Writings on Welfare

The following statement was written in response to an ignorant chain letter about welfare. Parker Jarnigan eloquently states:

In 1996 Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress passed the welfare reform act which, among other things, made the sum limit for persons to receive any type of federal aid at 5 years. so there aren't any cadillac welfare queens. also, most welfare recipients are children and most women who receive welfare are white. the prevailing idea that most welfare dollars go to lazy minorities is untrue. finally, most people who don't like welfare are against it because they see it as a huge waste of their tax dollars going to finance the lives of millions of lazy people. this isn't true. individual welfare costs less than 1% of the federal budget and less than 2% on average of state budgets. by comparison, the conservative Cato Institute estimated that in 2006 alone, the federal government spent over $92 billion in so-called 'corporate welfare' in the form of subsidies, tax breaks, money grants, and special treatment. the recent episode of $1.1 billion being sent out by the USDA to the estates of dead farmers for subsidies seems much more wasteful than the myth of welfare "free riders."

The government gives everyone tax breaks when they pay for our education and roads and fire stations and cops. Without any of that, we would all be stupid, walking, on fire, and dead.