• Welfare makes up a tiny percentage of your tax dollar...so little that it you wouldnt notice it if it was gone food programs and such (programs to go to the poor directly) make up less than 6% of the federal budget.
• Most of the nation's total government benefits go to middle class and wealthy recipients, with only 14% of total government benefits going to the poor. Cash Assistance payments account for just over 1% of all federal benefits programs.
• A prevalent welfare myth is that women who received AFDC became permanently dependent on public assistance. Analyses indicate that 56 percent of AFDC support ended within 12 months, 70 percent within 24 months, and almost 85 percent within 4 years.
• The average taxpayer pays $400 yearly on social welfare and $1,400 for corporate welfare.
• Social care is a bare minimum, not something a normal person would want to live off. Recipients live considerably below the poverty threshold.
• It is really easy to extoll the virtues of personal accountability when you focus on adults, but the majority of poor people in this country are children. Poor children really have no control over their predicament.
• The UN Human Index regards the Scandinavian countries as the best place on earth to live, with a high GDP, low unemployment, high-quality public services available to everyone, very low crime rate, etc. These countries are built upon the concept of a mix of free markets and a tight safety net.

I would also state that all welfare programs need automatic periodic review and analysis to ensure that the program is effective, efficient and combined with training and educational resources to get people back on their feet.