Blood-Sucking, Welfare-Dependent Poor People Are Not Forcing the US Into Bankruptcy

By Roger F. Gay

Spending is out of control. Politicians can't get enough of other people's money or even imagine a theoretical limit. The Big Media driven discussion is, predictably, as whacked as ever, pushing dishonest stereotypes and promoting social identity wars in place of being honestly informative. Someone, other than the people who actually control the spending, must be blamed.

At this point, I must admit that I've grown tired of endless uninformed argument and commentary on the question of “entitlements”. In all likelihood, the word doesn't mean what you think it means (at least in this context), and in fact, the US is not approaching bankruptcy because of a bunch of blood-sucking, welfare-dependent poor people who think everyone else owes them something.

You need not be concerned that both social security retirement benefits and support for needy families are classified as “entitlements.” If there are laws for providing help to the poor, then anyone who meets the legally prescribed requirements is “entitled” to benefits (if they apply, etc.). The decision on whether an individual receives support is not arbitrary, but based solely on the legal description for eligibility. If the law itself is discriminatory or illogically arbitrary, then courts may find it unconstitutional.

What this means, ultimately, is that politicians can't grant government support to pay prostitutes and bar bills. Anyone who meets the legal requirements is "entitled" (by law) to benefits. Anyone who doesn't meet the requirements is not. Wouldn't it be nice if such restrictions were enforced against presidents arbitrarily granting huge sums to political friends and campaign donors (Al Gore, Solyndra, ACORN, etc.). Here's where the real problem lies, in cronyism, even in the welfare system.

But before addressing cronyism, there is something people on the anti-poor people side of the current argument need to understand. The greatest burden to the system right now, purely in terms of actual “entitlement” spending, is the aging population. We've been warned about the “baby-boomers” getting old for many years. Guess what? They're old now.

Back when social security retirement benefits (including Medicare) got their start, a much larger working age population could support the relatively small group of retirees. Now we're much closer to what life would be like without government benefits, with each of us having older relatives to support. Not so surprising that it seems expensive and that dealing with medical costs is a hot political topic.

Then there's this long-term economic depression that we've been in; the one that Republicans and Democrats want to continue indefinitely. Just a little bit of thought. That's all I ask. It's obvious that there would be a relationship between a poor economy and a higher number of reasonable and honest requests for support: food stamps for example. Unless eating is no longer a necessity.

But let's get on with the subject of helping the poor and the issue of cronyism. It's true that welfare costs have gone up, and not merely in proportion to the number of poor or inflation. The much greater increases in costs since the Reagan era have been in the overhead. 1980s and 1990s welfare reform resulted in literally 100s of thousands of new, and entirely unnecessary bureaucratic jobs. But wait! That's not all. They actually duplicated the unnecessary activities through private sector contracts costing 10s of billions per year and you, dear taxpayer, even covered the start-up costs for this new industry via other federal contracts and grants. Welfare bureaucrats bought themselves a revolving door of “public-private partnership” that's very profitable for them at everyone else's expense.

There's more. Not only is this new army of bureaucrats and their private sector counterpart entirely unnecessary, they're actually harmful far beyond draining your bank-account. The start-up costs you covered included at least $10 billion for the creation of a national computer system to keep track of intimate details of the activities and financial transactions of everyone in America. (See: Too Late to Stop National ID, 2001) And the absorption of state and private issues into the federal sphere mandated by welfare reform had a huge direct cost in civil rights. Individual rights you used to have are now merely issues of equality. (And I do mean all of you, not just welfare recipients.)

I know there's a good chance that people who read this article are not blindly following the call of Big Media to do battle against the aged or the poor; your neighbors and fellow Americans. But if you trip across one of these goofy arguments about “entitlements” and over-the-top spending, please plop this article or the knowledge you gain from it into the discussion. We all need to stop fighting each other and place the blame where it belongs, on the people who actually control the spending and constantly abuse the privilege.

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