‘Does Welfare Create Poverty?’

Not only does welfare create poverty, but it also increases the number of poor while at the same time destroying them. Welfare becomes an opiate that saps initiative and turns the recipients into economic vegetables.

The purpose of welfare is as a crutch to help over a period of financial need. Like unemployment compensation, welfare should have a time limit for employable people. Otherwise it becomes a way of life. There are people on welfare whose parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were on welfare, or still are.

Moreover, the welfare system encourages a proliferation of the poor. The greatest population growth is among the poor who can least afford it--that is, without government assistance. The more babies you have, the more money you get. Suppose aid was given only for the first one or two children. The population explosion would diminish. It would no longer be profitable.

America became the world’s greatest nation before it started welfare. The pioneers did not get welfare. The waves of immigrants came to a land of opportunity. They weren’t looking for a handout or a free ride. They wanted only the opportunity to make good on their own. They were proud of their ability to stand on their own two feet.

What we need is not more welfare but less. We need the “teach-a-man-to-fish” philosophy, programs that will make more Americans self-sufficient and productive. We need to stop killing them with kindness.

V. FRED RAYSER

Los Angeles