The Real Reason Welfare Should End
Professor Levin teaches in the Department of Philosophy at City College and The Graduate Center of The City University, New York, New York.
Welfare should end, but not for the usual reasons. The Right has long held, and the Left is coming reluctantly to agree, that welfare creates a culture of dependency, sapping the initiative of its recipients. In the slums right now a generation of illegitimate children raised fatherless on Aid to Families with Dependent Children is being encouraged by welfare to produce the next generation.
Welfare no doubt has this effect, but what is wrong with welfare is not that it harms its recipients—lack of ambition is no burden if ambition is not needed for survival—but its moral outrageousness.
Let us try, for once, to see welfare not from the perspective of its recipients, but from the perspective of those who finance it. By what right can someone who works for a living, who has his own family to worry about, be required to support somebody else, or, what is worse, somebody else’s illegitimate child? And forced the taxpayer is. Should he deduct from his tax payment the proportion the government will use for welfare, he is given a jail sentence, not a lecture on charity.
I am willing to grant that everyone is obliged to help the unfortunate, and that indifference to this obligation is a character defect. But compassion and charity are not the issue. The issue is forcible fulfillment of the duty of charity, or someone’s idea of what this duty entails. Let those who feel obligated to support the abandoned illegitimate children of strangers do so. But leave others to wrestle with their consciences as they see fit.
This is a democracy, and the majority, which evidently does feel this obligation, has acted on it by passing the laws that created welfare entitlements. But that does not make the laws right. Forcing someone to support the illegitimate children of strangers is wrong even when the forcing is done by a majority.
As soon as anyone voices a wish to eliminate welfare, a sort of hostage situation is created, wherein welfare advocates raise the prospect of illegitimate children born to poor women. It is asked what will happen to these misbegotten children if “we” do not care for them—with the implication that it will be “our” fault if they starve.
First of all, no one seriously doubts that there would be fewer illegitimate babies than there are now if it were made clear well in advance that on a certain date welfare—AFDC, food stamps, subsidized housing, the lot—was going to end.
But let us imagine an unmarried woman so uninformed and improvident that, without giving thought to how she might be supported were she to become pregnant, consents to intercourse, and does bear a child. If the conservative’s deus ex machina, “charity,” does not arrive on schedule, the child starves. But responsibility for assuring that the child does not starve presumably resides with whoever is responsible for the child itself. The mother is responsible, and so is the father; by all means let us make the father support his offspring. But I am not responsible. I didn’t impregnate the woman, or force her to have sex. Why then should I be forced to take care of it?
“How can you be so concerned with `responsibility’ and laying blame when a child is starving?” The answer is that I have to be concerned, or else I’m going to continue to help support that child as well as my own.
When “welfare reform” is undertaken for the wrong reasons, the reforms inevitably go in the wrong direction. The most appalling revelation about the plan submitted by Bill Clinton to “end welfare as we know it” is that its cost exceeds that of the welfare we know! The Clintonites make no bones of their enthusiasm for job training, childcare, and other new entitlements to encourage “independence.” In practice, this means that instead of merely having to support the illegitimate child of a stranger, the taxpayer will have to support daycare and the stranger’s vocational training as well.
We Are Individuals
Welfare rests on a fallacy and a myth. The fallacy is what logicians call Composition, reasoning from properties of the parts of a whole to properties of the whole. I am responsible for my children, you for yours; in this sense we are all responsible for our children. But then this “we” is surreptitiously interpreted to mean all of us collectively, so that “our” children become all children taken together. Suddenly “America” must take care of “its” children, and then, only a little less suddenly, everyone who can pay is paying for everybody’s children.
Reinforcing this fallacy is the myth that We Are All In This Together, that we all share each other’s fate. We don’t. We are separate persons, families, clans, and groups, pursuing our various ends. We can and should cooperate, and—sometimes, not always—offer help in adversity. But we are all individually responsible for our fates, a responsibility that cannot be undone by forcing some people to pay for the heedlessness of others.
Comment by Marcie Grant on 12 September 2009:
The problem is the same people who want to end welfare are the same people who don’t want unwanted pregnancies terminated. Abortion should be a choice, nay, a mandate, for those who cannot support a child, or too irresponsible to have a child. You would say there’s always people willing to adopt. But do you think the same people who want to end welfare will be willing to raise somebody else’s child with their “hard-earned money”?
