“The history of the welfare state is the history of public enterprise pushing out private organization. The impact was largely unintentional, but natural and inevitable. Higher taxes left individuals with less money to give; government’s assumption of responsibility for providing welfare shriveled the perceived duty of individuals to respond to their neighbors’ needs; and the availability of public programs gave recipients an alternative to private assistance, one which did not challenge recipients to reform their destructive behavior.” Doug Bandow, (1954- ) American columnist, author, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Source: National Service — or Government Service?, Policy Review, P. 34, September-October, 1996.
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Andi Qui
Saturday April 20th, 2019 at 03:02 PMIt’s “destructive behaviour” to be poor? The flawed assumption is that poverty is always the person’s fault. What is the purpose of the taxes the government is so firm about collecting? Oh, I almost firgot, to pay for ever expanding military. Some of that money should be used to help the poor who are down on thier luck thru no fault of thier own, such as illness, injury, widowhood, the fatherless. Thier needs are too great to be the burden of the neighbor to supply for any extended period, as the neighbor has his own life to see about, with what’s left after paying mandatory taxes.