Posted by Shyam MoondraPresident Barack Obama created a monstrous welfare state costing $1 trillion dollars for free/subsidized housing, health care, food, child care, education, etc. At the same time, the number of people under poverty level increased to a record 40 million. Socialism has proven to be disastrous for the poor people – just look at countries like Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and Greece - the people live in extreme hardship and poverty. Handing out free stuff doesn't solve any problem - it only gives poor people an incentive to not work at all (why would you work if you can get free things?). Many of these welfare programs are fraught with waste, fraud, and abuse and they are growing at an alarming rate which could worsen the budget deficit problem. While Obama’s focus on helping the poor was noble, the welfare state is just a band aid approach to dealing with the broader issues of under-employment and poverty. The welfare programs, without an expanding economy, make the poor people permanently dependent on the government which is hardly an ideal outcome. This approach actually locks the poor people in perpetual poverty without any realistic hope to get out of the sink hole. What we need right now is to find a way to grow economy at a faster clip and create high-paying jobs, and at the same time train the chronically unemployed people to fill those jobs. What makes a country thrive is if people are self-reliant and they are productive members of society.
Obama was a failed president because he never understood how to create opportunities for poor people so they could have a better life. President Bill Clinton understood that and that's why he methodically dismantled welfare programs and created more job opportunities so people could be self-supportive. Unfortunately, Obama moved the Democratic Party so far to the left that poor people never had a chance like they did under President John F. Kennedy and Clinton.
Today, Democratic Party is full of people who just want to be elected by promising free stuff to their constituents. These politicians think about themselves and not about the people they pretend to be serving. In the process, they are killing any chance poor people have to get out of poverty. Democrats prefer to have lots of poor people so they can get elected and then re-elected, without really changing anything for the people living in poverty.
What would make Democratic Party a viable force is if they had strong leaders who understood that poor people can have a better life only if they work hard and become self-reliant and not wait for monthly welfare checks or weekly food stamps. Unfortunately, at the moment, Democrats don't have such leaders, so the political deception continues.
