All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Consequences In Life, Often Unanticipated

 

8. WELFARE

"The man who first proposed to support the poor increased the number of the miserable; it would have been simpler to let them die." - Perinthis - 300 BC

"The first section of the 3 mile Cambridge Railroad was opened between Boston and Cambridge on March 26, 1856, beating a rival line into operation by the purchase of secondhand cars from the Brooklyn City Railroad. In order to popularize its service, the Cambridge line tried the novel idea of letting everyone ride free, and within a week it was transporting more than 2,000 passengers a day. After some two months of free transportation, the line's conductors began to ask for fares. The public was outraged at this imposition. Many demanded that the company's franchises and privileges be revoked, and a few extremists even suggested that the line's officials should be hanged on Boston Common…" from "Time of the Trolley," 1967, by William D. Middleton, pages 15, 16.

That was private welfare, but any type of SFN has injurious results. Freebies become extremely habit forming and destructive of one's ability to see clearly. Government welfare programs were instituted over 65 years ago by FDR, in a mistaken effort to get America out of the severe depression of the 1930's. Roosevelt's actions began the transformation of American thought from self-help and responsibility for one's own actions, to government handouts and dependence. FDR's programs provided 'public works,' for which a salary was paid, besides the over 19,000,000 on 'relief,' who received simple handouts. Regardless of how well meaning the Roosevelt administration's motives were, they didn't stop the depression, but merely cheapened the money and ran up the federal debt. After Roosevelt took office in March 1933, there were 4,155,000 households, and over 19 million people on 'relief.' In 1940, after 8 years of paid welfare and government financed 'make work,' there were 4,227,000 households, and over 19 million still on 'relief.' The depression wasn't over until Roosevelt got us into a world war, when everyone was employed...also at government expense. Prices after that war had almost exactly doubled, because the amount of money borrowed and put into circulation during the war had also doubled. A new car was under $700 before the war, and $1400 after it. Other prices went up in the same ratio. (See chapter 5 on money.)

Roosevelt's direct handouts lasted for 8 years, while some of his public housing projects are still with us. It was in the mid 1960's that welfare got going again under Lyndon Baines Johnson, (LBJ) when politicians began passing legislation which bestowed bucks to the poor, sick, ill housed, and those in 'need' of something. There was no depression in the 1960's, but like Roosevelt, Johnson realized welfare is a sure shot to staying in office. LBJ, his Democrat Haduks of the House, and their Senate colleagues, all danced around the May-Pole of socialism, swinging under the banner of 'help,' using not their money, but yours. As usual, politicians and bureaucrats said they had only the best of intentions when passing legislation, writing regulations, and transferring massive amounts of wealth from one sector of society to another. It was designed to equalize the population's wealth by redistribution. The results of these laws, acts, and programs, are not difficult to observe, although the consequences are difficult for supporters of these programs and laws to accept. Unlike Roosevelt's 8 years of handouts, LBJ's have continued rolling along for over 35 years so far, with no hope of stopping them. So called "welfare reform" of late, supposedly has many off the lists, but like most government statistics, they are wildly exaggerated.

An October 28, 1975 New York Times story, complete with photos, reports the opening of four magnificent high rise public housing towers in Harlem. The 35 storey towers had greenhouses, swimming pools, gymnasiums, an auditorium, theatre, roof laundry rooms, central air conditioning, 24 hour attendant service, and underground parking. The rent for a 6-bedroom apartment was $113.28 per month. The piece mentioned other equally absurd New York public housing projects with similar facilities. That's saving humanity with guess whose money? In 1938, the Langston Terrace public housing project opened in Washington D.C., at 21^st and Benning Rd. N.E. The rent for a huge 2-bedroom apartment, including all utilities, was $19.50 per month.

