On February 11, The New York Times ran a long, front-page story titled “Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It.” It was — and I say this in full cognizance of the fierce competition there is in this arena — one of the most mendacious stories I have ever read in the Times. Even the title had a dollop of mendacity about it. The burden of the story was to show that many (most? all?) people who criticize big government and the welfare state are hypocrites because so many of them are recipients, in one way or another, of government largess.
There followed one of those interminable journalistic litanies, full of down-home anecdotes about the real-life stories of Ki, the jeweler, who is highly critical of big government but nevertheless collects a government subsidy worth several thousand dollars, and Barbara, who lives on Social Security and needs Medicare to “pay for an operation.”
Ah, yes, “pay for an operation.” Cue the violins. Distribute the Kleenex. The lady needed an operation and these anti-government beasts would deny her medical care.
But wait. What’s wrong with this picture? The Jesuits in my high school were full of tips for good intellectual hygiene. Item: “never deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish.” Good advice, at least the last bit about making distinctions. What has the Times failed to distinguish? As several commentators noted when the story appeared, neither Medicare nor Social Security are government subsidies in the sense that (e.g.) food stamps or Ki’s “earned income tax credit” (i.e., dole) is. Look at your pay check: note the debits. You’re paying for Social Security and Medicare. Maybe you’re not paying enough. Maybe you’re collecting on some of the benefits too early. Maybe, just maybe, they are misconceived programs whose stated goal of providing a “safety net” and caring for the needy could be accomplished at vastly less expense and with vastly greater efficiency by authorities that are more local than the federal government.
The phrase “safety net” brings me back to the title of the Times article and its soupçon of mendacity. “Even Critics of Safety Net . . .” But where are these critics of the safety net? Do you know anyone who thinks people should be allowed to starve in the streets or go without medical care? It was Dr. Johnson, not Lyndon Johnson, who observed that “A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.” The question, which the Times skirts, is who or what should provide the safety net.
Like most conservatives, I am not against government. It’s just that I believe we should begin with the most local authority, which is self-government. You don’t have to be Immanuel Kant to appreciate the virtues of autonomy, i.e., giving the law, the nomos, to yourself. That is the best aspect of the Enlightenment tradition, to form a polity that encourages self-government, self-reliance, autonomy. When that fails, as, given the imperfection and limitation of human nature, it surely will fail, we move outward, first to family, then to local communities, then the individual states. The federal government, that unwieldy leviathan, should be the last resort. Few of us command an aircraft carrier. We sometimes are in need of an aircraft carrier. That is a moment when the federal government comes in handy. The same can be said of the interstate highway system and other, but not many other, enterprises. Bill Buckley, writing in 1959, put it with his customary eloquence:
What then is the indicated course of action? It is to maintain and wherever possible enhance the freedom of the individual to acquire property and dispose of that property in ways that he decides on. To deal with unemployment by eliminating monopoly unionism, featherbedding, and inflexibilities in the labor market, and be prepared, where residual unemployment persists, to cope with it locally, placing the political and humanitarian responsibility on the lowest feasible political unit. . . .
Which brings me to the really terrifying thing about that story in the Times. Ki Gulbranson, the jeweler, is supposed to be a hypocrite because he rails against big government even as he accepts government (i.e., taxpayer) largess. But is that hypocritical? Or is it, on the contrary, an illustration of the problem Mr. Gulbranson highlighted with his support of the Tea Party and criticism of ever-increasing government subsidies? More and more of the middle class, as the Times points out, are now recipients of government largess. The Times concludes that this means we should make our peace with big government. My conclusion is the opposite. The fact that more and more of the middle class is on the dole is grounds for grave concern. Mr. Gulbranson, like millions of Americans, has looked around him and seen leviathan. Hence his support of the Tea Party and candidates who have pledged to reduce the size and the intrusiveness of government. Let me quote again from that 1959 article by Bill Buckley (available, by the way, in Athwart History):
Is that a program? Call it a No-Program, if you will, but adopt it for your very own. I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.
The most memorable thing about that article in the Times was an animated graphic that showed, as Tyler Durden put it at the weblog ZeroHedge, “America’s Metamorphosis to a Welfare State” from 1969 to 2009 (h/t Instapundit), which we’ll explore at the top of the next page.
The New York Times cheers America’s metamorphosis into a welfare state.
The Times applauds the welfare state because it has so successfully tanked its own reputation and credibility that it is now dependent on people like gazillionaire Carlos Slim of Mexico for cash infusions.
Even Carlos is gonna dry up eventually, if he hasn’t already.
The Times anticipates that Barry & friends (to the extent that the paper continues to be an organ of propaganda) will take up the slack.
If enough Americans willingly become wards they will force the rest of us into indentured servitude to pay for it. That will be an unsustainable and potentially explosive situation.
You’re paying for Social Security and Medicare.
But I won’t ever collect on it. My labor is being taxed to provide “free” stuff to other people; when I get old there won’t be enough labor to provide the taxes to give me free stuff. So yeah, as far as I’m concerned, it’s no different than food stamps or E[sic]ITC.
“Wards and warders.” Those were the words I was looking for. “Keepers and kept” might work, also. I had been thinking “patrons and clients” – sort of a Roman arrangement. From a liberal point of view, the government ultimately represents us, so we will be our own keepers. I can’t imagine anyone actually trusting his fellow man enough to enter into such an arrangement.
Conservatives know that the keepers will ultimately become a different class from the kept, doling out money and privileges to their friends and ensuring their enemies get nothing.
Liberals say this is already happening, with Big Business, Big This, Big That being the de facto ruling “keeper” class. Under their system, they say, at least the keepers will be elected by us, and will be the “best and brightest” rather than merely the richest.
