Here are some reasons why spending policies such as welfare, universal health care, parts of the recent stimulus program, and so forth do not work:

1. Congressional members do not understand the root cause of many national problems they face because most have not encountered them in their lifetimes. For example, congressional members do not know what it is like to be poor. To be a member of Congress wealth is almost a prerequisite to win elections. Also, a large percentage of these congressional politicians inherited their wealth. Thus, they have no idea how to run a company or anything that will help them do their congressional job since everything has been handed to them. Political families such as the Kennedy’s have been in power so long they are not in touch with the common man. When Congress does not understand a problem, they think the only way to solve the problem is to throw money at the problem and hope it goes away.
2. Congressional members feel throwing money at a problem will solve it. This is simply idiotic. For example, welfare was developed to help the poor, but how does welfare help the poor get out of poverty? It does not because welfare expects nothing from its recipients. Without solving educational issues for the poor, welfare will not work. The new stimulus package throws more money into education. This is great, but once again new money in education will not necessarily improve education. Money is just one variable out of hundreds. If a failing school system gets more money to turn things around, but all other variables remain the same what makes us think money will solve the problem. If the teachers, the environment, and curriculum are the same, more money will more than likely not help. Congress is simply wasting more taxpayer money. The U.S. already pays more dollars per student than any other country in the world. This should tell congressional members the money is there, but something else is broken. Please read my book (Is America Dying?) for information on how to address these problems. Thus, money does not solve anything if the root cause of the problem and other variables of the problem are not addressed.
3. Throwing money at problem does not ensure the rising costs of the problem are being addressed. Universal health care is a good example of this. The main problem that is making health insurance unaffordable is its rising costs. The new Obama health care program does not address how to keep these costs down. For example, the main reason for rising health care costs is due to obesity and his health care program does not address this problem. The Obama health care plan does not address other reasons for rising health care costs such as frivolous lawsuits and fraud associated with social programs. Hence, once Obama passes his health care reform plan, the premiums will continue to escalate over the years because his plan does not address those issues causing health care costs to spiral out of control. Spending also leads to fraud and scandals.
4. Congress is irresponsible with taxpayer money. Take for example social security and Medicare. These two programs are run using a similar Ponzi scheme used by financial con-artists such as Bernard Madoff. Our generation is paying for the social security and Medicare benefits of current retirees. Just as the Madoff Ponzi scheme had its money dry up, social security and Medicare will dry up and there will be no money for future generations. Congress takes our money and spends it and does not invest it. Thus, the only way to keep up with government expenditures for the “baby boom” generation is to increase taxes to pay for their social security and Medicare.
5. Congress is irresponsible when it deficit spends. To pay for our rising debt we sell U.S. treasury bonds to other countries or print more money. Printing new money leads to inflation, while our enemies such as China own nearly one trillion in U.S. debt. This is in itself a national security risk. The interest from our debt is nearly totaling a half of trillion dollars by the time Obama leaves office.

My Blog: http://patrickbohan.blogtownhall.com/ (The Theory of Mediocrity)

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)