When I was a child, I will never forget my mother reading me an allegory about a 'poor little rich kid,' the title of which I cannot remember. I only recall that this child's rich parents provided him with unlimited playthings, and he didn’t appreciate or care for them. He destroyed his toys for the sheer pleasure of it, knowing more would be provided. I remember the story telling of this little brat breaking his wonderful electric trains, literally making me cry. I loved electric trains. I had some, and cared for them extremely well. I have always cared for my possessions, because I have always worked to obtain them, never inheriting a dime. Even at that early age, I realized the spoiled rich kid had no appreciation, because his toy supply was unlimited, and required no care.

During the course of my business career, I have discovered that renters don't care for property nearly as well as owners. Renters have no equity, whereas owners do, who have worked to achieve that equity. Homeowners, who work for the down payment and qualify for financing, care for their homes and neighborhoods. Neglect will cause their home and neighborhood values to plummet. No matter the size or price, when someone works for something, be it a home, car, or furniture, they will usually care for it.

In Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other major cities, neat row homes, many no more than fifteen feet wide, have been cared for as priceless possessions for over a hundred years. Front steps are scrubbed daily, and the best of storm windows installed. Inside, the carpets are thick, and every square inch is a pleasure to behold. Children are raised to care for their home, toys, and clothes. Bright, spotless uniforms are worn to parochial schools, and gutters and sidewalks are swept clean as often as necessary. These working class people of whom I speak, have never had anything given to them, but have worked hard for their acquisitions and home ownership, no matter how meager. Unfortunately, many of these formerly pristine neighborhoods are now trashed. Trashed, because of welfare programs that allowed unqualified people to 'buy' homes with no down payment, and few if any credit requirements or reputations, which a responsible lender would demand to grant a loan. The aforementioned West Philly is classic, but examples abound in every city. The "SFN" syndrome is what has killed neighborhoods by the hundreds. Public housing has destroyed neighborhoods, and in turn the cities; another example of "SFN."

When a family can move into a spacious apartment or house, paying a fraction of what it is worth in rent, they will not care for that dwelling. The purpose of public housing is to 'get the poor into decent housing.' The consequences of these projects are ruined neighborhoods, diminished or lost property values, incredible crime rates, and urban devastation. Public housing projects have never helped a neighborhood, or the residents of the neighborhood in which they were placed. The homeowners who had worked and toiled to achieve their life's ambition of home ownership, see their equity go down the drain automatically, when a public housing project is placed in their neighborhood. Homeowners in the East Falls section of Philadelphia saw this happen to their neighborhood, only one of hundreds in America. I grew up in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington D.C., and that street was wrecked and burned a few years ago by those who got their "SFN" in formerly wonderful, spacious homes in the neighborhood, with little or no down-payment. A home is usually the largest single purchase a family will make in its lifetime. To see such a huge investment destroyed by an act of government, no matter how excellent the intentions are, is difficult to explain to the dispossessed, and when it is a racial matter, as it usually is. Conflict and hatred between the races has been exacerbated to horrendous proportions, and attempts to 'help' one sector, has ruined another, and taken neighborhoods and even cities with it.

"The inhabitants of slums are not the ones who made this country." - Atlas Shrugged

The abandoned, burned, trashed homes in various urban neighborhoods were once owned and cared for by financially responsible, hard working families. They saved and struggled to buy those homes, and hundreds of thousands of these families lost their savings when they were forced to move from their neighborhoods. They mostly sold their homes at a loss, and had to buy another, not only at higher cost but with drastically increased transportation costs to get to and from work and shopping. Higher taxes, immature landscaping, and long established neighborhood relationships broken asunder, are only a very few of the traumas suffered by the dispossessed. The devastation of America's cities are the consequences of no qualifying, no money down finance plans, plus hundreds of welfare schemes, public housing projects, and other handouts which were conceived with the best of intentions, (and re-election insurance) but have failed miserably. The most severe of consequences is the loss of the cities. Government attempted to legislate morality and control human action, but it failed. Bureaucrats and the Congress never cease trying to control us, but it has never worked. Edicts, laws, or regulations, no matter how noble their intent do, not change human actions, opinions, prejudices, and inbred emotions. When so called 'morality' has been legislated, it has never worked, only inflamed dormant feelings, desires, or prejudices, and given political hacks a mistaken rationalization to legislate even more silly laws.

