"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."
Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766
And now we have an entire generation of illegal immigrants who have come here expecting free school breakfast, free school lunch, free education in the language of their choice, food stamps, medical care, and rent subsidies. The fastest growing category of public assistance is "child only" - where the parents are not US citizens and are therefore ineligible.
I listened to an idiot down the block who attempted to extort us in a protection racket explain how we owed "reparations" to his "race" because "this should be Mexico"- and failing that we could pay "taxes" to his gang. This is the same crew that at one point when the police were canvassing because of a particularly brutal mugging which left a victim crawling onto a neighbor's porch, stood on the sidewalk watching, and when we answered the door and talked with the police, they then came down - while the police were still on our street - and told us "we don't like it when you talk to the police." Later that week one of our cars, and a car belonging to the people who had brought the victim in from their porch and called police and an ambulance, were rammed in the middle of the night.
Please don't ask me to subsidize anymore. I know that before I die, the US will be just another Third World Latin American country, and it makes me grateful that I am an old lady.