If social programs were abolished tomorrow, do you think that our citizens would give enough to make up the difference?
If not, do you think that it's the government's role to step in?
If not, then whose?
I don't think it would immediately, and that is obvious. It takes a shift in mindset. However, as a nation, we did fairly well without social welfare for quite some time.
The reason is that communities (and in this sense I mean groups of people, be it neighborhoods, cities, but also churches, clubs, extended families, social groups of any sort) took care of their own.
The only people that slipped through the cracks were ones that were deemed unworthy of support and those who were not in any social group. That doesn't happen anymore at all.
While I'm sure some of this is demographic shifts (more population living anonymously in cities, etc), I also know that a certain amount of it is an attitude that "it's not my problem," or "that's why I pay taxes," or "the government won't let people starve."
Further, because government accumulates power by using power. We have people freezing to death and/or starving to death everyday in this country, but how often do you hear about it? One prominent reason is that homeless and needy people are forcibly herded away into housing projects, or encampments in industrial areas so they're not seen as a problem by John Q. Taxpayer who doesn't frequent that part of town.
I honestly believe that social welfare programs are used to gather votes rather than help a problem, and I further believe that it is modern day enslavement because people become so dependent and they always have a bureaucrat guiding their decisions as a result. As such, I can't support social programs, for the most part, especially on a federal level.
Yet, I think the only way they'll ever go away is if the giving of private individuals, helping other individuals, decreases demand for public welfare programs.
/diatribe