Welfare programs are beneficial to the country and should be continued

Sorry for not responding in the allotted time! Minimum wage does need to be changed, but in my opinion it must be changed in such a way that it is phased out completely. I never made the argument that minimum wage was directly tied with inflation, Inflation is primarily caused by the Federal reserve and other such entities. However, I do think forcing prices higher than they are (Essentially putting a price floor on wages) create a surplus of jobs, more people want to work for extra than people who want to work for less.... They also will definitely cause businesses to lose money if they don't change their policies to fix that, after all, money does not come out of thin air. They have already calculated everything to come out to maximum efficiency, if they're productive enough, and ofr a busniess to compete in the real world it must remain as efficient as possible. Suddenly losing a lot of money will force them to change some policies, by either firing workers, not hiring extra workers they planned to hire, or raising costs. These 'greedy capitalists' you speak of are mythical creatures- they don't exist. CEO's do tend to make a lot of money, but they don't make money at 'expense' of their laborers. They try to pay their laborers the fairest wage possible, while unskilled laborers may not think 10 dollars an hour is 'fair', they are UNSKILLED and can not contribute more than 10 dollars an hour to the company and have the company still follow the rules of supply and demand. I find it astonishing how some people can sit back and say to you with an honest face that anybody is 'forced' to do anything though the free (or semi-free) market. There is force involved, yes, but not from businesses to their employees- the force is coming from government. Businesses are FORCED to pay high rates for their employees, they are FORCED to hire anybody and everybody, regardless of (however irrational) personal issues such as race or sex. Businesses are forced to help pay for health care for their full time employees, they are forced to uphold countless government regulations. Illegal immigrants are not forced to live in company apartments, nor buy from company general stores. They can simply move out, find another place to work, or go back to where they immigrated from. They CHOOSE, by their own free will, to work for the farm. If 'actual' citizens choose to work in those sorts of conditions who am I or you to stop them? After all- labor in a free market (unlike a socialist or communist market) can ONLY come from voluntary exchange of goods (in this case, labor for dollars). Capitalism has not been proved infallible in the past, in fact, it has been proved to be the most successful and free times, EVER. Socialists, Marxists, and those who are against liberty may give you horror stories of Capitalism, but they are often exaggerated or untrue for all of Capitalism. If you believe the idea that wages will never go above subsistence levels in true capitalism you are naive or insane. That clearly does not hold true with the modern world, as labor becomes more and more specialized- especially in the United States and other high-tech countries. While life may not be the greatest for people who are in a Capitalist system when they have JUST ENTERED it, (IE- A new industrial revolution) but this will quickly change for the better. Compare post industrial world to the pre industrial world. Sure, people had it hard during the industrial revolution, but before it they didn't even have enough for subsistence. People died on a regular busniess, and life was revolved around subsistence farming.... then came the industrial revolution, changing the lives of everybody for the better. If Americans are so charitable, we should allow them to give their own money to charity by their own free will, not force them to give money to charity by taxes. Wealth is not finite, a wealthy person does not make anybody else any 'less' wealthy. South African countries, ironically, are doing so poorly because they have not fully embraced Liberty or Capitalism. When our founding fathers wrote in "general welfare" they did not imagine it would be taken to this extreme, and it is in fact not upheld today. For the welfare to be general it must EQUALLY benefit everybody, such as roads, harbors, and police stations / court systems ETC. In fact, Adam Smith and other writers who they got this from all agreed that the government should have very limited control over the economic lives of the people, minus doing things like building roads. Taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor, interfering with our economy, and heading toward socialism is NOT what our constitution is about. Our constitution was written by LIBERTARIAN writers like Thomas Jefferson, only long long after Jefferson was "general welfare" twisted into an interpretation of "socialistic programs". If Thomas Jefferson and the like originally indented our government to interfere in the economy as such he would have made it so from teh beginning, we wouldn't have had to wait until the 1930's for the big programs to hit us. Our founding fathers dreamed of a country where Life, Liberty, and Property were protected by the government. Where individuals controlled their own destiny, not the government. It has since shifted into a government where we look to the government for protection, not within ourselves. It has shifted from the prime example of individual liberty, to an example of a country moving every so more into a nanny state.