Comment by Kurt on 5 October 2009:
The waiting list to adopt a newborn child is 3-5 years and projected to increase. Also, it costs between 40 and 60 thousand dollars to adopt so you can’t say people wouldn’t be willing to do it. People adopt now, why would that change all of the sudden just because welfare programs were terminated.
Comment by NancyY on 9 August 2010:
Here is my rebuttal to the comments of “Marcie Grant”: Have you interviewed all of these supposed “same people” who want to end welfare yet who do not want unwanted pregnancies terminated? I deem it impossible that there would be absolutely no people who would want both at the same time. [Actually, I think Marcie Grant's opening sentence was a sloppily disguised attempt at slamming Christians for their anti-abortion beliefs.] And, how would you propose “mandating” abortion? I am certain that you could not see yourself in the role of telling a woman that since she couldn’t support a child, and because she was too ‘irresponsible’ to do so, that she would have to submit to having the life in her belly sucked out and destroyed. [That would be someone else's nasty job, wouldn't it, Marcie Grant?] I’m not even going to address the last sentence of your post – citizens have been raising welfare recipients for generations, thus the article. Duh.
We live in an age which touts ‘equality’ of all people. So, it would only be logical to assume that individuals on welfare, if they had not been deemed disabled in some way (mentally or physically), should be able to support themselves on a basic level and possibly further their education in order to better their position in life. So what is the problem here? Why do we need ‘welfare’? The answer lies in the fact that some people just don’t want to work. So long as we as a society allow this mess, we WILL be paying for it. It’s like raising children or training dogs – you get what you allow. We as a society have allowed laziness and stupidity for decades, and that’s what we ‘got’.
Comment by zap on 1 October 2010:
My husband is 73 years old, he is STILL working in the woods and is in pain all the time. I am SOOOO beyond sick of seeing women popping out kids to collect welfare. They should be make to work for their money, after 2 kids you will receive NO MORE FREE MONEY. My Dr. went out of business because of welfare, he was not getting paid, office was full of pregnant women on welfare. Most people on welfare have no intentions of getting a JOB to pay for what they made, a lot of them don’t think, nor care where the money actually came from, but know their FREE money had better be in that mail box on time. They go to the Dr. peel their little stickers off and their medical bill is paid, I need surgery right now can’t get it because I cannot afford it. I am in pain, car is not running but I have to figure a way to get to work because I have a lot of people to support because they are lying around making babies I have to feed.
Makes me sick to see a man or woman that has worked for YEARS to lose their jobs, they need help, they can go to hell. They lose their homes, cars, jobs….go to the welfare department for help….NO you will not get any help from us.
Leeches….of the system, it should be mandatory they get off the azzes, get out and at least clean up the streets…anything make they work for their money….I don’t care what type of work it would be, I am working as with my husband to support most of these people, it is bullshit.
Comment by Fed Up on 7 November 2010:
I see this first hand on a consistency, Example. My apartment when I first moved in on arrival I saw some small family’s all ready residing in the complex, some pets, typical things like life being lived. I have lived here now going on 2 years… Just 4 months ago a new “family” moves in, I think nothing of it considering my girlfriend and I both had to submit to a credit and background check, I feel as if my apartment is looking out for their best interest along with its tenets (How wrong I was) I live in a complex that offers studio and 1 bedroom apartments… thats all. When I moved in all the tenants worked, I got up every morning and would see the same people every day leaving for work, their all gone now and you want to know why? you guessed it, the Welfare family! This residence has managed to cause all the people living to the left, right and above them to break lease and move out. With this family came a roach problem, large crowds of very shady people lingering around my complex at late nights. A night last week my girlfriend and I returning home found a man sleeping in our laundry room, apparently stole the light bulb and jammed a bunch of fake quarters in the washer machine, In order to get to this room you have to get pass the security fence around the building and without a key thats not going to happen, so someone gave him a spare key or he broke in. The family consists of 7 people all living in a 1 Bedroom apartment, only 2 are on the lease. The young female of 18 has 3 kids. Then there’s the fat bastard on house arrest selling stolen property in front of my building (he also resides at the same apartment)Just last week I was given a letter from my complex manager about illegal activity’s and noise. Well thats never happened until “you guessed it again” they moved in! My complex managers now getting complaints and doesn’t put 2 and 2 together and say “well this didn’t start happening until this apartment was occupied.” Now a police detective drives past my complex everyday to make sure fat ass is at home when he should be in prison not in my eye sight, committing the same crime that got him on house arrest in the first place! They live by the mailbox because their receiving a plethora of SSI, WIC,& Welfare which they then sell food stamps to by drugs and alcohol. All the plants I had sat out in the middle of the complex have been stolen and or destroyed, car seats and bikes are laying about, some propped up on steps block entrance to my apartment. Not to mention the times I have to step over crowds hanging on the steps drinking 40′s and smoking weed.. This is petty compared to my actual grievance towards welfare and its recipients, the fact is their leeches and I have to watch $200.00 of my hard earned money biweekly go toward degenerates! My girlfriend and I both agreed we cant afford to bring a child into this world due to the cost. Welfare proponents don’t see it logically and continue to expel burdens onto our all ready delicate and failing economy, forcing workers to fit the bill of irresponsibility!