Welfare has cheated large portions of entire races from the privilege of working, making it on their own, and gaining pride from their achievements. I refer to the Negro and American Indian races in particular, but the Hispanics are gaining ground quickly, and being robbed of incentive by the liberals' handouts, which in reality, are attempts to control them. No one has ever benefited emotionally by receiving "SFN." This thing we so lovingly call freedom, if it were practiced, would strengthen the weak by forcing them to work and succeed on their own, not subsidizing, and making them even weaker.

"You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong." - Abraham Lincoln

I would like to be 25 pounds lighter, have more money, be able to play music, and have a lower voice. Everyone 'needs' something they don’t have, no matter how ridiculous it may seem to others. People 'need' new tires, lower cholesterol, a new roof, or better grades, but that doesn’t mean they are supposed to have gifts made of them. Welfare, or any attempted control by governmental wealth redistribution or force, steals it from me, and gives it to someone else. This takes various forms, such as government caused inflation, which diminishes the value of your money, high taxes, and wretched "programs."

Social Security

The only government handout that isn't welfare is Social Security, which happens to be a compulsory old age insurance scheme, which was actuarially unsound from the beginning. In reality, it is a mandatory, colossal, government sponsored "Ponzi" scheme. It's extremely funny to me when I hear bureaucrats and political hacks tell us, 'you get all the deducted money back in just a few years.' If the average worker began putting their Social Security payments into a decent investment plan with compound interest, by the time of retirement they would be millionaires. With inflation, of course you get it all back in a few years, but you get it back in greatly reduced value dollars, and with no interest included. Social Security is a hideously bad investment, but it isn't welfare, nor voluntary.

A "Ponzi" scheme is a fraud that pays off participants with new money brought in, until the whole thing collapses because there are no more takers, which has been happening to Social Security for decades. The process of collapse is now being accelerated, because 12,000 people every day, the so called 'baby boomers,' are turning 50, and in just twelve short years, most will have made those Social Security applications. To illustrate just how Social Security has bamboozled the public, look at the figures. In 1999, one had to pay a 15.3% tax for Social Security, and an additional 2.9% tax for Medicare on incomes up to $67,400. $11,400 in taxes for Social Security in 1999, and 50 years previously, the Social Security tax was 1% on incomes of up to $3000, or $30, with no Medicare or Medicaid. The Ponzi aspect, is that when Social Security was established almost 60 years ago, there were 32 workers for every retiree, and now there are 3. The scheme is about to collapse. Braggadocio politicians 'saved' it merely by raising the taxes levied to support it. For those of you who hold jobs, the 15.3% is half paid by your employer, giving the illusion you are only paying half that much. In reality, your paycheck would be 18.2% higher if you weren’t being forced to 'contribute' to this fraud.

The so called "Social Security Trust Fund," into which all the deductions have supposedly been placed for your retirement, consists of over $5 trillion in government IOU's. There isn’t a silver dime in the fund. It has all been used to pay bills, and put into the general fund, with an IOU placed as a convenient notation. Today, a large majority of Americans believe they will never see a red cent of benefits from Social Security. More 18-year-olds believe in flying saucers than believe they will ever benefit from that swindle known as Social Security. All the incandescent fulminations of the hotshot bureaucrats and parasitic politicos won’t change the fact that Social Security is headed for a cataclysmic end in the future. The unfunded liability of Social Security in 1996 was $10 trillion dollars! The only way to save Social Security is to raise those deductions from 15.3% to 40%, or print the money, neither of which will save it without an inflation that will make a pack of cigarettes cost $75, or $7500 at the end maybe.

