This essay examines four HHS state and local subsidy programs aimed at the low-income population: Head Start, the Child Care Fund, the Social Services Block Grant, and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance. These programs are intensely bureaucratic and susceptible to fraud and abuse. There is also little evidence that the programs generate much of a return for the large taxpayer resources invested in them. For example, a recent authoritative study found that Head Start offers no lasting advantages to the children who take part in the program. There are no economic or constitutional reasons why the federal government should be involved in these four programs and the other state and local welfare activities of the HHS. Congress should end HHS state and local aid programs, and individual state governments should decide for themselves what taxpayer support, if any, is appropriate for these sorts of activities. (author abstract)