Back To The Founders

Ben Franklin once said:

"I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that 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." (Source: http://nickelkid.net/quotes/franklin.html)

Ben had it right, in this country we make the poor too comfortable in their poverty. I am not saying that we should not help the poor but instead of keeping them in a cycle of poverty via entitlement programs we should via other programs welfare to work, retraining, etc give them the ability to get out of their poverty and if they choose not to do so then the line is cut.