Thus the impetus toward helping the unfortunate lost its purity and took on the self-serving taint of politics.

Public welfare has become a very different thing from private charity. Today welfare means the legislating of entitlements for the "disadvantaged" Paul at Peter's expense, whether Peter feels charitable or not.

But its effect on Peter is not what discredits the welfare state; rather, it is its effect on Paul, whose enterprise is discouraged. If Paul must remain poor to "qualify" for welfare, then it becomes important to Paul that he remain poor. Poverty becomes a way of life even for those who might, without the lure of "welfare," be self-sufficient.

Meanwhile the political faction that advocates and legislates the welfare system gains and perpetuates its own power by continually "buying" the vote of Paul. Those who argue against public welfare, believing that it insults the poor and the disabled and eternalizes their condition, find it more and more difficult to win the vote, even difficult to influence policy.

Welfare advocates deplore the gap between rich and poor and see welfare as diminishing that gap by equitable distribution of income.

In using the term distribution, the welfare advocates reveal their assumption that all resources are the rightful property of government, not that of the people. The assumption ignores the fact that governments produce no income. Governments spend but do not earn, and always and everywhere they derive their revenues from the people by serfdom, confiscation, or taxation.

What is taxed, of course, is discouraged. Whenever wealth, investment, industry, and production are taxed, the society produces less.

Ironically it is a self-defeating policy. The less the people produce, the less the government can take from them. Thus a confiscatory government inevitably finds itself spending more than it can steal, and deficits become inevitable.

It has long been a strategy for a prevailing social power to maintain its position by keeping large numbers in poverty. For centuries that strategy involved convincing the poor that to be rich was to be evil. "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." That biblical wisdom­ meaning simply that you can enjoy material wealth while you're this side of heaven but you can't take it with you ("There's never a U­Haul hitched to a hearse")-is perverted to mean that the rich are prohibited from heaven; that to be rich is to be damned. That perverse idea either makes the poor feel content with their lot or makes them blame their lot on the rich.

Leaders of the welfare faction today need the votes of the poor. And the poor, if they are to continue favoring that faction, must be convinced that the rich do not deserve their riches, that it is right for the government to steal from the rich to provide welfare to the poor.

The welfare faction's useful catchword is equality. It never means lifting the poor up, but always means bringing the prosperous down. After all, to rise out of poverty is to become rich and therefore to be despised.

If envy and mistrust of the rich did not prevail, the poor would be loath to accept their poverty. Many would turn to enterprise and actually rise to prosperity. When that happens, their dependence on welfare diminishes, and they need no longer vote for the welfare faction. The power of that faction is then weakened. At the same time, of course, fewer people are poor and more are prosperous.

That is a dark time for the welfare faction-not for those who are on welfare, but for those who are in welfare, its office holders and administrators. It is a bright time for the people, for they more and more realize independence and dignity. No longer given welfare but instead given opportunity, they take more control over their own lives, either because they can or because they now must. Their health, prosperity, and happiness are more easily achievable.

What happens then to government? Because more people now fare well, government also prospers. Revenues grow, because there is more wealth to be tapped. Fewer are on welfare rolls, so the government pays out less. More comes in,less goes out. Deficit comes under control and in time vanishes. Once deficit disappears, growing revenues can support infrastructure (utilities, highways, bridges, national parks, national libraries and museums), assure an adequate national defense, promote the domestic tranquillity-and, of course, pay off government debt.

The people then, because they send less of their income to the federal government, can afford in their states and communities to build the local infrastructure, support education, build libraries and maintain public parks.

Under conditions of national security and domestic tranquillity, of course, a government (federal, state, or municipal) needs less money. It can therefore take less from the people, who then have more left to spend on their well-being and to invest toward their own prosperity.

All this will sound good to those who prefer freedom. But it will sound bad to those who prefer security and are willing to give up independence to achieve it. They fear the challenges of independence, the labors of freedom, and to them the offer of welfare irresistibly appeals. And, of course, self­investment by the people sounds bad to the welfare-doling faction, for their political power balloon deflates.

The Apostle Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, declared,. "Now abideth faith,hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

Alas, what abides in America today is not faith, hope, and charity, but dependence, despair-and welfare.