Welfare should not be a conditioning tool, its not a family tradition or an early Christmas its a full on assault to the working class, a slap in the face to all who want to make something of their self the responsible way! Its a crude dark corridor reserved for the successfully apathetic. Its a birth right now, an excuse to shoot out as many kids as you can so the checks keep flowing in. Now when im at the grocery store nothing makes me sicker then watching some woman with 6 kids climbing all over her self and the cart, bitching because the food-stamp card doesn’t cover batteries, all the while thumbing through 20 & 50 dollar bills. Looks to me like they got money, meanwhile I’m hoping my bank card still has money on it to buy laundry detergent. Well I had to pay my rent, car insurance, phone bill, electricity & Gas. Maybe I should just give up having any goals, live off others for the next ten years and bitch about how “the man’s” keeping me down! I might just get my own holiday and tv channel so I can continue to coast off the fantasy that I might be a Basketball star / Rapper one day and get my momma out da ghetto!
I implement we start a work force requirement, no more welfare until you complete the community service requirements. for every month you’re on welfare you should have to work 50 hours a month. The company could get a tax break if they offer this service to Welfare organizations. If you don’t work you lose the program and cant get it back for 3 months. You would have to provide proof that your looking for a job, at least 2 job applications copied and sent to the agency as proof for the files, the welfare office will also be able to call the company for verification of the truth of the application. Nothing should be free, theirs no reason or excuse for this laziness that only has a downside effect on the working class tax payer.
Comment by Real American on 8 November 2010:
I couldn’t agree with you more pard. These scum milk the system because they can. Their momma taught ‘em how, or they picked up the pamplet on US welfare before they crossed the border. Proof they CAN learn. Does it bother anybody else that tons of these folks aren’t Americans and never plan on becoming one? Oh well…
Comment by Random internet person on 14 November 2010:
The idea of “we the people” is a conglomeration of ideals and equality that states in this nation can decide for their selves what is best for its own state, this meaning that each state can decide a tax appointed program that works for them. Alas welfare doesn’t work like that, its a federally mandated bastardized version of a good idea. It started in the 30′s to help those effected by the depression and the dust bowl disaster that swept the farmlands of the Midwest. Through the generations of manipulation its now the destructive force come to be know as today, a hurricane of “locusts” so to speak. A sickening percentage of allocated tax payers continue to help the socially inept, Buying diapers for kids they don’t have, feeding children they never birthed, submitting their paychecks to urban renewal projects that flop after the first 5 years. Its our responsibility to continue paying for these practical jokes? Forced to pay taxes that go to political agendas they assemble behind our backs, all ready spending our money before they have it, and the reason for this is they never suffer the impact of their decisions. they money continues to come from the working class and if not, they just print more! this makes our cost of living a nightmare for any one making under 30 – 40,000 a year.
I watched a country’s war of “protecting our boarders” yet I see a border with a half finished wall. I see UN policy being used to rebuild other country’s except the one bordering our nation, 94,000 US troops occupying foreign countries. Where are our troops when we see domestic war? This is a job for the same party that started it! Without the blatant punishing of the ones who keep their pockets lined and dinners fancy! Congress needs to assist the situation and redeem the plague that is welfare, It’s costing America billions yearly, yet they cant figure out a way to fix the debts incurred? The Fed Gov continues to live pretty fancy off the tax payers, helping CEO and CFO friends get off Scott free after they financially rape home owners and the elderly who pay in to SSI and Retirement. The reason for this is they can’t get blood from a stone… Meaning the ones living off free money cant pay back anything in value, the burden is then shifted to the ones who do make honest money.