In Albania, in February 1997, a government sponsored Ponzi scheme robbed tens of thousands of citizens of their life's savings when it collapsed. Riots and civil mayhem broke Albania into many pieces. Could it happen here with Social Security in a few decades? Absolutely! In 1998, Brazilians, Japanese, Koreans, Indonesians, Russians, and many others, lost their life's savings by keeping their assets in their respective currency denominated savings, just like America’s Social Security. Looks of horror were flashed on TV news as they watched their savings evaporate before their eyes, the indication being that prices doubled, tripled, quadrupled, and quintupled almost instantly, while their supply of currency stayed the same. Here, the same will happen eventually, while the Social Security checks and savings account balances remain the same.

"Welfare reform" is currently touted by politicians who want to get re-elected...as usual. They sense the increasing outrage of voters who remember wonderful cities with low crime, low taxes, and whole families. The tag lines in these welfare reform plans are always, 'of course we must care for those unable to care for themselves,' or, 'there has to be a safety net.' This is not reform of any type, but merely lip service. An old European proverb states that, "Hunger is the disease and food the medicine." No one in America is hungry, regardless of the mouthings of welfare espousing charlatans. We are mostly too fat, and as a matter of fact especially the welfare beneficiaries. A study by Scripps Howard News Service and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism found that America's fattest, are female high school dropouts, living in large cities, with incomes below $10,000, and who do not regularly exercise. Give you a clue? Before the current welfare state got its start, no one starved, no one died from homelessness, and those in need were cared for by their families, churches, and voluntary charities, of which there were literally millions.

Another form of welfare is the Medicare-Medicaid frauds, which also got started in the 1960's, above the outraged protests of Republicans, who predicted just what would happen...and it has. Now, Republicans are all for it, and they ballyhoo their plans to save it. On TV's Fox News of October 13, 1997 it was stated that $65 million a day is the cost of Medicaid fraud and waste. Before government got involved in medicine, it was no big expense. Doctors competed with each other, as did hospitals. People paid for their services, and those with health insurance, which were few, didn't ruin the system any more than life, or auto insurance plans ruined the industry. There were few millionaire lawyers, doctors, and surgeons before the 1960's. It was the market place in operation. The socialization of medical care made costs escalate like a Fourth of July rocket, which to this day has yet to reach its zenith. Before socialized medical care, an office visit to a doctor was about $3, and now well over $100 for a specialist, and $80 for a rather ordinary general practitioner, (GP) if you are lucky. Whenever government, and especially the federal government sponsors something, it will always give rise to fraud, extreme cost, and inefficiency. Today, $46 bandages, $5 aspirins, and billions of wasted taxpayer dollars are the normal circumstances. Hundreds of billions have been, and continue to be wasted, on the welfare health systems promulgated and voted upon by LBJ and his 1960's Democrat Congress, which knew no limits in their attempts to 'help' some, at the expense of others. Those people wanted to assist their constituencies, get re-elected too of course, and probably believed they were helping everyone. The consequence of socializing medical care has made it unaffordable for most, and even if insurance is purchased, the cost is virtually prohibitive. The duplicity perpetrated by the medical field on the federal government, which writes the checks, is out of science fiction, it is so absurd, but then the same can be said of any federal program. 'Programs' are 100% of the time just another word for welfare or "SFN." Government handouts are the main gimmick by which power hungry politicians obtain re-election to those cushy offices with huge staffs, and the possibility of being the Tiddly Wink that lands in the big pot of eternal fame and exposure...the United States Presidency, (whose reputation has been destroyed by the Clintons!)

The latest vote glomming effort by both Republicans and Democrats is to socialize the prescription drug industry. What will happen? Easy! Like the rest of socialized things, corruption will run rampant, prices will go through the roof, and government will grow ever larger and more confiscatory.

My youngest daughter had her second child in 1994. She and her husband did quite well, and deliberately had no medical insurance. The hospital charges were astronomical, because those paying for services must cover the mandatory freebies issued to those unable to pay, plus the exorbitant costs of paperwork, federal rules, and Medicare and Medicaid frauds. Example: The nurse asked my daughter if she wanted her to take the baby to the nursery while she got some rest. That nursery trip cost $300. The baby was loaned two tiny blankets to keep her warm: $56 each. A man in my town works, but is officially classified as below the poverty line because he only makes $10 an hour. He recently had a triple by-pass in the same hospital as my daughter had her baby, and it cost him $29! A friend's father died recently, and as is the custom, was taken to the hospital to be pronounced "dead." She got a bill for $1400, and the corpse was in the hospital for perhaps 10 minutes. Also as a part of the bill was $200 for "medication," and $300 for the "doctor." Give me a break!

