I'm not going to pretend I've read every post in this thread in depth. I skimmed the longer ones, but I have some comments about the topic in general.
If the goal is to reduce the tax burden by using the money more reasonably, then "fixing" the various welfare systems is not the highest priority. Ending the war on drugs, further reforming campaign finance laws, and improving our immigration system would all be worthwhile contributions. Holding corporations culpable for their own losses would have saved a ton of money over the last ten years and would probably do so over the next decade as well. Breaking the connection between the military and energy policies of the US would save billions. Of course, each of these solutions would temporarily increase unemployment, so having an efficient welfare system would be even more important in the short term.
I think one thing that RC is failing to realize is that public money spent by welfare recipients is as much a boon to the economy as it is to the "deadbeats." Poverty creates a spending vacuum that negatively effects those with jobs and investments. Since our system is based on consumption, allowing the unemployed to continue consuming is important not just for those people, but for everyone who works for and/or holds interest in the businesses that sell them things.
If I had to name the most problematic aspect of that cycle, I wouldn't say it is lazy people gaming the system. Instead, it is the dominance of low-profit-margin companies over the welfare demographic. A huge percentage of our welfare dollars eventually end up in the register at Wal-mart, McDonalds, and similar companies that profit by keeping costs and prices at rock bottom. Of course, these same companies are responsible for underpaying and under-benefiting the lower class, and for shipping jobs overseas. These companies are both contributing to poverty and profiting from it, which is far more problematic than RIMZZZZ.
If the goal, instead, is to make welfare more "fair," then the answer is not to limit or punish recipients of public funds but, rather, to increase the socialization of our system so that everyone receives them. The idea of providing basic health care, food, clothing, and shelter to
all citizens
, regardless of their financial situation, has always been very appealing to me. Some of this can be done with minimal expenditures, such as food-surplus programs, subsidized gleaners, and public camping space for the urban house-less. Of course the rest would require a bunch of extra money, and call for cuts elsewhere (see above).
I'm not going to derail this thread entirely by getting into the details but, simply put, I believe that capitalism would work best if people started above zero and were incapable of falling all the way to zero. I think that the result would address many of the concerns in this thread and have positive ramifications that go well beyond the scope of discussion here.