Replying to a message of Bob Klahn to All:

 BK>>>>  In the American political lexicon welfare has *ALWAYS* been a
 BK>>>>  dirty word.

 BA>>> Not *always*, only for a bit over half a century.  That's when
 BA>>> politicians discovered they could buy peoples' votes with their own
 BA>>> money.

 MG>> As a matter of fact it was pleasant enough nearly 230 years
 MG>> ago when the Founding Fathers stuck in it the preamble to
 MG>> the Constitution of the United States of America.  :)

 BK>  Those were statesmen, the politicians never seem to have
 BK>  accepted it.

A statesman is a dead politician.  We need more statesmen.

 BK> I should have said in the right wing political
 BK>  lexicon. Welfare itself has existed in this country since before 
 BK> there was a 'this country'. 

In most cases it was institutionalized and those receiving 'welfare' worked
to get it.  Decades if not over a century ago most midwest counties had a
'poor farm' where the poor folks lived, and those folks worked the farm.  Of
course in those days farming was very labor intensive and today it is not.
Government welfare payments only started with maybe the Depression and
didn't really get going until the late 1950s.

'Welfare' as such was handled by the various states, and different states had
differing benefits levels and differing eligibility requirements.  In the late 1950s
CA was quite generous with its benefits.  I can remember my parents grousing
about second and third generations of families living on the dole and unwed
mothers churning out babies while on welfare; mostly they griped about people
moving to CA just to get on the welfare wagon.  CA tried to put an end to that
by passing a law that one had to live in the state for one year before one would
be eligibile for benefits, but the federal courts shot that idea down.  Then the
feds started passing laws (or regulations, in the US government system they're
effectively the same thing) that set out what benefits the states had to pay and
what eligibility requirements the states were allowed to use.  In short, the feds
have only been running the welfare system for about half a century, not 'since
before the country was founded.'

Much of that 'welfare' you refer to was charitable spending, and a lot if not most
of it was handled by private organizations.  Charitable contributions have declined
significantly since the government arrogated the functions to itself.

 BK> And the right wingers have long  attacked
 BK> the "social welfare" spending, even though that covers  everything
 BK> from federal law enforcement to the dept of energy,  who do maintain
 BK> our nuclear weapons research. And much of it is  *EXPLICITLY*
 BK> authorized in the constitution, and the rest is a  reasonable
 BK> interpretation.

'Reasonable' is another one of those subjective concepts like 'fair.'  What you
find 'fair' and 'reasonable' I might find 'unfair' and 'unreasonable.'

You might point out which of the seventeen specific areas in which the congress
is permitted to pass laws *explicitly* authorizes anything resembling the current
welfare system, which effectively is taking from one class of individuals (taxpayers)
and giving that taking to another class of individuals (recipients).  And
while on that
subject I also don't see anything there that allows the feds to use tax
money to bribe
and/or coerce the various state and local governments with 'grants.'

--- FleetStreet 1.19+