Earn, rather than receive

Dear editor:

In 1934, when I started school, a lunch of soup was offered for 5 cents a day or 15 cents a week. I chose to eat a warm bowl of soup rather than a cold syrup and biscuit sandwich, however, as one of nine children soup money was not always available.

In 1935, I was 7 years old when the Works Progress Administration, (WPA), survival assistance program was implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Survival assistance to millions, mostly to men who were unskilled and poorly educated, was provided by the WPA. However, the WPA assistance did not resemble the so-called entitlement “handout” programs we have today. WPA workers earned the assistance they received. (“Government assistance should be the last choice” and never become a permanent crutch for the able-bodied.)

WPA workers built airports, hospitals, roads, bridges, public parks, and post office buildings. Some major WPA achievements were the construction of the Washington Tunnel, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, the highway from Miami to Key West and the Tennessee Valley Project, (TVA). Wikipedia reports that the highest WPA employment was 3.3 million, in 1938.

WPA work kept thousands of men from being homeless and enabled them to provide for themselves, as well as their families. Another important benefit was a restored sense of hope. WPA work reduced crime, because, after a hard day’s work, a man is more likely to be interested in a place to rest or sleep, than a place to rob or steal. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop”

Certainly, we all agree that no U.S. citizen should be without the necessities of life; however, shouldn’t able-bodied people be required to earn those necessities, rather than receive them as handouts? Today, our roads, bridges and parks are badly in need of repair, while many able-bodied people are receiving funds without being required to work.

Aren’t the majority of crimes committed by unemployed, able-bodied people who live off drug sales or handouts, and have nothing to do except prowl around in boredom?

Couldn’t “entitlement” funds, now being given to able-bodied people, be better utilized to pay them to work on our country’s infrastructure?

Isn’t, what socialists call liberal compassion, just another power-grabbing endeavor?

Robert (Bob) Sowell

Hot Springs