Founders Fathers were against welfare state

Why are we spending more and more on welfare every year?  What would the Founding Fathers have to say about this if they were still here today? We will look at that in a little bit.

We need to cut Food Stamp program and not extend it. However, it seems that people tell the taxpayers back home they are going to Washington and cut government spending but once they get up there they just fall in line with  everyone else that keeps spending our money. I am glad that at least these 16 brave Senators voted against doing that. I wish we had some more brave Senators and Representatives up there in Washington. Here are the names of those brave senators: Lamar Alexander (TN), John Barrasso (WY), Roy Blunt (MO), Scott Brown (MA), Dan Coats (IN), Susan Collins (ME), Mike Enzi (WY), Chuck Grassley (IA), John Hoeven (ND), Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), Mike Johanns (NE), Richard Lugar (IN), Jerry Moran (KS), Pat Roberts (KS), Olympia Snowe (ME),  and John Thune (SD).

Here is what the Founding Fathers had to say about welfare. David Weinberger noted:

While living in Europe in the 1760s, Franklin observed: “in different countries … the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813) was a Scottish lawyer, writer, and professor. Tytler was also a historian, and he noted, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Milligan

April 6, 1816


[Jefferson affirms that the main purpose of society is to enable human beings to keep the fruits of their labor. — TGW]

 

To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.” If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it.

[From Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert E. Bergh (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), 14:466.]

_______

Jefferson pointed out that to take from the rich and give to the poor through government is just wrong. Franklin knew the poor would have a better path upward without government welfare coming their way. Milton Friedman’s negative income tax is the best method for doing that and by taking away all welfare programs and letting them go to the churches for charity.

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