This sounds harsh on the surface, but look at the similarities. Drug addiction is nothing to joke about, and that is not my intent here. Nor is this an attempt to slam drug users or welfare recipients. Addiction to government assistance can be inherited or acquired. It can be taught at an early age, passed down from previous generations. Teaching children the knowledge and skills they will need to use the system to receive an income, without lifting a finger. By those that pursue this lifestyle, they see nothing wrong with this type of behavior. It is normal to them, and it is how they survive. However, the idea of discouraging your able bodied offspring, to choose this type of lifestyle, makes many people sick.
It sounds great on paper, right? Something for nothing, or so it seems. Those collecting, forget that they are bearing the fruit of someone else's labor. This country does not suffer from a lack of opportunity, it suffers from a lack of initiative. This lack of initiative, is a bi product of our welfare driven society.
The goal, when providing welfare to citizens, should be to allowing people to work their way out of poverty, and abandoning benefits when they are in a position to provide for themselves. We shouldn't boast of how many new welfare recipients we sign up. Eventually, we are going to have more takers than makers, and we all know that situation leads to insolvency. We do not have an infinite amount of money. We do, on the other hand have a Federal Reserve that sees no problem with 17.5 trillion dollars in debt, and 130 trillion + in unfounded liability. Welfare is not based on the idea of compassion. It is not there to help the little guy. It is a manner in which politicians buy votes, nothing more. Anyone that thinks, that their representatives is DC care about whether or not you can put food on your table, had better wake up. They sip bubbly, go to parties and only work a small fraction of the year, while making six figure incomes. Their constituents are the furthest thing from their mind. Most of them would slit the throat of a colleague to assure reelection. But we continue to elect them because the moral backbone of America is all but gone. Your elected officials are only as good as your electorate.
Welfare creates a dependence on government assistance because it has no end. People just continue to vote for the person that will allow the flow of "free stuff" to keep on coming. Like a drug addiction, these benefits give a feeling of euphoria, and make one aloof to the country's dire financial situation. Detached from reality they continue to see the check in the mailbox and all is well. While those of us living in the real world, a world subject to the ups and downs of the market, suffer with every economic fluctuation. These so called entitlements, create a haze of artificial happiness. It puts those receiving benefits in their own version of the Lego movie, singing "everything is awesome". Sad but true.
Washington DC has created a voter base of victims, and trys to act as the knight on the white horse, when the perceived "victim" is struggling. Welfare benefits need to be a tool used to bridge the gap, not become a full time job. Incentive is needed to keep a society from getting lazy and imploding as a result of being overrun by leeches. Yes, leeches, if someone is able bodied and chooses to live of of someone else's achievements, that makes them a blood sucking leech. I don't think that type of entitlement mentality, is acceptable, and it is showing disrespect to your fellow man.