I Need, Therefore I Get: An Entitlement Culture
The following quote has been attributed to a number of authors including “Anonymous,” Alexander F. Tytler or Tyler as some have it, Benjamin Disraeli or Alexis de Tocqueville, perhaps in an effort to make them more authentic.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.”
Regardless of who said it, it remains an accurate description of what has come to be known as the “Nanny State,” the culture of entitlement.
The “Nanny State”, wherein government no longer exists to protect individuals so that they can develop as the individual wishes, but exists to provide for the individual so that he need make no decisions for himself, the perfect Nanny as it were.
The late Margret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Great Britain famously stated:
[...] and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They run out of other people’s money. [Interview with Llew Gardner]
And of course, therein lies the problems with our current governmental spending. Both the spending itself and the reasoning behind it.
In the run-up to establishing Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” congress debated, agonized over and passed Medicare, an adjunct to the previously passed Social Security. The cause was noble, the outcome disastrous.
The premise of Medicare was that society owed it’s elderly population a way to insure that adequate medical care would be paid for. American society had become used to the idea that Social Security would provide adequate retirement income for them when the ability/desire to work came to an end. That end was set arbitrarily at age 65 when an individual’s social security would pay them a percentage of their former income, based on an average of several years earning capability. Gradually, people stopped “saving” for their retirement years and more and more depended on Social Security for their “golden” years.
Unfortunately, for society in general, and the elderly in particular, too often Social Security did not provide sufficient income, and many people no longer had access to medical coverage through health insurance. As time went on, the “need” to take care of this problem became more and more evident. The concerns about cost were managed as so often is the case, through political pressure rather than through economic reality. Hubert Humphry:
“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
By changing the so called “frame” from one of economics to one of moral compassion, cost was downplayed and the “cradle to grave” impetus was born.
The reality is that when Social Security (and indeed when Medicare) was passed was that there were more workers putting money into the fund than there were taking money out. It became one vast pyramid scheme in which eventually, there would be “losers” in the game because more would be taking out than were putting in.
During the 1990’s, someone had the bright idea of moving the Social Security and Medicare funds from a separate account to the general account thus “balancing the budget.” With a balanced budget, spending on Social Security and Medicare was jacked up because money was available. All Congress had to do was raise the “debt limit.” And this they have done consistently. The borrowed funds have come from the sale of Treasury bonds to various lenders, chiefly China and now Japan. The cost of that loan continues to add up, seldom if ever going down.
Social Security and Medicare have also grown with the growth of available money.
What was originally an old age retirement plan, became an old age retirement, a disabled individual income source, a source of income for the dependent children should a wage earner die, a source of medical care not even imagined when the original Medicare bill was passed including artificial joints, “miracle drugs” for a variety of illnesses, an entitlement for prescriptions for Medicare recipients, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And as likely no one in the Democratic Party was willing to admit, costs have spiraled up, and up, and up. Too, Social Security has become so many things to so many people, no one is willing to sit down and reform the program before it goes bankrupt, and it will go bankrupt very soon.
And, through the years this entitlement has indeed become the third rail of governance. “Touch it not.” Now, the idea that government can solve the problem has resulted in a government takeover of housing, auto manufacturing, and soon to come, the mother of all takeovers – {Trumpets please maestro} Health Care; fully 1/6th of the economy.
If you think it’s bad now, wait till everyone thinks that they are entitled to it.
We have produced a nation eager to let someone else solve their problems, let someone else foot the bill and let some one else be responsible for the bad choices we’ve made.
Not enough poor people in McMansions? Easy, set up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to finance homes that they can’t pay for and let the economy crash. Want to blame the Republican President for that? Sure, but be sure and add the Democratic congress that boosted the damn idea. And while we’re at it, be sure and blame “Big Banking.”
Look folks, when a government program is instituted, its hell to get rid of. Why, we still have the TVA to electrify the rural Tennessee Valley. Long after the vast, vast majority of homes have electricity.
America, get ready, you are about to be screwed and you won’t even get kissed in the process.
