To show how the political debate is today, it would be good to look at what leading economists noted for pro-capitalism and free markets said.  Take a look at Milton Friedman and F.A Hayek.

Milton Friendman:

Milton was no fan of big government programs at all.  He also believed the government was responsible for most of the reasons for people staying on poverty, and firmly believed in the free market as an engine for solving problems.  You can see this here in this clip, where he says people have resposibilities, not government: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD64byAIto8

And yet, in light of this, he proposed a negative income tax to help the poor, which ended up paying people money during tax season they didn't pay into the system, as a means of providing a minimum income so they could survive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

F.A Hayek:

Hayek road the book "Road to Serfdom", and was very anti-socialist and defender of free-market capitalism. You can see his work "Road to Serfdom" spelled out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkz9AQhQFNY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

He, however, proposed and advocated for a minimum income for every citizen in a country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee

Interesting today, that redistribution of wealth, which was what the above HEAVILY argued against, is blurred with redistribution of income (money derived from owning wealth) in the debate, and lumped together, and argued that any form of giving help to the poor from the government, in the form of cash layouts is a road to socialism.  But that is what it is today.  Can the two be viewed separately?  I would say yes to that.  Maybe others can't.

Richard, the Negative Income Tax was simply Friedman's proposal as a means to replace the current minimum wage and welfare programs.

He'd prefer absolutely no income tax at all but if a welfare of some kind had to be installed, that was his solution for it. Doesn't mean it's what he actually wanted overall.

AS for Hayek, I just read most of the chapter that Wikipedia suggests is the source for his support for Basic Income Guarantee and I can't find any support for that in there at all.

A general principle that all economists (regardless of their ideology) agree on is that you get more of what you subsidize, and you get less of what you tax ...

Now, there are two general strategies that have been used by employers in modern history. On one hand you have employers who pay their employees as little as possible to keep their costs down, and on the other hand you have employers who pay a premium to attract overall better employees; and the reason they pay more is that the productivity and increased quality of the better employee more than compensates for their higher wage.

Beyond the inflationary increases which minimize the benefits of subsidies, when you subsidize low income earners you’re (in essence) subsidizing the low wage business strategy that their employers execute; and when you increase taxes to pay for it you’re (in essence) adding a tax to the high income employers strategy.

Over decades of executing this strategy, any company that hires employees in career fields which have wage ranges that fall into the subsidized range and executes the high income strategy has probably been run out of business by the government’s influence or abandoned the strategy in favor of the low income strategy. Beyond that, those companies which have been so well rewarded by paying as little as possible have continued to execute their strategy and are now chasing inexpensive labor on a global scale; and are off-shoring jobs to India and China.

Well yeah, they were for much more efficent social welfare programs however and would never support the beastly monstrousities we have today. (Nor a crapload of the worthless stuff money gets spent on.)

Like the negative income tax as mentioned. It's a way to get the poor what they need without crippling government inefficency.

I first went into finding this info, when I was trying to look into what note free market economists and individuals who offer a foundation for philsophical thought, had to say about how to help the poor.  I have seen what looked like increase meanness for the lack of a better word here, for the current political discussion and wonder what the thoughts where on the subject, so it was look up Hayek and Friedman and see what they had to say.  I was surprised to see that they were advocating a forum of income redistribution, which is now see as communist, and evil.  Looking back at the time they discussed things, the idea was redistribution of wealth, not income.  The idea of own owned the means of production is what the battle was fought over.  Now, it looks like capitalism won, but the issue has to do with income redistribution, with individuals arguing now that NONE should take place at all.  I remember seeing where Mises stormed out of a meeting of the minds that had Hayek and Friedman were at discussing issues and he called the entire lot Socialists.  I also was curious to see what Ayn Rand had to say, and you have her defenders saying she didn't hate the poor.  Well, I guess ignoring isn't hate, but the effect would be the same.

It could be also that the shape of the political debate now is to score points.  You want to put individuals who want less government involvement in a box as hating those in need, so they have more programs to support, and the less tax, less money, less everything camp also including having those poor and in need as seen as lazy (interesting to go watch some Milton Friendman talk, and it is far more compassionate than what we see today).  What I get most annoyed at is discussions and political views get less nuanced and more, washed in a simple mix of blue vs red.

Friendman had proposed a flat tax combined with a negative income tax for those who are poor, as a replacement for the current system.  Of course, ideally, he wouldn't want taxes, but did say he did like some taxes, like the taxes on gas to pay for the roads (and property tax):

http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Friedman.html

And regarding Hayek:

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0994e.asp

 Does he support a guaranteed minimum income? Hayek: "I have always said that I am in favor of a minimum income for every person in the country."

In the Wikipedia entry I listed, that is in the footnotes at the bottom of the page.

Sure, especially when you understand that Hayek wanted to only give them a "miserable" amount of money so as to not disincentivize them from working if they are able. Very probably, the average household living below the poverty line wouldn't qualify for Hayek's handout.

Well very few people i've seen say the poor should get NOTHING, no more then usual anyway.  Something worth noting though is the difference in what we think of as quality of living vs what was thought of as quality of living in Friedman and Hayek's time.

Back then quality of living was more "Literally not starving on the streets."

Now a days quality of living tends to involve all kinds of stuff involving many comforts we take for granted, like television, microwaves, a car.. etc.

The meanness I refer to comes when the poor get labelled with all being lazy and so on.  Or, something like a reply on a blog that I should kill myself so his taxes would be lower and he wouldn't hear me whine.   There is also a belief anyone can find a job, if they just look hard enough, so thus everyone who isn't working is just lazy.  The belief is they should get nothing.

Besides this, the second one is that, the government should get out of the business completely, and have charities pick up all the slack.  It was also expressed that if somehow, if you just cut taxes enough, then there would be a large amount of money flowing and people would suddenly engage in charity in a much larger degree. Any word this ever happening?

While I would be pressed to say that there are many people who blanketedly would say that the poor should just up and die, there are individuals who stereotype them as all lazy, or with drug problems, or have some reason to explain why they are poor, and if just "toughen things up" and if you threaten starvation to them, they would just get off their lazy behinds and work.   I would say there is also a flip side, where liberals would confuse government run programs with charity (this line is what was said by Scrooge, when asked if he gave money, and he said he paid taxes).

A)  Well actually, Charitable giving had been down ever since the stimulus... up until 2010 when the stimulus started slowing down.  Whether it's related or not I Don't know.

B) It's worth noting Friedman and Hayek aren't exactly best of friends ideologically. Or personally, it's often said that Friedman actually went out of his way to blackball Hayek preventing him from getting a job in the USA.

The irony of the Keynes vs Hayek debate, is that the leader of the Federal Reserve is a Monetarist.  As are most economists.  Quantiative Easing is actually out of the monetary playbook during economic Crisis.  The Stimulus was Keynsian, but QE was Monetarist.  We essentially have gone all in with both theories, and combined they haven't even been able to push the needle that far.

The reason why of course i'd say is the average person.  The people aren't reacting how the Keynsians and Monetarists thought they would.  Give a guy a few extra bucks and he's going to sit on it.  Not spend it... times are too uncertain for everyone who aren't upper middleclass are above and people are waiting for the government to fix things.

C)  Hayek on the otherhand would basically agree with Happy Squirrel, in that, as long as their is things like a minium wage and government controlled inflation there will be a false buildup of jobs and money in the wrong sectors, and the number of jobs will be low.