To all the tax dodgers, welfare mothers, dead beat dads, illegal immigrants and the ones abusing stay at home health benefits. These people are a major negative impact on our financial infrastructure, they return nothing and their act of diminishing return is causing inflation! If cost goes up then people who had a hard time buying luxury’s previously are buying nothing now. Now having a harder time paying for their mortgage, family’s move out of once thriving neighborhoods, this causes our government to take up land that will either not be used or will become a welfare cesspool, supported by the adjourned neighboring tax payer.
Comment by james mcgann on 24 January 2011:
THE UNEMPLOYED SHOULD BE ENTITLED TO THE SAME BENEFITS AS WELFARE PRECIPITANTS WHITE OR BLACK WE ALSO ARE VOTERS. WELFARE HAS NEVER BEEN AN ISSUE OF CARING FOR THE NEEDY. IT IS JUST ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS GETTING MORE VOTES THOSE THAT NEVER WORKED MAKE OUT BETTER THAN THOSE WHO WORKED HARD AND LOST THEIR JOBS BY NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN.
Comment by andrea h on 4 April 2011:
i have never seen such ignorance as i see today while reading these comments. have you no compassion, if not for the one’s abusing the system, but for the honest folks who really need a helping hand. not all assistance reciepients are drug using, cockroach infested, law breaking dirtbags, believe it or not. beyond that, people of that nature exsist in all economic classes of society, people just tend to turn a blind eye to it when they don’t THINK their tax dollars are footing the bill for the behavior.
Comment by SuperDadDefeated on 28 April 2011:
I am a living witness to the testiment of the fact that welfare should be eliminated. I am married to an Evangelist of Apostolic, Pentecostal Faith and she took our four kids and left the State Illinois to return to her home state of Louisiana over some marital differences. The main difference being that she admittely cheated on me with another man and even tho’ I’m willing to forgive her and continue our realationship, she still left. She’s not well educated and I noticed that she was reading alot of self-help, career changing, self motivated books while she was awaiting a decision from her job approving her to come back and work. However, she lost the job and I believe that this was the last straw for her, resulting in her conclusion to leave and get on welfare and file for child-support instead of continue to pursue the “American Ambition” of working and raising a family in a UN-BROKEN home. There’s no doubt in my mind that the illegitimate pregnancy rate and divorce rate for that matter would go down if welfare was iliminated. People would be forced to take the government’s breast out of their mouth and get their damn hand out of the government’s back pocket and work and get along instead of being so DAMN Selfish and LAZY!!
Comment by Pat on 24 August 2011:
If a hand up is more important than a handout, America misses the boat on many counts. Relying upon incarceration to remove the ties that should bind men and their families, legitimate or not, with jobs or not, the American taxpayer becomes the meal ticket for the child (children), the mother (usually on some form of AFDC or schooling aid), and quite often, the father (who may well be jailed under oppressive regimes of mandatory sentencing laws). That places more and more entire families under the welfare system as recipients of those who work and walk the straight and narrow, unfairly, and unnecessarily – to feed the government machines.
Surely, this would not pass any test of democratic logic, nor conservative capitalism. Broken homes are extremely costly to society, depending upon why they are broken.
Comment by Jen112 on 9 January 2012:
Okay first off, the author sounds like a complete idiot. Yah it is not fair to have money taken from your paycheck period. but thats just how it is and will always be. And how dare you act like you are paying so much money for the low income society. Its of no difference to you or anyone whether the money is for a new road or for the food stamp program, you are paying like everyone… many single mothers work their butts off and still just cant afford to put food on the table. so they have food stamps to help them. But they also pay the same taxes you do. So the high and mighty crap being preached is wrong. you have no right to look at a child and mother like you pay for them to eat or live. Everyone does. so get over your crap! I do agree to a point about the issue. I do think there is a huge crippling effect that leads to the government being taken advantage of. I think it is rediculous when you see a single mother who is on housing say…with one kid…but then ten years later she pops out another 3 kids. That is where the government is rediculous. there should be limitations that could maybe prevent so many idiots from being irresponsible. For example maybe a mother with 1 or 2 children who is recieving aid should know that thats it. her and the 2 children are covered and if she goes and gets herself knocked up, unmarried with no plan, she will not recieve more aid then she already has for the family she already has. Maybe then you wouldnt see so many “baby daddys” out there because they would already know ahead of time there will be no more help. But no government basically says…hey go ahead we’ll make sure your irresponsibilities are no problem for you.
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