E-Newsletter No. 45 _______ September 2017

Fair warning to all readers who might have “Democratic Socialism” tendencies… Continue reading at your own risk. On our website, we have added a new Conversation Piece entitled Welfare Reform Re-Visited –

http://www.f2ppr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Welfare-Reform-Revisited.pdf

In this Conversation Piece, we provide our thoughts on how to repeal and replace the federal government’s counter-productive welfare programs. Our country needs to face a sobering fact – – our federal government has lost its “War on Poverty”. History and events have proven that LBJ’s Great Society welfare programs have been an abject failure. We have spent over $22 trillion on welfare programs since the 1960s, and the percentage of people who live in poverty has remained virtually unchanged.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting to achieve a different result. We need to fundamentally transform welfare (which is simply the delivery of goods and services to citizens who need assistance). With this Conversation Piece, our Editorial Board is launching our own war on the War on Poverty. The welfare programs sponsored by our federal government cannot solve the problem of poverty (contrary to how these programs have been “marketed” to the public in the past). Instead, these welfare programs have only served to foster a growing sense of entitlement among our country’s citizens and have increased the level of dependency on the federal government.

Our Editorial Board’s alternative is to promote the concept of Personal Responsibility, rather than Socialism. An individual who is in poverty should look to assistance from civil society for the solution to their problem(s), rather than a government program. History has proven without a doubt that the federal government’s programs cannot accomplish the objective of reducing poverty.

LBJ’s Great Society programs were a drastic over-reach by the federal government. The federal government was not established by the States to deliver welfare to individual citizens. It was set up to protect our country’s citizens’ lives and liberties, and our ability to pursue happiness. The General Welfare clause in the Constitution refers to policies and programs that promote the General Welfare of the country as a whole, and does not refer to providing welfare benefits to individual citizens.

Having said that… Compassionate citizens of all political persuasions recognize that some individuals are going to need some assistance during some period of time in their life. The poor have always lived among us, and this has been true going all the way back to pre-biblical times. As we noted in The 2020 Initiative, the real solution to the problem of poverty is to help the poor become “unpoor”. However, one of the first steps that needs to happen is for each individual to develop a game plan to take Personal Responsibility for their own life. A sense of Personal Responsibility (instead of a sense of “vicitimization”) combined with the assistance available from civil society (families, supported by local community groups, charities, and social service agencies) is the only means by which a person will become unpoor. For those on the Left who are brave enough, please launch the link to the Conversation Piece entitled Welfare Reform Re-Visited.

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As many of us recall, on October 30, 2015, legislation was passed to suspend the federal government’s debt limit to March 2017. Since then, the Treasury department has employed “extraordinary measures” to continue meeting federal obligations without issuing new debt, and the amount of the federal government’s debt has been stalled at approximately $19.97 trillion since July. However, these extraordinary measures will become depleted some time later this month. Unfortunately, the incremental costs that have been incurred for these extraordinary measures total approximately $2.5 billion. Although this is a “big number”, this amount is “miniscule” when you consider the fact that the annual deficit for this year is going to be around $600 billion.

US Debt Clock – – August 1st – $61,344 per citizen / September 1st – $61,330