YMMV
“So far, anyway, it’s a pleasant enough prison.”
Ay, there’s the rub. It is indeed a pleasant prison for now.
Tom Friedman talks of the Chinese Benevolence of the Elite, questionable on the brightest day he’s breathed, and how a ruling class of benevolent Western elites, who know more than we, could guide us through this troublesome maze of life. Benevolent Rulers, our benefactors, promise a never ending cornucopia of fruits and nuture from their largesse, they may even be sincere. But in the end they are fools who believe that human nature can be molded to their desired outcome. Afterall aren’t we all moral by nature, aren’t we all in the end our brothers secular keeper?
Ay, but one day, some day, as is the nature of humans something inevitably goes wrong and someone steps into the fill the void. That person is often a tyrant, a dictator. In fact usually a well intentioned tyrant, but ultimately a tyrant all the same.
Julius Caesar and his nephew Augustas stand out as grand benevolent Dictators/Tyrants, Caligula considerably less so and the list is endless before and after.
“…a ruling class of benevolent Western elites, who know more than we, could guide us through this troublesome maze of life.”
As I mentioned in another thread, somebody already wrote a book about that. “The Best and the Brightest,” or, “How some very clever people who knew EVER so much more than we did got us into a stupid war and then lost it.”
After that debacle, I’m really surprised anyone still believes in “the experts.”
I always hear Obama and the Democrats talk about ways to INCREASE “revenues” (i.e., taxes), but I never, ever, hear them talk about ways to cut or shrink the size of government. That is, in a nutshell, why the far-left and the communists in the Democratic party will destroy America. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Just look at Greece if you want to see what our future has in store for us. More people are on the dole here in America because the government keeps offering new programs, new incentives, new reasons to be ON the dole. The far-left and the Democrats want to maintain blacks and other minorities on a subsidzed plantation, and that is what is so hateful about what they are doing. Unless we stop this now, we will not only have a lot of poor people in this nation, but a lot of poor people who are dependent on the government for every crust of bread they eat and every home they live in. And it must stop. Now. Or else you will not recognize America four years from now because it WILL look a lot like Greece.
Paid into it all my working life, forty years. Now, because I believe in reforming the system, I’m supposed to forgo benefits? I don’t think so.
FU, pay me.
no one’s suggesting that. ron paul have us pay those who have paid in, and give the young a chance to opt out.
ron paul WOULD have…
Fine article. Right on mark. This year, both my wife and I received small increases in our Social Security checks. We will spend the money, of course, but we didn’t ask for it, didn’t need it, and didn’t really want it. We got it because the 1973, repeat 1973, law “requires” it. Cost-of-living adjustments, and all that. Does ‘cruise control’ still work when you’re out of gas?
Where’d all this debt come from?
Looks like the Governing class spent our savings hiring an Overseer class-
and funding an Underclass to outnumber us (and keep the rulers in power)
two words: union brownshirts
Several years ago I visited with a young couple who were from South Africa. They planned eventually to marry and settle down. In the meantime they were having fun traveling Europe and stopping to live a few months in various locations. They paid for this by finding odd-jobs along the way. He tended to work construction and she waitressed. I asked if finding work was difficult to which they replied “absolutely not”. They went on to say that it was easy because a large percent of young Europeans avoided work and gladly lived off the dole. Then they told me about living on the island of Jersey (UK dependency off of Normandy)where it was customary for a great many young girls to willingly become pregnant via the visiting sailors on shore leave so that they could reap the benefits of the increase in the dole for each child. In fact, the practice was so widespread that the particular harbor town where the couple resided had become known as “Pram Town” due to the great number of baby prams that were seen being pushed around town. Wonderful what “spreading the wealth” does for a community isn’t it? But remember, we are doing it “for the children”. All those millions of children in this world being raised by uneducated, wards of the productive taxpayer, single mothers with multiple kids from often willingly unemployed multiple fathers. It’s a beautiful thing. Liberalism is so compassionate that it brings tears to the eyes.
Great Britian offers other such goodies as lifetime unemployment; work a certain number of months at an early age and collect unemployment for life. Talk about incentivizing the productive class! I think GB leads American culture by about 10 to 20 years, we can see our future, it ain’t pretty.
“whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones.
Very true, he said.
Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass.
What is that?
They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the richest.
Naturally so.
They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones.
Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little.
And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them.
That is pretty much the case, he said.
The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy.
True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a little honey.
And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves?”
I remember, a little vaguely, an article by Robert Kuttner some years ago pointing out government health care would bring the middle classes into a state of dependency which would erode resistance to completing the welfare state. Makes sense. As more and more one’s personal income is absorbed by the government the more dependency on government largesse grows.
Could it be that dependency rather than “welfare” is the true objective of government aggrandizement? Is it even possible that St. Augustine’s libido dominandi plays a role in government growth?
I started paying into the Social Security system about 1960 and Medicare a bit later. I had no choice; if I wanted to work I had to pay. I also planned my retirement, in part, based on the belief that the promised benefits would actually be there when I wanted them. Now I am enjoying the benefits of these two programs, but I was forced to contribute. Only an idiot would deny himself something he has paid for; I don’t consider myself a hypocrite even when, as a member of the Tea Party, I rail against our intrusive government. The government had, and still has, the upper hand.
The Times itself is having a tough go as a business, having shooed away nearly all but the doctrinaire lefties, and would very much appreciate government support with taxpayer money.
Medicare is the program I most worry about and, though only a few years from eligibility, hope to use Medicare little. The worry concerns the obsession with doctors and pills I see in my older friends and relatives. Their habits to see doctors so very often with no thought to the expense is reckless. Why have so many elder been persuaded that their daily life must include an assortment of pills? Is aging really a disease?