Comment  2-6-15:  This "solution" to the welfare problem may seem harsh to many people.  I want to make one thing very clear.  The purpose of this effort is not to kick those that are already down.  I don't share the opinion of the uninformed that we squander HUGE amounts of money on welfare for the poor.  It's a mere drop in the bucket of the welfare we rain down on fossil fuel and banking industries.  I've been hanging around with a bunch of kids from 8 to 18 years of age for the last 40 years.  It's the misery among those people I want to stop.
A lot of exclamatory rhetoric is going around about all those poor helpless people on welfare. With the exception of an article in US News and World Report featuring interviews with welfare recipients whose views are similar to mine, I have a one word response to most of that rhetoric. Bullbleep. There are exceptions to any generalization involving people, but most people on welfare share some very distinct behavior patterns. Like most kids raised on welfare, I grew up with the impression that making a living was a complete mystery. Some folks actually did it by some strange quirk of fate, and some folks didn't, and nobody knew for sure why. I viewed my pending eighteenth birthday, (the day I would be kicked off welfare for good), as the opening day of a terrifying battle for life which I would almost certainly lose. So I began to prepare for battle over a year in advance. I found employment on a local farm and saved money. I got my foster father to help me pick out a car that I could afford and overhauled it to maximize its reliability. I obtained a job near the college and reserved a dorm room. I made up an absolute minimum survival budget, and began to eat oatmeal twice a day to see if I actually could survive on the stuff if necessary.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered how simple it is to make a living for one's self with just a small amount of determination, self discipline, and a sense of responsibility.  Most people chronically or permanently on welfare are missing those three simple elements because they were never taught them by their parents, and they aren't teaching them to their children either.  Hence, the growing cancer of welfare.

In fact, it isn't just people on welfare anymore. I have friends and relatives that are constantly on destitution's doorstep for lack of the same characteristics in spite of the fact they make much more than I do. Nonetheless, personal experience with this phenomenon leads me to not believe in trying to give welfare recipients enough money to allow them a decent life and respectability, expecting this to somehow create ambition, self-discipline, and a penchant for hard work.  It simply ain't gonna happen.

So here's the deal. Establish rehabilitation centers throughout the country, preferably where some sort of simple labor is in demand. Offer people who cannot support themselves an opportunity to join the program.

Here are the strings:

1. You must sign up for at least 12 months.

2. You must be willing to be tested for all manner of drugs ranging from tobacco to heroine at any time. Positive results gets you expelled from the program for two weeks. Three such expulsions and you are out for good. Children and other family members may go with you or stay, their choice.

3. You must work 40 hours a week, if able.

4. No money will ever be given to you while you remain in the program. After deduction of child care, your own care, and taxes, any excess money will go into a savings account for you, but not in your name. Failure to complete your contract period means you forfeit the money currently in your account.

5. You must be willing to submit yourself to daily exercises designed to give you the characteristics and skills necessary to enable you to be a self-sustaining member of society.

6. Some form of birth control is mandatory while in the program, for both men and women. You must not cause anymore people to be placed upon this earth while you cannot sustain even yourself.

7. At the end of your contract period, you will be evaluated. You may be advised to extend your contract or go. In either case, you may go if you wish, and take the contents of your savings account with you.

What about those who refuse to submit to such a restrictive program? Build a bunch of big barns. Offer them a warm dry place to sleep and all the oatmeal they can eat.

Frankly, I doubt that the bleeding heart liberals or super christian "concervatives" born rich or at least well to do would ever allow such a welfare program to exist. But I'd be willing to bet even money that this program, together with the family training program described elsewhere in this book, would virtually eliminate the need for welfare in this country in ten years or less.

Well, what about individual rights, invasion of privacy, and personal freedoms that are obviously being trampled upon by this program ? Baloney. Children do not have the right to any of these things until they grow up and are self-sufficient, and neither should adults who behave like children.