Everybody thinks about welfare wrong.
Welfare isn’t free money for people that don’t work. Welfare is a cleanup service for people that do.
Thanks to the government, you don’t have to step over all those people every day.
You can just pay maybe an extra point on your taxes and get on with pretending they don’t exist.
I don’t know how you define “service” but I think building a little buffer like that right into society, so I get to do charity every time I pay taxes AND I never have to personally deal with the downtrodden is a great “service.”
The only thing “better” would be a “service” for putting unneeded “quotes” around “things.”
I may be a selfish bastard, or may be a sociopathic idiot looking for some confirmation on my contribution to society, but I would rather see these downtroden people on the streets weak and dying. We have to many people in this world who have an unbelievable sense of self entitlement, and if some of them can be cut from the chaff of humanity, I think I could deal with bums on the street be smelly.