Man is a social being. Very few people have lived their lives without substantial contact with other people. Those who tried that course were called "hermits" or later "loners", names that set these folks apart as different from everyone else, the exceptions rather than the rule. We need each other; it is part of our DNA. That is why there were tribes and villages and then nations. People arrange their affairs in conjunction with others. Strangely, however, we have now reached the point where a substantial part of the nation uses the language of involvement to promote the life of impersonal isolation. Think about it! For the last century, we have heard folks being exhorted to get involved. We are all told repeatedly to come together to help the less fortunate. But the main method adopted during that time to help these folks is to have the government do it. The government will feed the poor. The government will provide housing for those in need. The government will educate the children. The government will provide jobs. The government will give health care to those without the means to obtain it themselves. The government will provide birth control. The government will provide phone service. The list goes on and on. The concept, however, is the same: America will help the needy by government action.
So the big question is this: after nearly a century of government action, has it worked? Have the needs of the poor been met? Do the poor have a way to leave that category and join the rest of society? Sadly, the answer seems to be NO! Forty-five million folks get food stamps, but we are still told that one-fifth of all children go to bed hungry. Millions of units of public housing have been built across the country, but many of those units are the worst, most dangerous places that one can live. Even worse, there are still enormous numbers of homeless folks. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been poured into the public schools, but the reading and math scores of the students continue to decline. Hundreds of billions have been spent on Head Start for the last fifty years, but studies show that the program provides no meaningful benefit to the children in the program. More than a trillion dollars was spent by the government in just the last three years to promote job growth in the USA, but there are still fewer people working today than there were at the start of 2009; the unemployment rate is "down" to just over 8%, but if one still counts those who have just given up looking for work, the rate exceeds 11%. These are staggeringly high numbers. Healthcare costs which were supposed to come down as a result of Obamacare continue to soar. More and more folks are losing heath insurance; the number of uninsured is now higher than it was when Obamacare was passed.
Why is this the result? How can this be? A great many trillions of dollars has been spent, but things are just getting worse. The answer may well lie in the lack of involvement by folks with this problem. Let me first quickly say that this point is obviously an oversimplification. There are millions who get involved every day. Charities and assistance projects abound and do great things. On the whole, however, too many folks think that they are "doing something" by voting for a government that throws money at problems while achieving next to nothing. This lets these same folks ignore the problem at every other level.
Look at it this way: problem schools are more likely to be turned around if the parents of the students are involved with the school. This has been found repeatedly across the nation. Voting more money which goes to pay for teacher's health care or pensions does essentially nothing to improve education. On the other hand, parents volunteering to stay in classes to help maintain discipline is a simple step which has worked wonders in improving results. Schools that use the resources of parents to enrich the teaching experience have had even more success in achievements. Actual community works; government money in lieu of community does not.
If an average citizen knows that something has to be done to feed the poor, many will take part in the effort. Caring people will involve themselves in food banks. The whole effort is humanized. Even the recipients will benefit from seeing that it is their neighbors who are helping them rather than some faceless government which dishes out cash in a somewhat haphazard manner.
For centuries, religious institutions took on the role of protecting those in their community that needed help. Much of that structure is still there, but the enthusiasm is long gone. Just think how many folks there are like vice-president Biden and his wife, people who have large incomes but who do not even think of giving anything to charity. After all, why help -- the government will do it.
Things, however, do not have to be this way. Thirty years ago, Jack Kemp was pushing a revision to the way that public housing was managed in the country. Kemp wanted to let residents of this housing acquire the units through what was, in essence, sweat equity. A person could fix up a decrepit housing unit with some assistance from the government but with full involvement from the resident. If that person moved into the unit and kept it in good shape for a fixed period of time (like 5 or 10 years), title to the property passed to the "urban homesteader". This concept involved people helping themselves; it also involved neighborhood groups working together to keep the area in good repair. In other words, Kemp's plan had a real social group that worked together for a common purpose. Of course, there never was an adequate test of the concept. It was easier to let the government do it.
Right now, we have a guiding principle that has been demonstrated to be a failure. The position of president Obama and his party is the usual: he wants to double down on failure. Obama wants more spending on these same failed efforts. Obama wants to use borrowed funds in order to throw good money after bad. It is a prescription for disaster.
We need a major paradigm shift regarding social efforts in the USA. This shift has to start with the education of the public to the failure of the government welfare state. It has to start soon; we do not have much time left until the country is crushed by the failure.
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