CNN GOP Town Hall in S.C.: on Welfare & Poverty

Ben Carson: We the people--not government--should take care of indigent

CARSON: My stance is that, we the people have the responsibility to take care of the indigent in our society. It's not the government's job. You can read the constitution all you want, it never says that it is the government's job and I think where we've gotten confused. In the old days of America, if it was harvest time and the farmer fell down and broke his leg, everybody pitched in and harvested his crops for him. We have a history a taking care of each other. Starting in the 1920's, the government started getting involved in everything. It kept growing, metastasizing. By the time we got to the 1960s, LBJ was saying, "we, the government, are going to eliminate poverty." $19 trillion later, 10 times more people on food stamps, more poverty, more welfare, broken homes. Everything is much worse. And that's because it's not their job. It's our job.