Certainly, they will not help the people they are intended to help.
- Give people loans for an education, many get two years worth of an [insert non-job focused category] Studies degree, then they drop out, and are saddled with debt and no degree...much worse off than before...not helpful as a whole to a group of people...requiring bailouts later.
- Give people money for a down payment on a house in the city, then leave them hanging for the rest of the mortgage which they cannot afford...not very helpful...requiring bailouts later.
Individual cases of success will be found and trumpeted, but as a whole for a group of people, these things are not helpful. These programs are almost always short term windfalls for the individual beneficiaries, and long term drags on success of the group as a whole...thereby keeping the group generally and electorally captive to the party that gave them the handout. This is an intentional power play by a few cynical people, and many well meaning people who are ignorant of long term economic & political realities...which is why cynical people can take advantage of them ("call it the stupidity of the American voter").
Now, increasing opportunity for all is usually helpful, as we consistently see already. But in reality, handouts to specfic groups are effectively just tools to gain and retain power (to keep that group in question captive to a particular party), not a tool to help people.
Throw money in a hole...or put a ladder in the hole. The former is not helpful (but judged charitable by many); the latter is very helpful (but judged as callous and uncaring by many).
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