, is preferable to sleeping in a bed, sober. Remove welfare to end this horrible cycle. Do-gooders, listen up! YOU are the root cause of this pain and misery.
Giving Houses to Bums
Giving houses to sidewalk gremlins is like throwing gasoline on a fire. It only makes things worse. Aside from hurting businesses and killing jobs, gremlin houses devalue the entire street. Hundreds of homeowners lose millions of dollars of equity, which translates to less wealth and, thus, less health. It hurts citizens in a thousand different ways. Meanwhile, the house gremlins will rent out their residence to others to make enough money to buy more drugs and end up living in the garage of their new home.
Solution
If you would like to fix your State, banish all welfare and back it up by offering to help those wanting “free” financial aid to move to another state that does provide it. Here is how the policy would sound from a welfare seeker’s POV:
Scene: Government Office. Isabella reaches the counter.
Public Servant: Can I help you?
Isabella: Hola. I’m a single mother with three kids, a lame leg, and a drug habit.
Public Servant: Ma’am, this state does not provide welfare.
Isabella: Ay, caramba! Since when?
Public Servant: Since the last election.
Isabella: Well, that sucks. What’ll I do?
Public Servant: Most other states still provide welfare.
Isabella: But I ain’t got no car.
Public Servant: We can provide you with a loan in the form of bus tickets.
Isabella: Bus tickets?
Public Servant: Yes, ma’am. We will provide bus tickets for you and your kids, but you must pay us back over the next year.
Isabella: I got to pay you back? Ay Dios Mio! You guys are loco!
Public Servant: Yes, ma’am. As I said, we do not provide welfare.
Isabella: But how do I..?
Public Servant: Please fill in and sign this form. Then, let us scan your fingerprints, and we can arrange your trip.
Isabella: Do I get tickets in my hand?
Public Servant: No, ma’am, because you could sell those. We scan your fingerprints, and you let the bus driver re-scan them to confirm when you board.
Isabella: Fingerprints?
Public Servant: Many homeless have no ID.
Isabella: What if I don’t want to give my fingerprints?
Public Servant: Then we can’t help you, ma’am.
Isabella: Ah, to hell with this. I’ll pay for my own damned bus fare.
Public Servant: Sure, there’s that option too.
Isabella: When does the next bus leave?
Public Servant: Let’s take a look here. Yes, ma’am, one leaves for Alabama in half an hour.
After that, Alabama gets to look after Isabella and her fatherless, discipline-less, genderless brats.
States that follow this advice need to follow up with laws forbidding vagrancy. The program would be installed in two phases:
Phase I
Announcements are made and advertised in all media that in six months, all welfare will cease without exception. Those wishing to continue receiving benefits in another state are invited to obtain bus tickets, available immediately. The community learns that new laws will begin when welfare disappears. Begging and vagrancy will be illegal and punishable by severe, strike-one mandatory prison sentences and fines. Leaflets are handed out to bums, billboards explain the message, and posters go up around homeless areas. TV and radio blare the information out constantly. Newspapers have full-page ads. Nobody can use the excuse they did not know.
Phase II
After six months, all welfare ceases without exception. Latecomers can call a number for more information, see it online, or visit a government office for advice. They receive the option of bus tickets to other states. Police arrest those still living on sidewalks and demonstrators who break the law and damage property or attack police. The rules are strict. All sidewalk gremlins that remain go to prison for at least six months. Instead of giving them a ‘hotel’ for that time, they are put on chain gangs to do hard labor like road building. The government passes new laws that prevent snowflake judges from being soft on the culprits. When they do six months of hard labor, most will leave the state and never return. Those who do will never go back to the sidewalk.
Results
Within months, the State will revitalize. Sidewalks will be clean and free of bums. Pedestrians and tourists will walk along without being molested or catching third-world diseases. Saved taxes would amount to a fortune, bringing the government coffers back into the black. Crime would plummet, and law and order would prevail. Society would never look back. Meanwhile, all other states would have to take an increase in their welfare recipients. Some would start campaigning to copy you.
Copying
Before long, other states would copy your program. Populations of bums would begin moving out of those states and into others. The number offering easy welfare would shrink. The few last ones would be so poor and overrun with tramps their governments would be thrown out by angry populations intent on change.
National Result
Eventually, all states would eliminate welfare, and America would be great again.
So, who will start the ball rolling? Which State leader has the guts and honesty to admit this is what is needed? Whoever that is, such service would stand them in good stead for a future role as POTUS.
