Technically, with a few exceptions, none of the services a government provides are free. Someone, somewhere pays for them; usually, but not limited to the people who are receiving the benefits of the program.
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Free to those who get it, that's why I said take taxpayers money and provide free services. Nothing is free, it takes money just to collect taxes.
That being said, I'm curious as to what your thoughts are about the line in the US constitution's preamble that states, "...promote the general Welfare..."
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Taking into consideration I am no expert on the Costitution and the history around it, I have to look at it 2 ways:
1) There is no real way to know what exactly our Founding Fathers had in mind when they created the Costitution. We can only interpret what it means.
2) Times change and just like the bible, people will see the meaning of the Constitution in different ways. We have to take into account that our Founding Fathers could not have predicted how much things would change in such a short amount of time.
Perhaps it was the normal language back in the days but you would think they would have made this document a bit easier to understand, make the words a bit more clearer, take into consideration those who's education may not have been as high as most of them. Kinda shows how politics have changed so little in over 200 years, even back then they made policies and bills that only they in part know what it means.
What do i think? I would have to take it word for word:
promote - as in raise to a high position or contribute to progress
general -as in everyone
welfare - as in benefit or wellbeing
Basically to raise peoples wellbeing. But how does one do that? I take the cycle of a person from birth to adulthood (say 18 years old) as an example of raising a person wellbeing.
Why do we teach children to talk, walk, read, write, clean and defend themselves? Because once they are adults they will need to know how to do these things on their own. As adults some of these kids will not do as well as others and will need some kind of help. But what kind of help do they need? Do they need help to survive or help to live? I am bothered by the idea that there is a Gov't program called Welfare that basically goes against what the word itself means. How does giving people money without working when they don't have any benefit them? Wouldn't addressing the problem, the reason they are down and out be a better way to "promote general welfare"?
Our society today has taken a word that had a different meaning back then and related it to money and now when ever anyone says the word welfare the first thing that comes to mind is people getting checks for doing nothing from a system that does not promote getting off that same system (at least not successfully promoting it). Children are dependent of adults for everything but in the process we teach them the skills necessary to grow independent from us (most do anyways). So why, after they are all grown up, do we have a system to does the opposite? Makes them dependent again rather than teaching them to be independent?
Sure, we have programs that help people get an education, get jobs and even make them better people. But considering the poor alone outnumber the successful and our Gov't soluton to this problem is more dependence; seems to me these programs meant to "promote general welfare" are not working. So why, instead of eliminating them and replacing them with something better that works, we continue to add to them, making them worse?
Do you take a cut already wrapped in badages but still bleeding and wrap it in more bandages? Or do you take the cut and use something better that can stop the bleeding, heal the wound and cure it all together?
Promote general welfare to me means help make people better. Doing everything for them, giving them everything without them working for it, taking the pain from them because you fell bad about it does not help them; because we never know if one day this Gov't may not exist and who will they have to give them everything then? What are the odds that a baby can survive without adults?
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Stardock Forums
Sounds more like someone decided maybe they were taking too much so they decided to give a little bit back.