Brie Gonda

Mrs. Fike
American Government
19 May 2014
Public Welfare
In recent discussions of public welfare, a controversial issue has been whether it is the
governments responsibility to meet the needs of everyone by government-funded economic
support or if the provided welfare is really solving issues. On one hand, some argue that welfare
programs are needed at this point in time because of the tough economic state so many
Americans are finding themselves in. From this perspective, supporters suggest that critics
should take some time to put themselves in the shoes of the people who are receiving public
welfare. Many times, people are put in the place where they need money to provide for their
family but they dont have the means of doing so. Many times, this leads to the people in need
turning to illegal ways of acquiring money.
On the other hand, others argue that public welfare isnt solving the issues at hand. There
are many people who are in need of money that are working hard to provide for their family, but
there is another group of people, probably equally as large that is on public welfare and is not
trying to get out of the rut of dependency that they are in. In 1996, one of the main purposes of
the welfare reform was to add a work requirement to the equation (Feulner). Now, there are
only 2 federal welfare programs still has a work requirement and as predicted, there are more
people on welfare now than there ever has been. According to this view, because of the

governments debt, the government does not have the funds to continue supporting this all give
and no gain kind of support.
In sum, then, the issue is whether the government has the funds to continue providing
money for the basic needs of Americans or if the government even needs to give these funds
with such little requirements. My own view is that there are some Americans who are very
thankful for the support that they receive and they work hard to provide for their families. But in
the same token, there are many, many people who are very unappreciative of the support they
receive and they dont try to get out of the financial situation they have found themselves in. For
example, I work in a grocery store and I see a lot of people who come through with different
forms of public welfare such as WIC coupons, link cards, and PAC orders. While some just pass
through the line, others argue and complain about the items that they are not allowed to get or
how it isnt fair to them that the items they can get are so limited. This is just an example of how
people are no appreciative. Because many programs do not require the recipients to be a part of a
work program, the people on public welfare do not need to work in order to get off of the
provided programs.
Recently, there have been a lot of issues with the national debt and not having the funds
for the government to continue to function. Part of this issue is due to the fact that so much
money is being handed out for welfare when people are not even trying to provide the funds
themselves. I think that the government is handing out things to easily to people who may not
need the extra funds as much as others and I think that hurts the economy more than helping it. I
dont think that it is the governments responsibility to make sure everyones needs are met and I
agree with the supporters who say that public welfare isnt solving the issues at hand.