So how many Conservatives/Republicans/Libertarians Actually Read the Constitution?
Because the first sentence clearly states:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Ergo social issues and welfare have always been intended to be a concern of the US federal government.
Likewise I'm guessing they've never read the Declaration of Independence, because the second sentence of that says:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Ergo the very purpose of Government is to be concerned with and work to increase the life and liberties of the people it governs.
So the founders have always intended the federal government to provide services for the people it governs. IN our current age that means welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, unemployment, and increasingly health insurance. It does so by taxes, which is something many of the people receiving entitlements and government support have paid at some point (or will pay once they reach working age).
Thomas Jefferson thought good public education was the most important part of a working democracy, without which an oligarchy would soon develop with the wealthy duping the uneducated poor. Which I guess explains why Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, and various other politicians are so against a well funded public school system.