There is a part of America's government that has stuck around since the 1930's that goes against their fundamental belief on equality. This is the system of welfare. Welfare is financial or other assistance to an individual or family from a city, state, or national government. Who pays for this assistance? It is funded through taxes, which means it comes out of your pocket, forcibly. I believe welfare has changed America's thinking and created a culture of dependency. Today I will discuss how the welfare system should be phased out and a system of private charity should take its place. I am also going to talk about three great reasons to do this: It's not fair, it's bad for the economy, and it's corrupted the American way of thinking.

Welfare is not fair simply because those on welfare are given money that they haven't worked for and other people are forced to give it, whether they like it or not. It's always been a part of the American way to give, but welfare forces you to pay it. If one doesn't  pay their government forced “charity” they'll be penalized through fines or jail time. Wouldn't it be fair if they just gave out of a charitable heart, not at gun point? Traditional American work ethic says each person is free to work as hard as they want in order to get what they want. Say, after his hard earned paycheck, a man goes to church. Come time for the offering, a police officer with handcuffs and a 9mm, walks around with the offerings bucket. It's just not right no matter how bad the poor need it. There's plenty more about welfare than just unfairness.

As far as welfare goes, a big thing the U.S. needs to think about is how it is bad for the economy. Welfare costs an extreme amount of money. According to www.usgovernmentspending.com/numbers welfare is the 5th largest expense in our economy at 750 billion dollars spent in 2010's fiscal year. It's an extra expense we can't afford in this bad economy. We could save hundreds of billions of dollars by eliminating it. Also, it’s a lot of money to be spending on something that's unjust for the government to do in the first place. If our economy is looking to save, cutting even a fraction of that could very beneficial. But it affects more than the economy.

Welfare has slowly been corrupting the thinking of Americans. It makes people more dependent and less responsible. This is because they have fewer consequences for their decisions and actions. When people learn to depend on the money of others, they don't realize where money comes from, and what it means to work for it. Americans' thinking has always been to work hard for your money so you can do the things you want. Now it's been changed to try and work hard, but you can always fall back on the all forgiving hands of the government. Overspending, being irresponsible with money, and foolish investments are bad, but we all make mistakes, so the U.S. Government will always have your back. It takes some incentive out of working hard and being smart. Economic failure is a concept that welfare sucked out of the brains of the American people. Welfare just has a lot of problems and it needs to change.

Changing and eventually eliminating the welfare system will not be an easy task. It will be a difficult and gradual process, but when the economy is the worst it's been since the Great Depression (when we started this mess), and expenses need to be cut, It couldn't be a better time to start. The way to do this would be to slowly put more and more restrictions on who qualifies for welfare and what kind of benefits they receive. Weaning us off of welfare, in a sense. I'm not  trying to destroy welfare because it's a bad thing, it's good in theory, but it's not the government’s job to take care of the poor. It's your job. If you feel bad for the people taken off of welfare, you give to them. In our day and age joining a charitable organization is quicker and easier than ever. You are free to give more than the welfare tax or not give at all but the bottom line is welfare needs to change now, and you need to vote for that change and give to those in need.

Welfare is a chain around America's ankle. It's bad for the economy, corrupts our thinking, and is not fair. So, of course, we need to get rid of it, and now you know how to do that. Now is the time to destroy the welfare system and replace it with the fair system of private charity. America can begin to flourish again as a country of independent, responsible individuals and move forward.