One of the biggest problems with the current system is fraud, fix the fraud and the amount paid out by taxpayers would be less than half of what it is now. Things have really changed in how thorough they are with things like welfare and benefits. A good example is SSDI, go back 20 years and to get approved you had to be physically present at a hearing where you directly faced the doctors from SS and answer questions why you could not work. The current system allows anyone with a doctor willing to say the person is disabled to provided reports or documents, a good portion of which are faked and really don't meet disability requirements. I sometimes volunteer for people with disabilities and you have a lot of people that could clearly be working now but because a doctor got the paperwork through when the person was at their absolute worst or possibly stretched things to make it worse than they really are, that person will be paid by taxpayers to not work.
I understand helping people that need help and I am all for it, but when I see people 25 years old, drawing $1k a month , sitting at home , buying expensive clothing and still living off mom and dad, people that talk about using computers to do email, gaming,etc, so they are often more computer literate than their parents and the young adults claim to be disabled, it makes me angry. These groups of people are more common than many realize and will remain on disability for life because the government no longer does the reviews like they used to , they don't go back out and see if that person is still disabled.
The same thing goes for welfare and ebt(food stamps). My mom lives alone and gets her SS, a total of about $650 a month. She doesn't qualify for ebt by NC state rules, yet I see people in their 20's with hundreds of dollars of food with ebt, some even sell their monthly allotment by accepting cash for the card or taking someone else shopping and letting them get what they want and then paying them in the car. If welfare investigated cases like they used to they could stop that, I remember years ago when they made surprise visits on homes, looking to see if the father really was at home, or if the person really was working, they don't do that anymore, not enough funds for social workers they say.