The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

From the New York Times:

Today, almost 20 years after Mr. Clinton signed a law that stopped the federal entitlement to cash assistance for low-income families with children, the argument has solidified into a core tenet influencing social policy not only in the United States but also around the world.

And yet, to a significant degree, it is wrong. Actual experience, from the richest country in the world to some of the poorest places on the planet, suggests that cash assistance can be of enormous help for the poor. And freeing them from what President Ronald Reagan memorably termed the “spider’s web of dependency” — also known as forcing the poor to swim or sink — is not the cure-all for social ills its supporters claim.
More here.

Increasingly, it's looking like conservatives are wrong about EVERYTHING. And, for this case, when you think about it for, like, two seconds, it makes complete sense. When conservatives talk about "welfare dependency" or how welfare keeps people from wanting to work, all that "laziness" crap, they're essentially pretending to be magical psychologists with the ability to peer into people's souls to see what makes them tick. Of course they're wrong. They have no idea what they're talking about. That's par for the course these days.

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