Over the past 50 years, the purpose of the American government has radically transformed. Whereas its main goal in domestic matters used to be to protect liberty, it is now an entitlements machine, transferring over $2 trillion per year from some people’s pockets to others. Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute explains how the explosions in social security, medicare, medicaid, and other welfare programs are changing the American character for the worse–from one that is focused on individual responsibility and giving, to one that is focused on grabbing as much of the pie as possible.

Marriage plays a big role in this equation, via American Thinker:

…Just this week, CNS news published an alarming fact: 86 million full-time, private-sector workers sustain 148 million benefit-takers.  Specifically, “The 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers outnumbered the 86,429,000 full-time private sector workers 1.7 to 1.”

Today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (see note below), poor children living in single-parent households constitute almost two thirds of all poor children (65 percent).  That figure stands in stark contrast to the time before liberal social welfare policies went into effect in 1960, when only 25 percent of all poor children lived in single-parent households….

Three things one can do to stay out of poverty: 1) finish high school, 2) Get Married ([2.a] and stay married), and 3), go to church. These three factors are anti-poverty when practiced in unison.