BY JACK CRISS DBJ Executive Editor

The old saying is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Whoever made this apt statement could have easily been talking about modern welfare as we know it in the United States.
At one time in our nation’s history, if you were down on your luck, or suffered some misfortune through no fault of your own, neighbors or private charities came through to help. Assistance was not namelessly legislated as became the case. People were usually only too happy to help their fellow man in times of distress. These days are almost long forgotten, as now your tax money is distributed far and wide to the anonymous disenfranchised from Somalia to Watts.
It is interesting to note that the welfare state is indeed a specific historical phenomenon. In the form we know redistribution today, it is just over 100 years old. The concept was created by social planners who saw no moral dilemma in taking from those who could produce to give to those who could not, for whatever reason, legitimate or otherwise, solely on the basis of need.
Today, according to 1997 numbers from the U.S. Department of Commerce, welfare spending accounts for about half of all government expenditures, far more than defense, the police and courts, or any other function. All told, welfare involves the redistribution of about a sixth of the national economy.
Before you get hot and bothered about the Reagan “Welfare Queens” taking off with your hard-earned money, it should be noted that public aid programs directed at the poor represent only about 20 percent of total welfare spending. This ratio has persisted since about 1950. Who, then, is making out with the loot? By far, the largest share of spending goes to the elderly, primarily through Social Security and Medicare. Some justification is involved here since, supposedly, the retirees had “contributed” to these programs through their working years. However, there is only a tenuous relationship between what someone pays in to the system and what he gets back; the money all enters the collective pot, as it were.
Today, welfare is a faceless, nameless, money-grabbing game the government plays for those who either can’t take care of themselves, or won’t. This critical distinction is never made when the checks are mailed out. Need is elevated to forcible entitlement. Responsibility is thus downplayed since the welfare state confers entitlements to goods independent of going through the process of earning them.
Ask yourself this common- sensical question: Do those who work in the various governmental welfare posts and agencies truly want to see welfare eradicated? The answer is a painfully obvious “No”, since their jobs would then be eliminated. It would appear that it is in the best interest of the welfare state to keep all dependents on the dole to justify its programs. Such perpetuation by design is the complete opposite of private charity, which usually is a temporary measure undertaken to alleviate a problem until the recipient can do so him or herself. Do you see the federal government trying to wean welfare recipients from the program? Not really.
Philosopher David Kelley makes the point in his seminal 1998 work, A Life of One’s Own that “the operating assumption in debates about social welfare programs is that the needs of recipients take precedence over the rights of producers; those with the ability to produce are obliged to serve, while those with needs are entitled to make demands. The result...is a public morality at odds with our private standards.”
Kelley’s last point is especially interesting: We would rightly take offense at a bum accosting us in a parking lot asking for money “just because.” Yet that is exactly what our government is allowing to take place on a broad scale, and we accept it as moral and proper. Why?
That’s another column. For now, I’ll just say that, contrary to how it seems, the welfare state is not a fact of nature, nor is it part of the U.S.’s original form of government. It is a man-made animal out of control, which is actually good news. That which is man-made can be un-made by man. I think it’s high time that those of who are the producers announce we are tired of others laying unearned claims on our lives and property. DBJ