Surprisingly, when you give free stuff to some people...

...they take it.

//Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in Maine, and for those ABAWD recipients who cannot find immediate employment, Maine offers both training and community service slots. But despite vigorous outreach efforts by the government to encourage participation, most childless adult recipients in Maine refused to participate in training or even to perform community service for six hours per week. When ABAWD recipients refused to participate, their food stamp benefits ceased.

In the first three months after Maine’s work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents plummeted by 80 percent, falling from 13,332 recipients in Dec. 2014 to 2,678 in March 2015.

This rapid drop in welfare dependence has a historical precedent: When work requirements were established in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in the 1990s, nationwide caseloads dropped by almost as much, albeit over a few years rather than a few months.//

Why is it wrong to call Democrats the party of Socialism...

...when it is the party of socialists?


According to this Telegraph article:

Rasmussen has just published a major poll on US voter attitudes towards socialism. It reveals that Democrats are evenly divided in their views on socialism, with 45 percent viewing it favourably, and 45 percent negatively. This is a strikingly high level of support for socialist ideology within a political party in the United States (and the ruling party at that), and strongly suggests that Democrats are increasingly moving towards a continental-European style approach to economic issues, advancing a big government agenda that resembles that of European Social Democratic governments. This is reflected in the Obama presidency’s growing emphasis on tax the rich, class warfare policies that have been de rigeur across the Atlantic for decades, an approach that places heavy emphasis upon the redistribution of wealth.

 

Among non-Democrats, however, attitudes towards socialism are very different. Republicans and Independents are overwhelmingly opposed to socialism, and as Rasmussen has concluded, just 24 percent of all Americans have a favourable opinion of socialism, with 67 percent holding an unfavorable view of a socialist economic system. According to Rasmussen, 68 percent of Americans hold a favourable view of “capitalism,” and 76 percent have a positive view of the “free enterprise system.” This chimes with a January Rasmussen poll, which found that 70 percent of Americans “think a free market economy is better than one managed by the government.” A separate Rasmussen poll released on Tuesday also revealed a deep-seated suspicion of the federal government among a clear majority of Americans, with 63 percent offering a negative view.