Oh sure, I suppose my family could have lived digging through landfills like the wretchedly poor do in Ethiopia and Indonesia and elsewhere. And perhaps I would

Oh sure, I suppose my family could have lived digging through landfills like the wretchedly poor do in Ethiopia and Indonesia and elsewhere. And perhaps I wouldn’t have died, just been left permanently physically and mentally stunted by malnutrition, certainly not coming out of the ordeal in any state to perform the fairly high-level job that I have today. The income taxes that I pay with the large-ish salary that I was able to get because my brain was not stunted by malnutrition as a child have already paid for the food stamps that the government invested in my well-being many times over, by the way. That is what welfare does: it works, and in the long run it pays off in spades.