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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGreat new study busting The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/business/the-myth-of-welfares-corrupting-influence-on-the-poor.htmlFew ideas are so deeply ingrained in the American popular imagination as the belief that government aid for poor people will just encourage bad behavior.
The proposition is particularly cherished on the conservative end of the spectrum, articulated with verve by Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute, who blamed welfare for everything from higher youth unemployment to increases in illegitimacy. His views are shared, to a greater or lesser degree, by Republican politicians like the unsuccessful presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
But even Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the father of the New Deal, called welfare a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. And it was President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, who put an end to welfare as we know it.
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Today, almost 20 years after Mr. Clinton signed a law that stopped the federal entitlement to cash assistance for low-income families with children, the argument has solidified into a core tenet influencing social policy not only in the United States but also around the world.
And yet, to a significant degree, it is wrong. Actual experience, from the richest country in the world to some of the poorest places on the planet, suggests that cash assistance can be of enormous help for the poor. And freeing them from what President Ronald Reagan memorably termed the spiders web of dependency also known as forcing the poor to swim or sink is not the cure-all for social ills its supporters claim.
It started before but Reagan made it a mantra. Read the article, none of it is true. I hate the GOP. They lie.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)And, surprise! Surprise!
Turns out they are WRONG about everything.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)At least they didn't grow accustomed to government handouts. They starved instead.
bulloney
(4,113 posts)and be productive, then why wouldn't it have the same effect on the wealthy? Yet, their solution to everything is to cut taxes for the rich and subsidize wealthy corporations.
Hamlette
(15,408 posts)I read an article that said if Trump had left his inheritance invested (1,600 rental units in NYC) as it was when his dad died, he'd have more money today than he has, or even that he claims he has. He claims to be worth $10B but would be work $11-12B had he done nothing.
So, the great money maker has actually LOST part of his inheritance.
I wouldn't care if he'd used that money for good instead of starting companies that go bankrupt leaving countless creditors holding the tab. And franking, the world does not need buildings with his name on them all over the world. (My husband goes to NYC on business and directs cab drivers on alternate routes so he won't have to pass any such building. And while my husband is a dem, he is also a banker type and pretty conservative and not prone to histrionics.)