Why does it need to be so difficult?  The reason that Europe is going under financially, and the USA is not far behind, is that countries have decided to care for the poor through the government rather than through the Church.  When the Church cares for the poor, the poor are given a much larger gift than simply food or money.  When the government is first told that it can have no religious affiliation, then is told it must be compassionate, it cannot help but offer only short-term material benefit, and so has no hope of getting the better of the problem.  The church offers spiritual help as well as material help, and the Church offers the possibility of membership in a community - a community of people who are dedicated to living their lives for God instead of for themselves.  This one aspect would disallow an individual to remain on welfare for very long.

Say you had a classmate who could never get his papers written on time, and regularly asked to copy yours and turn them in as his own.  What if you had actually agreed to do this several times?  Wouldn't you eventually try to explain to him that it actually would be better for him in the long run to get his own C than to get your A?  Can you imagine how you would feel if a majority of your classmates and teachers sided with him arguing that they couldn't see how a C is better than an A in any way, so you should be more compassionate and let him copy your work each week?  This is what it sounds like to those who are already paying most of the nation's taxes when politicians tell them, "you have to pay your fair share."  The amount considered "fair" is not based on how much an individual should be required to contribute to the government, rather it is based on how much the individual will have left over compared to those who are less well-off.  It is as though an equal amount of money for each citizen is a right that can be enforced by the government.  Our ancestors called this tyranny.  I don't believe that replacing the current president with another will solve this problem, but if he were replaced, it would be a sign that our country may have what it takes to survive this world-wide economic madness, and might be able to show the EU an alternative to the welfare state.  If we all agreed that we mustn't bankrupt our government, and drastically reduced our spending in nearly every area, we would all be motivated to find an alternative to provide help for those in need - an alternative that would have to take a person's entire humanity into consideration, as the Church does.