Welfare

"Welfare reduces poverty. The welfare system of the United States was enacted to combat the rampant poverty plaguing the United States during the era of the Great Depression. " Poverty: the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor. This is what welfare has come to be known as in this great country. a method of being able to say that we have the least amount of people in poverty. Not because we have the most people employed, but because we have the most people living off the government. I quote Ronald Reagan, " We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added. " . http://www.brainyquote.com... My opponent takes the position that by putting billions of dollars into welfare, that we are doing good by keeping people out of poverty. Yes, by definition we are keeping people out of poverty, but how is this helping those people to be successful and to contribute to the country? Forgive me for skipping ahead to the end of my opponent"s article, where he interprets "promote the general welfare," to mean that citizens are entitled to be sustained by the working population. If this right was depicted this way, then no American would have to work, but they do"hmmm" If my opponent takes his authority from the constitution, then explain how he justifies the murder of an unborn child? I took the information from his profile. Before the debate gets changed over to whether or not an unborn fetus is alive, I would just like to say that the government considers the murder of a pregnant woman to count for a double murder. Which means they recognize the life of the child. Anyway" "Instead of questioning whether or not we should abolish this system, we should be asking how we can improve it. " I agree with my opponent, we should be asking how we can improve it, but until we find a way to improve it, it is a leech to our economy, which is the primary reason I take my position. The country doesn"t know how to manage welfare. If every American capable of working worked, and had a steady job, then that $181 billion dollars that goes to welfare could be put back into NASA, which I can argue at a later time is a worthwhile cause. Here is what I take the definition of the constitution to mean: The country will promote the welfare of its citizens by encouraging them to find jobs, and maybe helping them to find one. By doing so, the government wouldn"t have to tax Americans (which we both know angers many of them), and they will develop working habits that will help them later in life. I cannot deny that the current welfare system has pros, providing for American veterans for example, who cannot work because they gave their ability to walk, talk, etc. so that their country could prosper. "An individual is incapable of just sitting on the couch and receiving welfare. Those days have passed. " The following statistics can be found at: . http://www.urban.org... One of the more recent welfare reforms occurred in 1996, just after 1996, 22% of Americans returned to welfare after they had gotten off it, either by finding a job, or being supported some other way. My opponent says those days have passed, but while new regulations have been put forward to help prevent these measures, they have been ineffective. The families that find work end up back on welfare, and this can occur many times, in some cases the families never regain their footing enough to stay off welfare indefinitely. "Con's numbers are correct, in that welfare has increased since Obama has taken office. What he fails to do is differentiate correlation from causation. Obama coming into office did not increase welfare consumption. " If you can associate Obama to these financial problems, which I can, (Obamacare) then you can additionally say that Obama is the cause of the rise in people on welfare. If Obama"s actions do anything to take away any American"s ability to a job, then he can be blamed for their welfare status. I ask pro to prove that there isn"t a single example of this. "However, this clearly isn't the case, and is nothing more than an artificial stigma. The highest number of individuals who fall into poverty are children. In terms of vulnerable groups, children remain the most vulnerable to poverty within the United States. "