Are you living off of welfare? The answer is not as obvious as you might think. Presently, Houghton College and the federal government are two of the greatest welfare distributors in Houghton, N.Y. Welfare according to our friends at Webster’s Dictionary is “aid to people in need: financial aid and other benefits for people who are unemployed, below a specific income level, or otherwise requiring assistance, especially when provided by a government agency or program.” We in Houghton are not like ‘those people’ who are unemployed. We have jobs. Well, we have jobs subsidized through the federally mandated work-study program which is not a natural byproduct of our free-enterprise capitalist society. My income is subsidized every time I work and if you work somewhere other than Subway or China Star then you receive a welfare benefit through the federal work study program too.
But perhaps you don’t work on campus but instead you receive a weekly or monthly stipend from your parents. I will not argue that you are lazy because you do not work. This benefit is not earned; rather it is inherited because you fit into a special class of people: “mom’s and dad’s child.” Your mother and/or father are very gracious with the welfare they impart on you. Few people would say that it is wrong for parents to impart benefits to their children simply because their children are their children. What about those of us who receive federal grants or federally-backed loans to cover the cost of tuition at Houghton? Aren’t these forms of aid welfare also? Perhaps you are beginning to realize that many if not most of us are here because we depend on the goodness of another person, a government, or an institution. When you start that small business and you receive your ‘subsidy’ that too is welfare. A select group or person receiving a benefit that only that group or person is ‘entitled’ to is a basic qualification for all welfare recipients. Houghton college students are largely living on welfare.
Unfortunately here at Houghton College when we visualize a stereotypical welfare recipient we see a lazy, black, unmarried mother of 8 not a white college student. Even so we make an exemption because to us the federal government can ‘subsidize’ wealthy fortune 500 businesses, oil companies, coal companies, banks, and colleges but if it gives any money to a woman raising three children on her own then it acts unethically. Would we continue to advocate the destruction of the modern American welfare state even if it meant that people would die? I am not being melodramatic. For some children the only meal they receive each day is given to them through the federally mandated free or reduced lunch program. The food stamp program was established to provide for children who had lost their fathers in warfare. The federal government asserted that children face many disadvantages when growing up without a father. Regardless of the choice their mother made or whether a child’s father left or died should a child suffer for the ‘sins’ of his or her mother or father? Furthermore, it is historical fact that the institution of marriage was forbidden for black slaves in the South. Should we wonder why it is an uncommon institution in the poor inner city communities which grew when southern agricultural industrialization forced former slave-sharecroppers north?
Don’t get me wrong, the modern American welfare state is a flawed system which does perpetuate some levels of dependency. However, as my grandmother always says, “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” I would wager that you might be in favor of dismantling the entire welfare state. Perhaps you believe that private institutions would take the place of the welfare state and do a better job as well; our nation’s history shows that just isn’t the case. The failure of Elizabethan Poor Laws in the late 18 and early 19th centuries encouraged the federal government and founding generation to leave the issue of provision for the poor to the state and local communities. For over 150 years local communities handled the issue as best as they could. Then the 1930s came and we realized that our economy is based on more than just a few isolated communities.
If tomorrow the Christian church stepped up to the plate and knocked the issue of poverty out of the park then I would say “Amen!” If tomorrow lines of suburban families stood near abortion clinics and offered to women headed inside to raise the unborn children of those considering aborting them I would say “Amen!” However, presently many communities have more rhetoric than they action. A lukewarm church gets spit out every time. What is your temperature today?