Welfare Reform

  Recently, welfare reform has returned to the forefront of our national political discussion and has just as quickly been turned from an opportunity for substantive discouse into little more than a shouting match over the airwaves.  The question is not whether welfare needs to be reformed, but how it can be reformed so that the government can continue providing benefits to millions of struggling Americans.  Entitlement spending, in the forms of welfare, social security, and health coverage, is growing exponentially, and the fear is that future costs will tank the national economy.  The fear of fiscal calamity is very real and rational - most models and projections agree that, if changes are not made, social spending will soon overwhelm the national deficit.  The question is, then, how should welfare be organized to maximize its impact?
  Like many issues about which conservatives are passionate, they argue about welfare based upon principle.  Welfare without a work requirement, conservatives argue, is nothing more than a free handout, and free handouts are unfair to the productive members of society.  They argue that it is unfair to use the success of one to pay for the failure of another.  They claim that welfare benefits encourage out-of-wedlock births, drug use, and engender a culture of dependency upon the government.  In a surprising twist of illogic, I have even heard it argued that welfare is a form of modern slavery, as though each welfare check comes pre-packaged with shackles and chains.  I'd like to combat these principles of "fairness" with a few principles of my own.
  There are few words so fundamentally American as: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness..."  The Declaration of Independence is the foundational document of our democracy, and guides the moral compass of our nation.  Where else should one begin when discussing principles of welfare?  The first thing I would like to point out is that the rights are "inalienable," meaning that no person can lawfully dispossess a citizen of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.  In regard to welfare, what is more fundamental to life than food and shelter?  The government's role is to safeguard our rights, therefore it follows that the government should ensure that every citizen has daily sustenance.  There are no qualifications or conditions attached to these rights; they are inalienable, fundamental.  We do not hold it to be self-evident that man has the right to food if and only if he works, or that man can only be free if he is a productive member of society.  In my mind, there is little else a government should be doing if its population is starving.  What else could be more democratic than ensuring that each man, woman, and child has enough food to make it to the next morning?
  The argument that welfare is a form of modern slavery is spurious at best.  No chains can bind so tightly as the confines of poverty - welfare provides a helping hand out of that cycle.  Think back on your own life: have you ever been bailed out by another?  Have you ever called your parents for a few extra bucks to make the next rent check?  Did doing so enslave you?  Nobody makes it through this world alone, and to muddy the issue by throwing around accusations of slavery is plainly dispicable.  Slavery is the theft of one's human rights, whereas welfare is a temporary form of assistance to those who are already struggling.  If someone is already living in conditions of poverty, would you begrudge them the food on their plate?
  Conservatives often argue that the government fulfills many unnecessary roles that would be better filled by the private sector - one such program is welfare.  They argue that, were the government to get out of the way, private charities would step in to fill the void.  I have never understood this claim. Poverty has already run rampant, so where are the private charities currently?  Whether or not welfare exists as a government program should have no bearing on the private charitable contributions of Americans.  If Americans are as generous as conservative think tanks argue, then they should already be working to solve poverty, rather than waiting for welfare to be gutted.  I contend that it is utterly irresponsible to argue that private charity can step up to fill the void that the federal government's millions of dollars currently fill.  I'm all for private charity and for volunteerism, but that charitable impulse exists independent of government action.  If you feel truly charitable, do something charitable.  Do not blame the policies of others for your inaction.
  The final point I'd like to make is also, to me, the strongest.  Regardless of the prevalence of out-of-wedlock births (which are a function of changing social standards), increased drug use among welfare recipients (drug use is widespread across all socio-economic statuses, especially if you consider alcohol use and abuse), or a degradation of the work ethic (a whole separate issue in itself), welfare reform impacts the children of these struggling families the most.  If we believe that "all men are created equal," then we should ensure that every child is guaranteed sustenance and shelter every day of their life, without any consideration of their parent's actions.  If my dad is a deadbeat drug dealer and criminal who never worked a day in his life, why should I have to suffer as a child?  You can make whatever argument you want about the moral implications of free handouts, or about the social implications of welfare without a work requirement, but in the end, it is the children who suffer most acutely from reduced benefits.  I think that welfare needs to be expanded, that more people need (and deserve) food assistance, that housing for low-income individuals needs to be more readily available, and that there is no higher purpose for the government than to address these issues.  Forget foreign wars, forget missions to Mars, let us fix the very real problems in our homeland.  People are starving, children are dying, and all our political leaders can do is point fingers at each other.  Nothing is of such paramount importance, and nothing deserves the focused attention of our nation as poverty reduction.