In the old way of thinking, aid recipients were asked to be productive—to build skills and a work ethic.
By James L. Payne
One problem with handouts is that if you offer something for nothing, the numbers lining up for it expand indefinitely. In 1963 the U.S. secretary of agriculture assured lawmakers that federal food stamps “could be expanded over a period of years to about 4 million needy people.” Fifty years later the country’s population had not even doubled, but this handout had grown to 47.6 million recipients—and in a time of economic recovery......Franklin D. Roosevelt was clear as well. “Continued dependence upon relief,” he said in 1935, “induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.” Yet government programs, being shallow and impersonal, tend to drift into handouts. They are like the superficial giver who drops a dollar into the beggar’s cup and walks on, feeling self-satisfied......To Read More....
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