And then there is corporate welfare, which cost the taxpayers billions each year for the "Market Promotion Program," begun in 1990, and signed into law by a Republican President. Big corporations are given millions to help them sell their stuff overseas, and I am certain most of us would prefer not to subsidize them. Examples are: Sunkist - $65 million, Blue Diamond Almonds - $32 million, Gallo Wines - $22.3 million, Tyson Foods - $9 million, and a host of others. Corporate welfare also includes various tax credits for sundry reasons, including the Archer-Daniels-Midland Corporation, which regularly milks the federal government for hundreds of millions of dollars each year for the absurd "ethanol" program. Corporate welfare costs taxpayers about $75 billion each year, as of 1996, undoubtedly a lot more now.

Foreign aid welfare costs Americans tens of billions of dollars each year. It has saved no one, made no one love us, and in fact much of it lines the pockets of foreign politicians. Russian politicos have taken American and IMF handouts and placed billions in secret Swiss accounts and laundered it through New York banks, rather than using it to help their people, for which it was given. Recently a Russian company bought the Getty Oil Co for cash, undoubtedly laundered from American handouts. Some African nations receiving foreign aid have become so lazy that they are now unable to feed themselves, so hooked on American drop-offs have they become, not to mention the local chief, who usually lives in the lap of luxury at America's expense. The former Belgian Congo, re-named Zaire, had as its ruler for over 30 years, a scoundrel named Mobutu Sese Seko, who, while keeping his people dirt poor, stashed away at least $4 billion in foreign banks, had several palatial mansions around the world, 50 limousines, and was considered one of the world's richest men. Mobutu was overthrown and exiled by a communist named Laurent-Desire-Kabila, who re-named it the Republic of Congo. Who knows what its future may be? Zaire was a major beneficiary of American foreign aid, and Mobutu was a former employee of the CIA! Mobutu died in Morocco in September 1997. Perhaps "Kinshasa" will be changed back to its original name of "Leopoldville," and "Kisangani" back to its original "Stanleyville."

Public Art

Public art is welfare for the untalented, and the very word "public," when attached to art infers such. A talented artist does not have to eat at the public trough. I used to live near a talented artist named Jerry Shurr, whose art can be seen in commercial buildings, hotels, and even on TV and in film. Jerry worked his way up from starvation until he figured out a particular style that made him a success. A few doors from Jerry lived a public school art teacher, who was virtually talentless, and his pathetic work showed it. Is it possible that when chimpanzees throw paint at a board, or an elephant is trained to swish his trunk in paint and swirl it on a canvas, the buyers of this high priced junk were educated in public school art classes? Do the Jackson Pollock fans really love art? Pollock was a hopeless alcoholic, and died in 1956 when he drunkenly crashed his car into a tree. His "art" was aimlessly dribbling and splashing paints onto a canvas. Fools pay fortunes to buy his rubbish.

In Philadelphia, as in most cities, talentless artists have been paid to decorate thoroughfares and parks, seemingly without cessation. They are receiving welfare, and are just as immoral as the welfare dispensing political hacks who saw to it they were commissioned...with tax dollars. In Philly, at the end of the Ben Franklin Bridge, is a piece of public art that is so inane it is laughable. It is supposed to be "Lightning," and is almost as bad as the "Clothespin," across from Philadelphia’s wonderful, ornate, City Hall.

