>>Depends on what form that assistance takes. If it is educational assistance for highly motivated individuals that is fine.
Carson was bottom of his class and teachers were giving up on him. I don't think you can try to pick winners so young, surely a goal is to level the playing field so Carsons aren't written off from birth.
>> If it is a welfare check and food stamps for people who have lived on welfare and food stamps for generations, then it is not. All the latter does is to keep the poor from getting ahead.
I'd agree with you if there were jobs for these people. But we've had this discussion before and it's unlikely we can agree.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1