[svcw]

My Mom used to tell me, “if we give the poor everything they need or want, what is their incentive to improve their lot”. My Mom was a wise woman.

[from occupied ga]

if we give the poor everything they need or want

Can't be done. There isn't any upper limit on want or "need" (as in I need a car, health care, flatscreen tv, etc). You give the parasites one thing, and immediately they want more.

[Straight Vermonter]

She had good company.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor (29 November 1766)