Jeremy E. Sarber

Many believe the founding fathers of our country neglected the poor and down-trodden in their governing concepts. Historically though, they lived in a time when religion was prominent among the people and communities were built around churches. If a fellow citizen found him or herself lacking in the material necessities of life, they could almost always count on the help of a loving neighbor. In our nation’s youth, federal programs like welfare would have seemed trivial at best.

In this modern day, commercialism has become the heart of our communities and our biblical morality has all but been lost in the shuffle of our busy schedules. Even so, the generosity of the American people has not been altogether removed. In times of crisis, we still manage to pool our kindness and offer a helping hand to those in great need. For that we should be thankful.

As human nature would determine, we are also a slothful people. This nation of liberties has afforded us an abundance of motivation and opportunities to work hard and earn for ourselves a healthy living. Many have seized the opportunities before them, though at times they are subtle, and have found great reward. That reward does not always come in large doses of monetary gain, but often in the pure satisfaction of a job done well. Others, however, have never put their hand to the plow.

If only the world was so simple that every person could be neatly categorized as a laborer or as lazy. Unfortunately, there is a third type of person which falls into his/her own category, not because they are sluggards, but merely because uncontrollable circumstances have befallen them. These people are the ones who have hit hard times due to lay-offs, cutbacks, failed businesses, bad economic conditions, and other unpredictable events. Hence, our social welfare program was born.

President Franklin Roosevelt was responsible for leading a desperate nation in one of its most trying times. The Great Depression caused much grief and even once we emerged from the crisis caused much worry for the future. There is no doubt that Roosevelt’s motivations were good and his intentions sincere, but this father of big government took unconstitutional steps to insure the financial security of the nation. Where Roosevelt took an inch, the bureaucrats to follow have taken miles.

Social welfare in its raw concept is a beautiful and compassionate suggestion, but even Roosevelt saw its dangers when practiced in reality. While giving a speech on the subject of the prohibition of alcohol, he said, “Wisely or unwisely, people know that under the Eighteenth Amendment Congress has been given the right to legislate on this particular subject, but this is not the case in the matter of a great number of other vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, of insurance, of business, of agriculture, of education, of social welfare and of a dozen other important features. In these, Washington must not be encouraged to interfere.”

The most fundamental principle governing the minds of the framers of our Constitution was that a distant, centralized government must remain small and limited in power. James Madison wrote, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.” He also said specifically concerning public charity, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

Those framers, many presidents, and prominent statesmen throughout American history rejected an empowered government and federally distributed welfare. They would never support the very ideas of government they sought to escape from and never return to. There was never anything more emphasized by the founding fathers than individual freedoms and state-based innovations as opposed to even the slightest oppressions and an unresponsive, distant federal bureaucracy.

Even Franklin Roosevelt said, “We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.” The welfare program converts a people of liberty into a people of dependence. As we have fallen deeper and deeper into this well of reliance, we turn more and more to our government for assistance, asking, “What are you going to do about this?” We have stopped trusting the private sector, our own neighbors and friends, and we look to Washington as our savior, complaining when they fail to improve our person conditions.

It is astonishing to see the lack of shame in politicians who campaign for the poor by offering a hand-out rather than a hand-up. The humane and generous people who are willing to help the less fortunate are to be commended, but we are not going to destroy poverty by substituting a permanent dole for an earned paycheck. As President Reagan said, “There is no humanity or charity in destroying self-reliance.”

Any citizen who faces hard times must not be encouraged to lose site of earned bread, but be exhorted to rise from their knees and return to their feet. With our nature, the snare of laziness is a relatively easy trap to fall into. We are not doing any great favor to the down-and-out by contributing to their lack of success in the moment by removing the incentive to work or earn more. We are driven by the incentive of reward. If someone can receive the ends without any means of their own, then all incentive has been destroyed.

Of course, the actual intent of welfare aid is to give people a boost from their fallen state. No true humanitarian would ever find fault with such an act of kindness. But what we must consider is if the ends we seek are being accomplished by the means we provide. Throughout the life of welfare in this country, have we seen a higher percentage of recipients leave the welfare system? Have we seen less of them return to government assistance? If the answer to these questions are “no”, then we can only assume the system is broken and in need of repair.

I would never suggest that we altogether abandon our poor citizens. But in its current state, welfare is unconstitutional and a great social injustice. Beyond the reasons already expressed, even the smallest attempt of our federal government to redistribute our income is a serious violation of our rights as American citizens.

In 1830, Congress was considering an act to grant a certain amount of public money to the widow of a deceased veteran. Davy Crockett rose up and said, “Mr. Speaker, I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, as any man in this House. But we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money.”

Crockett, the poorest man in Congress, went on to donate more of his own salary to that widow than any other Congressman. He believed in compassion yet feared a government empowered to share as they determined the private sector’s personal income. Wealth redistribution punishes good economic activity and infringes on the fruit of labor and property rights. Milton Friedman famously argued that the slogan “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” turns ability into a liability and need into an asset.

Whether it be income redistribution of some kind, socialized health care, or any other program that takes from one to benefit another more than the first, will never bring about the desired results. I agree with Thomas Sowell when he said, “It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication, and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”

It would be utterly impractical to suggest that we entirely dissolve the welfare system, but it desperately needs dramatic reformation. We have got to make our entire purpose in welfare to see that all relief checks are converted into paychecks. Some services are best provided at the federal level such as defense and postal mail, but not welfare. Social welfare should be funded and controlled by the public at the lowest level of government possible.

With welfare handed exclusively over to the counties (or even cities), the enormous administrative overhead of the federal government could be drastically reduced, red tape could be cut, our poor neighbors could receive more personal attention, and those social workers attending to them could provide a much greater service by helping them receive training and even finding local jobs.

This is but one small step we can take in correcting this social injustice. Perhaps if we required all money taken from public funds be paid back, we would see those in the “lazy” category quickly remove themselves from that position. Others, who are truly incapable of working at the time, would likely have no dissension about paying back what they have borrowed, but could also be trusted to be made exempt from this rule if they were given personal attention and oversight from a much more local government.