system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does government assistance (welfare) really provide more dependent society or is it just GOP party's scary tactic?

Lately, lots of Republicans have self-entitlement and they don't realize how much the government helped them (financial aid, water, road, FDA, etc.) and they don't like to help the poor, because they fear that this might make people lazy.    
     
    
Lots of Republicans "friends" argue that what Obama is doing right now is creating a government dependent society (which we are, I depend on government for water, highway, security, etc.). Also, they argue that there will be more people taking advantage of the system (i.e. they won't work hard, because they know the government will take care of them)   
    
I wanted to refute them, but I didn't have any paper to disprove them otherwise.   
Is there a study that relates government spending (excluding military and foreign aid) and number of people taking advantage of the system (if it's possible to find the number of people taking advantage of the system).    
    
Alternatively, is there a paper that relates government spending on welfare and growth of private sector (that doesn't depend on government contract)?
gpt
You're asking for studies, but you need a rhetoric lesson. Knowledge does not come only from paper, and the type of paper you're suggesting would be hard to write for the reason you say  here: how do you quantify, much less measure, "people taking advantage of the system"?

And that is your tack to take. When your Republican friends are saying to you whatever the most recent GOP opinion machine talking points are, ask yourself how one might measure the things they're talking about. Hell, ask them too! You'll get evasions and huffy defensiveness because they haven't thought about it, and don't really know how to, but don't want to say so. 

Work with them to *define their terms*, and then *define a way their claims can be tested*. They will either do this in good faith with you, and you can then 1) look up those studies which have actually been done and 2) point out that these talking points are very selective in whom they target, or they will huff and leave, in which case you've shut them up for awhile. When they come back the next day repeating the next thing Hannity and Limbaugh said, repeat the process: demand consistent use of terms and testing statements. Eventually they will either become libertarians or stop talking to you about their politics, either way you win.