Moreover: long-term welfare is debilitating, leaving people without the will to work. I shudder to think what generational welfare does to people.
I think we saw that helpless baked-in dependence in New Orleans (and its glorious self-reliant obverse in Mississippi and Nashville).
Exactly. One thing no one ever seemed to raise in the endless "reporting" about Katrina was, why in the world did these average citizens say time and time again that they were "unable" to evacuate the city ahead of the hurricane?
One sob story report I remember was about a man who, knowing the hurricane was coming, went from merchant to merchant in his neighborhood trying to get a $30 loan so he could fill up his gas tank and drive inland some. He was bemoaning that all the usual sources for these type of "advances" -- advances against what? against one's next welfare check -- were tapped out by the time he started looking for that $30 for gas money. And, golly, it was the end of the month, so EVERYONE was waiting for their checks and NO ONE had money.
Neither he nor the reporter had any clue that what they were talking about was an adult man of at least average intelligence who could have actually LOST HIS LIFE in a hurricane -- or caused a rescuer to LOSE HIS LIFE trying to save him -- for his failure to set aside $30 as an emergency fund to buy gas in the event he ever had to evacuate.
THIRTY DOLLARS. Even on welfare, a person could set aside a few bucks a month until he had $30 bucks under the mattress, just in case -- you know, since he lives in a city that is actually below sea level -- he needs to get out of town for any reason. He kept saying, all I needed was gas money, I could stay in my car up along the road, but I had no gas money! THIRTY DOLLARS or his life. What a doofus and how sad.
But I'd bet anything that this man had been born into the welfare life and that he was third or fourth generation born into the welfare life. There was no hint, even as he talked, that he should have thought of having a little money set aside. The whole mindset was living from welfare check to welfare check.
In his mind, he had no money, not even $30 in emergency gas money, because it was the end of the month and his welfare check had not yet arrived. He was dependent upon that check in every sense of the word. And he had no idea how to take care of himself, even to the point of possibly saving his life, apart from that check coming in in the nick of time.