Welfare Should be Abolished

Considering that government it outsourcing a tremendous amount of the work to the private sector, the private sector is more than capable of handling the issue. I disagree that welfare by nature is something the government must be accountable for. I believe the role of government is to defend our lives, liberty and property. I believe the amount of military spending in the U. S. needs to be reduced but is a topic for another debate. $40 billion dollars is far from a reasonable price to pay in order to "assist" 2.1% of the population or 644,173 people. This equates to over $600,000 per individual. I think this number is far from reasonable considering the median income in the U. S. for a family of four is approximately $60,000 per year. (. http://www.infoplease.com...) American Welfare underperforms when compared to countries like Sweden as Sweden spends over 30% of their GDP on welfare programs compared to the U. S. which spends a little over 2%. In order for the U. S. to "perform" comparably with regard to decreasing poverty the U. S. would need to increase spending which already is at over $400 billion. Additionally, even in countries where the welfare system performs better with regard to poverty levels, poverty still exists. If welfare were to be abolished the accountability for rising above poverty lies with the individuals. Poverty will continue to exist with or without welfare. A utopia where everyone is capable of caring for themselves and are able to hold themselves accountable does not exist in the world that I know of. I fail to see the correlation between welfare programs and social mobility. Individuals on welfare may slightly rise above the poverty level but by how much is not data that is readily available. Private organizations will be unable to eliminate poverty any better than the government but I'm sure organizations can do a better job than the government which is spending over $620,000 per individual. Blaming society for the failure of a person to graduate high school is a poor statement at best. In the United States, all citizens are provided with a FREE public education. Instead of blaming society I choose to place the blame on the parents and the kids themselves. Some may need to work harder than others in order to achieve the American Dream but the American Dream is readily available. It depends on how bad the individual wants it. There will always be a divide between the rich, middle class and poor and welfare does little to nothing to close the divide. People born in the U. S. tend to have a feeling of entitlement and programs like welfare doe nothing to eliminate but rather enforces it. If the American Dream is not readily available then it must be a miracle that someone from China can come to the U. S. legally, open a business and provide for his or her family. I disagree with your opinion that welfare facilitates capitalism. In my opinion welfare facilitates false capitalism. Capitalism is a for profit system where the capitalist earns a profit by providing goods and services for a price/profit and uses a portion of those profits to monetarily compensate others for their labor. For those who are unable to "feed the machine" the capable are taxed in order to provide the funds to the incapable. Forcibly taxing those who work hard in order to provide for those who cannot or refuse to contribute to society is a socialist policy. Spreading the wealth should be a choice. In a perfect world everyone would work hard and poverty would not exist but there is no such thing as a perfect world in this day and age. I fail to see how forcing people to care for others make the world any more perfect. My stance may seem selfish to you but in reality I am not selfish. I am simply making a case that welfare does not work and handing it over to private organizations will not only be on par with the current system but would cost less and operate more efficiently. People in the U. S. currently donate over $300 billion per year to charity and if $400 billion per year were not needed by the government perhaps people, including myself, would donate more. There are varying degrees of success. To some success may be the ability to provide their families with food shelter and clothing where to others it may be purchasing a mansion, yacht and an exotic sports car. I fail to see the correlation between success and welfare. "Who becomes accountable for poverty levels in a society where social welfare is not the responsibility of the government? " I believe the answer to your question is quite simply the individuals that make up the society. If society feels that poverty is an issue organizations will arise to meet the need. Even with welfare in place there are approximately over 1 million non for profits in the U. S. (. http://foundationcenter.org...) As the need arises, even more organizations will be created and people will continue to donate in order to provide assistance. Poverty will never be eliminated as there will always be people who live in poverty either through choice or circumstance. At a cost of $400 billion per year in order to decrease the poverty level by 2% or a bit over 640,000 people is wasteful and does nothing to eliminate poverty. Even countries like Sweden where over 30% of their GDP fund welfare programs, poverty still exists. Welfare does nothing to improve social mobility and provides for the feeling of entitlement. Welfare does nothing more than to create a reliant sub society at an astronomical cost. I believe I also made the case that private organizations are capable as there are organizations that provide social services such as Feeding America in addition the hundreds of thousands that currently exist. I realize that there are times in life when people need a helping hand but the responsibility does not lay with the government, the responsibility lays within the society itself.