Welfare sponsored art, music, or architecture, will usually show little talent, as an artist who is talented wouldn’t work for government salaries. Most of the great composers, such as Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, or Schubert made it on their own, and lived quite nicely from their artistic abilities and creations. The so called "impressionist" artists, who lived in poverty and even mutilated themselves, deserved their poverty at the time they lived, because it was mostly considered poor art. Most of it still is. Today, wealthy morons pay millions for impressionist art from a hundred years ago, simply because it is collectible and the "in" thing to have, not because it is great art. The taxpayer funded NEA. (National Endowment for the Arts) passes out millions to untalented frauds who are not only talentless, but often vulgar and obscene. Absurdities piled on top of absurdities.

SOLUTIONS

"We can’t leave anyone behind." - Vice President Al Gore - 1996

Sorry Al, but we must! There should be no gain without sacrifice. Welfare recipients are just as hooked as any heroin junkie, and just like the drug war, welfare addiction costs taxpayers huge sums of money, solves nothing, and destroys both the payers and payees. Welfare simply must disappear totally, but to be fair it must take a few years, because it is so addictive and self-destructive. The first step is not to allow any new entrants. Second, allow those on the dole a couple of years to stop living off the rest of productive society. The elimination of welfare must go hand in hand with the elimination of the income tax and all other government programs, all of which are simple theft. 'Programs' are not a Constitutional item. There would have to be a lot of reshuffling done, but to everyone's benefit. There is no strength in subsidy, and strength is what is needed to successfully negotiate life's hurdles. America must terminate supporting the weak, and penalizing the strong. In August 1996, Bill Clinton signed an 800 page welfare reform bill that will accomplish little other than to 'block grant' billions to individual states. The states are probably just as stupid as the federal government when it comes to handouts, so it will undoubtedly mean nothing.

"A little leaven leavens the whole loaf" - Galatians 5:9

The above scriptural quote is the very reason that all unconstitutional welfare, wealth transfers, and redistribution must be eliminated. If any are left in place, they will just multiply as a bit of yeast can act on an entire barrel of dough. "SFN" is highly contagious, and if one has some, others will demand a piece of the pie; eventually taking us back where we are now; like lemmings marching off to the sea, with everyone on the dole a bit, some more than others, but to our inevitable destruction and weakening.

It could mean something if states, or even counties within states decided not to take the 'block granted' money, and eliminated welfare all together. After all, welfare is extremely contaminating. Know what would happen? There would be a mass migration out of those states or counties by all the worthless, and an influx of producers, wealth, business, manufacturing, and prosperity into those states or counties, because the taxes would be so low. The states or counties, to which the migration of the weak went, would quickly pass their own elimination of welfare, and within a few years, welfare would go the way of the dodo bird. As a wonderful dream, imagine your community with no welfare recipients and their slums, crime, and dependency. Imagine no graffiti, public housing and low taxes. It could happen, but don't hold your breath, and of course don’t quit your day job.

Andrew Carnegie knew what was wrong with giving someone SFN when he said, "No person and no community can be permanently helped except by their own cooperation."

"IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME"

I hope that among your favorite films is "Field of Dreams," where that phrase originated. The idea is not new, and one of the most dramatic examples of that axiom was the building of entire "Levittown" communities in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, after WW II, with no government subsidies, and no free land. Sparkling new, tiny homes were built, selling for about $5,000, at a profit, and there were never any crime waves, graffiti, and wholesale demolition, as is common in all public housing projects. Buyers saved for their down payments and bought their homes, receiving no "SFN." In the early 60's, the manager of one of my theatres owned one, and he delighted in showing it to me over coffee several times. Today, Levittown homes are selling for well over $100,000, and the communities are still thriving. The New Jersey Levittown changed its name to "Willingboro," but there is still a Levit Parkway, a tribute to its brilliant founder, who provided low cost housing without government subsidy. Those buying homes in the Levittowns were responsible working class people who wanted to own a home, rather than be welfare recipients who wanted "SFN" from government in the form of public housing, whose destruction is usually begun before the paint is dry. Tens of thousands of public housing units, all fairly new and of brick construction, have been demolished because their condition became hopelessly trashed by their worthless occupants.

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