Welfare in the United States

spidergoat said:
Because it's only possible to be responsible for your own political organization. That being said, we do actually give aid and loans out to other countries, it's not even necessary to lower our standard of living because it is precisely that standard that allows us to be prosperous. Money isn't a limited resource to be hoarded, the more you spend, the more you create.
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I don't think it's true that increasing the amount of money being spent creates more wealth, more money maybe, but definitely not prosperity.

The USA generally spends 'Aid' money when it wants resources or military advantage. Just look at the horrid conditions at home in the inner cities and we think we're going to fix other nations' problems? Come on. Billions in aid given to Egypt and it's as poor today as one could imagine.
 
Pandaemoni said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNFf7nMIGnE&feature=autoplay&list=LLGsBOJD2xFnbp1lqbkr62Yw&playnext=1

Poor underappreciated Hamilton. He's the poster child for the self made man, and some fool is making him out to be a socialist.
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Nice rap song :)

I'm not suggesting Hamilton wasn't an interesting, educated and brilliant - it's not all butterfly's wings that create hurricanes, we should study the ones that do. WHY was he opposed by all the other founding fathers? Why did he think POTUS should be for life? Why did he write a new US Constitution (which he never showed and returned to New York with)? What would he think of General Welfare today if he were to visit inner cities of the USA?


There are some good arguments for hereditary rule, I'm glad I don't live in such a system (at least not outright), but I can imagine for a whole (large) segment of society they'd notice no difference one way or the other. I wonder what Hamilton's arguments were? I'm sure some probably made good sense.
 
Michael said:
Nice rap song :)

I'm not suggesting Hamilton wasn't an interesting, educated and brilliant - it's not all butterfly's wings that create hurricanes, we should study the ones that do. WHY was he opposed by all the other founding fathers? Why did he think POTUS should be for life? Why did he write a new US Constitution (which he never showed and returned to New York with)? What would he think of General Welfare today if he were to visit inner cities of the USA?


There are some good arguments for hereditary rule, I'm glad I don't live in such a system (at least not outright), but I can imagine for a whole (large) segment of society they'd notice no difference one way or the other. I wonder what Hamilton's arguments were? I'm sure some probably made good sense.
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So far as I know he was opposed to hereditary rule, he was a supporter of a presidency for life (subject to impeachment) for the same reason he was in favor of it for judges. You need to recall that no one assumed we would have a standing army at the time. Congress was where the "real power" was expected to lay, and that was headed off by the limitations placed on their powers.

Hamiltonian distrust of majorities is pervasive in our Constitution and is one of its signature features, as well as being one of the keys to its success. Insulating the executive (king or president for life) from the majority allows for a strong executive who can make decisions in the best interest of the people even when the majority opposes the medicine. Many of the Founding Fathers (being, by and large, good Lockeans) still referred to the Glorious Revolution as an exemplar to be followed, and that was viewed as the replacement of a tyrannical king with a new king that would be subject to the constitutional limitations and the (British) Bill of Rights of 1689. (The irony being that the King the Americans now called a tyrant was a direct result of that Glorious Revolution and subject to those limits.) It's not so surprising that the republic they wanted to establish (and that was Hamilton's goal as well..we was the principal author of the Federalist Papers for heaven's sake, writing more than half of them.)

As for the general welfare, Hamilton was so afraid that the propertyless people would vote stupidly (like voting to take away the property of others) that he believed allowing the poor the franchise would be folly. He certainly did believe that the general Welfare clause of the Constitution gave Congress a broad authority to spend money on any matter for the betterment of the national as a whole (but not localities), but that seems to be a plain English reading of tht clause of the Constitution. The power inherent in it is limited by the amount Congress can raise in taxes, and that is in turn limited by restrictions on taxes in the Constitution and by the need to be periodically elected to Congress itself every two years (or to maintain the favor of the State legislature, in the case of senators).
 
Michael said:
..."To want to create a law which regularly, permanently, and uniformly relieves indigency without also increasing the indigent population, without increasing their laziness along with their needs, and their idleness with their vices, is to plant an acorn and to be stunned when a stem appears, followed by leaves, flowers, and fruits, which in turn will one day produce a whole forest from the bowels of the earth....
Alexis de Tocqueville
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I agree. No one wants a permanent state of receiving welfare, that would create a permanent underclass, almost a caste system. But that isn't what modern welfare is. Permanent poverty is exactly what welfare is attempting to address. You have to prove that you are actively seeking work, and there are time limits. Systemic reasons for poverty must be eliminated. It could be as simple as having better urban planning and not putting all the affordable housing in one location. Or ending globalization which destroys jobs. This is what the government is for.
 
spidergoat said:
Or ending globalization which destroys jobs.
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The productivity of American workers is leveraged by a huge infrastructure of industrial automation. The productivity of workers in China and in the Third World is not: their jobs are much more labor-intensive than the typical button-pushing jobs in American factories.

Therefore, globalization probably results in a net increase in jobs. For every American job that vanishes, two probably pop up somewhere else.

So from a global standpoint, globalization works. ;)
 
Michael said:
Anyhow, it's interesting to read how welfare came into being and how long this has been debated. BUT, hardly any Americans know of this history or the debate. We're raised to accept Income Tax and Welfare as moral - when NONE of the founding fathers or early POTUS supported general welfare.
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That's a little hard to defend since the US Constitution explicitly says that Congress has the power to do that. Even mentions it twice. It would take a true revisionist to claim that the founding fathers (especially the ones who wrote the Constitution) didn't support it.
 
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