Show THE VOICE OF BUSINESS Promoting poverty through welfare Ity L. Chamber of of the United State lessons of show continued dependency upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national To dole out relief is to administer a a subtle destroyer of the human The federal government must and shall quit this business of Tough Might you be surprised If I tell you they were spoken not by a contemporary conservative but by the man who actually fathered the New Deal-President Franklin D. Roosevelt had good intentions and gave sound but his words had little During the past 44 his message has not just been it has been treated with the plain truth is the federal government has a stake in promoting because it is more heavily committed to the of than ever And why Business has never been better-the of that The fastest growing chunk of federal and the busiest activity of the federal bureaucracy involve the supervision of transfer payments-in other the transfer of money through the process of taxation from those in the upper and middle-income groups to those in the lower income The welfare business has become truly big business through its promoters' faithful observance of one simple Make it pay not to by to raise just one person from poverty required the equivalent of three median-income families laboring a full year and donating all their income to the federal government for transfer You many of the benefits distributed to welfare like food are not counted as while the value of all the yearly benefits a welfare family receives might exceed what a working family could afford to the family on welfare still remains classified as And that's if the present system welfare rolls will stay high even while your taxes and government spending on transfer payments continue to And this system will continue as long as social planners have their and avoid sound policies anchored by common sense and a respect for human For in the Seattle-Denver the government spent 10 years and million trying to prove a proposition that any of your or any ten names selected at random from a telephone directory would instinctively reject as To people guaranteed an annual income will work just as hard as those who are Last the government finally announced people guaranteed an annual income work But has this startling revelation made any Apparently for the very centerpiece of the Administration's latest proposed welfare is the establishment of a guaranteed annual income for all American two parent families earning up to will be invited to join the welfare Decisions on program benefits will be taken out of the hands of local who can deal with and handed over to bureaucrats in the federal who deal with Fraud and abuse will in- The proposal supposedly a strong work in it contains no provision requiring recipients to work for their The jobs offered will be largely public service which have almost nothing to do with the real world of How will that help people become self-supporting and we are told this proposal is as It will add only billion to the welfare But that estimate comes from the same people who made a slight of billion in projecting the cost of last year's welfare What is certainly not conservative is the number of people who will now qualify for How can anyone ask an American already staggered by double-digit inflation and rising to financially support the expansion of programs that will remain riddled with And when will we stop using the word to describe this cruel approach that promotes and institutionalizes encourages dependence and treats people like permanent cripples incapable of ever facing life on their Real welfare reform can only originate at the local level where state and local governments are much closer to existing and where they can team up with private enterprise to provide genuine opportunity and productive The welfare bureaucracy resists this approach and continues to push a policy of welfare like we follow this policy to its logical we may all end up on But if that who will be left to provide N The FLAG represents US Flag Day June begins a significant period extending through the Fourth of July which presents an opportunity for every American to assess what he or she is doing to help this country maintain its position as leader of the free This the basic purpose of which is to Honor was established by a joint resolution of the Congress and signed into law by the President in June One of the objectives of the 1979 Honor America campaign is to combat the idea that most Americans don't want to in public like many similar there is a small grain of truth wrapped in a large bundle of The Founding in their public pledged our fortunes and our sacred Rarely is an American called upon today to display such But millions of responsible Americans are getting involved in volunteer projects which enrich their lives and the lives of and in so doing enhance the quality of national It is not difficult to find In Texas last 65 aging and ailing persons enjoyed a refreshing vacation at a no-cost state camp near Young probationers in Illinois won a chance for a fresh start through a non-profit work program functioning in Virginia found an array of productive tasks for a Young Adult Conservation Corps which cleared public trimmed foliage impeding parkway vistas and painted schools and fire On a larger Baltimore rehabilitated portions of its slum areas and erected private homes to upgrade the The St. Johns which winds through half the length of has been rescued from its status as a huge dumping The undertaken by the city of Jacksonville with the cooperation of private has already cost millions cost but it has made a splendid contribution to the Florida These developments underscore the point that there exists in the United States a massive reservoir of self-sacrifice and willing they reflect a sense of responsibility toward meeting the country's as well as a disposition to roll up one's sleeves and tackle whatever task that seems I How about and If you hear an appeal to help establish a neighborhood support a scholarship assist a needy family or some similar don't automatically turn a deaf In the period extending to the Fourth of July after the salute to a head of there will be ample opportunity to lend a Here are a few Encourage regular daily display of the American Flag-flags symbolize traditions and suggest that shopping centers sponsor historic displays and appropriate ceremonial organize folk festivals with traditional costumes and This list barely skims the Through such positive actions be demonstrating how life works in a democracy and that the people are the Then celebrate America's birthday on July with a feeling of S 4 |