A part of me kind of hopes that people who make blanket statements about welfare and the poor end up hitting a really shitty time in their life where they have to walk a mile in someone else's shoes.

It's extremely difficult, and almost impossible in a lot of cases, to get out of poverty once you're in there. Contrary to popular belief, most people on welfare probably don't want to be on it, seeing as it's probably embarrassing as hell having to pull out food stamps and it's not nearly as much money as people seem to think it is. Yes, there's people who leech off the system, and those that are usually caught doing it end up making the news in some way and skewing people's perceptions. 

[URL=http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-4-types-people-welfare-nobody-talks-about/]Required reading before anyone continues on this line of discussion.[/URL]

Seriously, not everyone's born lucky or in a well-off family. Just because you grew up and live in a comfortable life doesn't mean everyone else has had a similar experience.

That's all I really am going to say on this matter, because the way things are looking, I know exactly the kind of responses this is going to get. But before you decide to get all foamy at the mouth because I don't subscribe to a black and white brand of politics regarding social issues, at least consider doing some rudimentary research into shit before writing off a large group of people as worthless because you have absolutely no idea what put them in that situation or what they're doing about it. 

Keeping an open mind about any topic never hurt anyone.