Build The Welfare Wall Now

Would a welfare wall be more effective than a physical barrier?

There is an old tale about a small New Zealand town that was suffering from an influx of vipers. To eradicate the problem, local officials established a viper bounty, offering people money to bring in these dead snakes. It resulted in residents breeding these reptiles in their basements and killing them. The plan didn’t solve the original problem, and the limited resources were flushed down the drain.

Former President Ronald Reagan famously said, “If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.” This is one of the first principles you learn in economics.

When the war on poverty was initiated by former President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 1960s, the federal government extended generous welfare payments to single-parent households. The unintended consequences were more women having children out of wedlock, the destruction of the nuclear family, and impoverished children. The Heritage Foundation writes, “Marriage is a powerful force in reducing poverty; a single mother with children is four times more likely to be poor than a similar mother who is married.”

And, thus, this is the problem with illegal immigration in America today: subsidization.

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