Should Taxpayer's Continue To Fund Welfare and Do Illegal Immigrants Contribute To The Welfare State - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages The bottom line of all of this is that every group has strong points and arguments that are valid to differing degrees. But discounting a massive revolution that restructures the government completely and re-imagines a new set of core American values, the welfare system should be at very least left intact, and at best vastly restructured and better funded. It is better for American society overall, and more in line with fundamental American values, to continue to fund the welfare state. To understand the welfare state in America one must first understand a little bit about its history. Unlike Europe, patronizing liberal-democracy thinking and Christian fundamentals played little role in developing the welfare system in the United States (Trattner 5). Instead, the welfare system in the United States has always been developed, cut or expanded depending on economic circumstances. It was born out of the Great Depression as part of the New Deal Program (Trattner 7). The basic premise at this time was that there were massive numbers of people who were willing to work, but far too few jobs available even after the expansion of federal work programs. President Roosevelt essentially either had the choice of instituting a welfare system or letting people starve (Tratter 102). The Great Society period of the 1960s saw welfare expand so that someone who was neither infirm, young nor elderly could get enough to live on through welfare payments from the US government (Lawrence and Strakey 19). The last major change in welfare occurred during the booming economy of the 1990s under Bill Clinton. In this first massive cut of the welfare state, which saw welfare return to the states rather than the federal government, and become a smaller and more temporary program than it had been in the past. At the time of record-low unemployment, booming compensation and a robust economy under Clinton, it seemed inconceivable that anyone who wanted to work would be unable to in the long term, so it seemed that the only people on welfare were people unwilling to work, so the cuts seemed justified. This change has been lauded as one of the best in the history of welfare in the United States, because poverty levels dropped substantially and welfare rolls decreased along with this change (78). The problem, however, is that the decrease in poverty was largely a function of a robust and booming economy, not the changes in welfare law. Though the economic affairs of the US have shifted drastically in the last decade, the welfare system instituted by the Clinton administration in 1996 is essentially the same one in operation now. Welfare obviously has a long history in the United States, but this does not explain the arguments for keeping or further funding welfare. There are two main sets of arguments, ideological and some practical. The first ideological argument comes from some of the founding documents of the United States. The Declaration of Independence argues that “all men are created equal.” The problem, however, is that this is self-evidently not true. Some people are born with a brain that is incapable of accomplishing many tasks whereas others are born geniuses who can unlock the mysteries of science and technology. This fundamental problem has been explained away by saying that this passage means that everyone should have equality of opportunity ...Download file to see next pagesRead More