A truly free society cannot condone or support the violation of individual rights; the most fundamental of which is the right to your property (either earned or legally inherited by those who earned it). In principle this means that every individual has the right to keep and dispose of their own wealth, generated by their own productivity in any way they choose, and that the government has no moral right to coercively redistribute income by seizing the wealth from productive individuals, to provide material benefits to those who did not create them- applying this principle to reality means the government must be stripped of the legal authority to do so.

We therefore support the total abolition of the welfare state. We understand that while this is our ultimate goal, it cannot be achieved overnight. The government has spent decades creating a culture dependent upon its redistribution schemes for its very survival. It is a sad fact that most retirees factor Social Security monies into their future fixed income calculations, and that many others have grown to depend on the redistribution schemes to pay their rent, buy their groceries, and support their children.

We understand that such dependency requires a period of adjustment. We therefore propose a 10% annual reduction in all welfare programs over a ten-year period. Note that this is not a reduction in the rate of growth, it is an actual cut in expenditures.

We further propose that those elderly dependents whom have paid into the system their whole lives be fully compensated for their burden. We do this with the full understanding that continuing on the path we are on now – with a tax base dramatically shrinking and social security in a state of insolvency – that actual future benefits will either be means tested or taxed out of existence. We are confident that the ten-year time period will give those dependent on redistribution time to plan and actively seek other means of support.

As a free economy without government interference in the price mechanism will generate a great deal more wealth and disposable income, we are confident that the opportunities to restart either through available private charities, cheaper education, and more work, will enable those current dependents to experience the true dignity of full autonomy and voluntary exchange. Imagine if the energy with which the welfare state is upheld by many moralists, teachers, politicians, welfare department bureaucrats, and millions of voters would be properly re-directed- to found, fund, and/or join private charitable organizations that voluntarily and non-coercively help those in need.

From Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s study to the present day, in concurrence with renown economists such as Thomas Sowell, it is clear that welfare statism has led to a culture of corruption both within Washington and within the dependent communities; Promoting elitism and in the political class and the social pathologies of fatherless homes, drug addiction, hopelessness, and crime in the dependent. It is our firm belief that dignity comes not from the freedom from want, but from the freedom to do.