Run A Slack System And You Breed Slackers

“Laurie” rented from me for three years. She was young, healthy and intelligent.

She also had a drinking problem and an ex-husband whom she allowed to live with her despite his violent nature. Neither one worked, but Laurie’s federally subsidized rent and welfare benefits enabled them to own two cars, spend summers at the lake and live comfortably. Eventually, both became addicted to crack. Laurie missed two appointments to renew her subsidy from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and they disappeared.

I still have her collection of stuffed animals and her baby’s picture in a locket. I’d like to give them back to her if she ever gets in touch with me.

“Mary” stayed almost five years. She had five to nine kids - depending on when and whom you asked. She didn’t clean house, discipline the kids or control her guests.

The filth piled up. Her kids broke windows, doors, ceiling panels and left bicycle skid marks on the floor.

She left five loads of trash and over $1,500 in damages. Habitat for Humanity provided her a new home.

When asked to pay for her broken picture window, “Madge” complained that it wasn’t her fault. Her boyfriend had thrown something through it.

The neighbor kid confirmed her story. He saw it happen. It seems the boyfriend threw her through the window! A month later they married.

Thirty years ago we adopted then-President Lyndon B. Johnson’s vision of a “Great Society” with great enthusiasm. As I recall, few doubted that a benign government could subsidize, regulate and educate almost any problem out of existence.

How wrong we were. Instead of eliminating poverty and injustice, we created a culture where failure is rewarded, destructive lifestyles are excused and protected, and personal responsibility has no value.

We now have a large and growing underclass where being poor is a career and success is measured by the extent to which one can con “benefits” from agencies created to serve the poor.

This class is characterized by people with normal health and intelligence, but none of the skills needed for success. Worse yet, they don’t have the motivation to learn these skills. As a result, the upward mobility that freed millions of us from poverty has been largely destroyed. Destroyed, I contend, by the programs intended to solve the problems.

All but the most incorrigible liberals realize by now that the Great Society has become the Great Disaster. The Great Question is how to dismantle this mess and salvage what’s left of the people it helped destroy.

To answer that, we need to realize that lack of opportunity is the least of our problems. The public schools that educated me are still there for those who want an education. Entry level jobs are still available for the motivated. It’s not the economy’s fault when the rent money goes for cigarettes and lottery tickets or when mom buys a pedigreed dog with her check.

In my 20 years in the rental housing business, I bet I’ve rented to at least 100 welfare families. In most cases I know what makes them poor. It’s almost never a physical handicap or lack of opportunity. It’s almost always poor personal decisions and destructive lifestyles.

Alcohol, bad marriages, domestic violence, illegitimate children, poor money management, failure to become educated, a poor work ethic - these are the things that cause and perpetuate poverty.

These are also the things that our current system breeds, subsidizes and excuses.

Let’s turn our system on its head. Instead of disparaging work, let’s require at least a part-time job as a condition of receiving welfare. Rather than protect bad habits, let’s insist on good ones.

It’s perfectly reasonable to require a recipient to grow a garden, avoid alcohol, send the kids to school, and refrain from producing more kids while on welfare. It’s not wrong to expect people to live by the rules of success while being subsidized by society.

Welfare-state liberals believe that we are helpless victims of our environment. They also believe that people are stupid and government is smart.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The great success of this country before the welfare state clearly disproves the notion that people are stupid or helpless. The great failure of the welfare state proves beyond a doubt that government is not smart.

Most of us, I suspect, would be amazed at the ability of people in the underclass to solve their own problems when required and expected to do so.

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