In Regards to your question should welfare be tolerated, I say no in the form that it is in. I do not care what state you are in, you are still able to work and contribute to a society. If they want aid from the government then they should work for that aid. Pick up a phone for four hours, get a group together and clean up the streets, volunteer at a shelter. To hand out money, stamps, and other goods is feeding a parasite on society. We as objectivist know that we must struggle and work for our endeavors. At the end of a long day’s work we feel happy, because “happiness is the state of consciousness that proceeds the achievement of ones values.” To allow these people to sit or suffer and receive aid is a crime not only to the people of the society allowing there work to be given to the needy but allowing those needy to not feel pride nor happiness for what they earn.

Social Security and Medicare are not "welfare," as the money has been extorted from producers to begin with. Anyone who has "contributed" should have the contract for repayment honored. The takers who have been given access without investing should be cut off.

Welfare is immoral (theft) and should be eliminated immediately. This includes Social Security and Medicare (although I would accept phasing these out).

A good first step to eliminating welfare would be to stop calling it an "entitlement". Social Security is an entitlement--the recipient has paid into it as a pension or insurance. No one is entitled to welfare/food stamps.

People who really need charity do exist. But I prefer it be privately funded and privately run, and not just because of the NAP but because:
(1) Churches and other private institutions are better at directing help to those who can become self sufficient, and away from those who will just go on mooching until somebody stops them. The Mormons are especially good at this; they can and do put unemployed people into jobs.
(2) A private "safety net" is the kind of spontaneous public good that ought to be encouraged, a set of habits that creates better communities. Having the state make charity a state monopoly destroys those habits and leads to the kind of alienation that has given us movements like BLM.
(3) Under a state monopoly system, some deserving people "fall through the cracks" and don't qualify. I expect this to happen less often under private charity.

I'm aware of Rand's disdain for charity as demeaning to both giver and taker, and I somewhat agree with it, but I don't feel it should stop us from giving at all.

Welfare can't be condoned in any case. People who are genuinely unable to provide for themselves should rely on charity

We must work to abolish food stamps, "Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program," or whatever you wish to call it, forthwith.

To begin with, it violates the basic Gulch principle: "I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." The program takes from some for the unearned, unpaid benefit of others.

Second, the "others" who get the unearned, unpaid benefit include more than "down on their luck" individuals. "Food stamps" always make part of the Farm Bill. That bill turns farmers into Orren Boyles. And may of them don't even care.

Third, it's a trap. An elaborate trap. It traps people into dependency on the government.

Fourth: it makes no effort to address the reason anyone is "down on his luck": the pervasive economic interference that means many couldn't become independent even if they tried--because the government wouldn't let them. When the government makes job creation impossible, they might as well tell job seekers, "You may not get out of our soup line."

I'm in favor of suspending the franchise for anyone who is on public assistance for more than, say, one year. Their voting privileges will be returned once they are productive citizens again - by that, I mean taxpayers.

No skin in the game, no vote. That, more than any single one thing, will eliminate the current state of our elections as auctions, in which politicians fall all over themselves competing to offer voters more of other people's property.

I have many more ideas on welfare, which are expressed in my Manifesto: http://www.frombearcreek.com/animals-...

I do not agree with welfare as it exist today. What I would like to see is a 1 time helping hand for those who need it at a local level. Example, 3 years paid at a community college (w/day care), bus\train passes, rent reimbursement, food allotment, health services, and be permitted to work a part time job for cash. This should not last more than 4 years and is a one time offer for life. If after this helping-hand is extended and the person has not straightened out his/her life to the extent that he/she is self sustaining then they can rely on non-government charities and/or starve.

I think that sometimes things happen in people's lives. A hand up creates a productive citizen who will put money back into the tax coffers.

Also, on welfare, voting privilege is suspended.

No.

I don't condone taking money by force from anyone whether it is purported given to others that "need" it or not.

I am a supporter of modest Welfare programs for the poor. The goal should never be sanctimony or the notion that peole don't have a right to their own wealth. If we're going to spend large amount of money to incarcerate people, though, I'm a huge fan of an ounce of prevent. I'm a rare Ayn Rand fand who supports Welfare programs to help the poor.