There was a time that government provided almost no aid to the poor and this wasn't an issue. And a very large percent of the population was Christian, but they weren't doing enough to meet the need, so the government stepped in.Josh wrote:Perhaps private charity could rise to they level if it (a) didn’t have to compete with free cash from the government, and (b) private citizens had more resources to spend on charity since the government wasn’t taking it from them in the first place.
I believe in private charity, and I give more than I am taxed for welfare programs. But until we are managing to carry the load together, I think government programs are still needed. If anyone wants to argue the contrary, I invite them to lead the way in creating and funding private charity programs that will make government aid obsolete. I'm sure politicians would love to stop spending money on welfare. But if we had been doing a good enough job of that before government got so involved, we wouldn't have these programs in the first place.
Origins of the State and Federal Public Welfare Programs (1932 – 1935)
Prior to the 1900’s local governments shared with private charitable organizations major responsibility for public assistance or as it was often termed, “public relief.” As the nation’s economy became more industrial and the population more concentrated in urban areas, the need for public relief often grew beyond the means, and sometimes the willingness, of local public and private authorities to provide needed assistance. During the Progressive Era, some state governments began to assume more responsibility for helping the worthy poor. By 1926, forty states had established some type of public relief program for mothers with dependent children. A few states also provided cash assistance to needy elderly residents through old-age pensions. The programs and the size of the benefits varied widely among the states.
State financed public assistance programs were often inadequate to meet the challenges of large-scale unemployment and urban poverty that often afflicted states and urban areas. But it was the Great Depression of the 1930’s that led to the collapse of state financed public relief programs. State systems of public relief were simply unprepared to cope with the volume of requests for help from individuals and families without work or income. On top of that, the economic depression reduced state and local revenues. Conditions were so grave it became necessary for the federal government to step in and help with the costs of public relief.