Beware the seductive "logic" that government assistance to the poor makes them want to stay poor.
This is a correlation/causation mistake of staggering size and consequence. In effect, [Rand] Paul sees that people who take medicine are more likely to die and concludes that we need to take away their medicine.Money needs to keep moving. If it doesn't, the economy suffocates. That's what's wrong now. Even notwithstanding the simple humanitarian need to ensure American citizens a decent life, making sure they have money to spend on necessities keeps the people who provide those necessities employed.
And before you proclaim Welfare Reform a resounding success:
Welfare cuts didn’t make the fight against poverty magically more efficient; they simply made it stingier. In 1996, 68 of 100 families living in poverty with children received welfare benefits. In 2010, two years after the worst economic shock since the Great Depression, only 27 of 100 such families were receiving benefits.
It's way past time to get a real liberal in the White house. In economic and social terms, there hasn't been one since Lyndon Johnson. We need Franklin Roosevelt, and we get Reagan Lite.
I really don't give a rat's ass about the "values" of those who want to tell other people how to live their lives, so many of the "conservative" issues like gay marriage and abortion are simply irrelevant to my assessment of whether a person is liberal. And anybody who can look at the depletion of resources that threatens our survival and be opposed to birth control is living in a Bizarro world of denial.
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