Tag Archives: Welfare State

Obama Has Put the United States in the Fast Lane on the Road to Serfdom

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We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they’re going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer — and they’ve had almost 30 years of it — shouldn’t we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?

But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater.

In 1964 Ronald Reagan asked what the score was. He wanted to know if the myriad government ‘anti-poverty’ programs had succeeded in any discernible way. The way Reagan saw it “welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.” The Democrats and New Dealers had controlled Washington for three decades. What that era demonstrated was the folly of concentrated, centralized power. The federal government proved to be overextended and ineffective.

Since Barack Obama has come to power, he has gone down the road of FDR-esque socialism. Where tax cuts, reduced spending and cutting back the red tape of regulations has a proven pro-growth track record, Obama has taken the opposite path. So, let us ask, what is the score? Is the economy recovering? Are people getting back to work? Or is the situation worsening? The answer is obvious. The latest damning numbers that indict the Obama administration come from the USA Today.

USA Today reports that one in six Americans rely on some sort of government anti-poverty program, the highest such ratio in United States history. Moreover:

More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007…

The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about 16 million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. “Private physicians are already indicating that they’re at their limit,” says Dan Hawkins of the National Association of Community Health Centers.

More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years.

Caseloads have risen as more people become eligible. The economic stimulus law signed by President Obama last year also boosted benefits…

Close to 10 million receive unemployment insurance, nearly four times the number from 2007. Benefits have been extended by Congress eight times beyond the basic 26-week program, enabling the long-term unemployed to get up to 99 weeks of benefits. Caseloads peaked at nearly 12 million in January — “the highest numbers on record”…

More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18% increase during the recession. The program has grown slower than others, causing Brookings Institution expert Ron Haskins to question its effectiveness in the recession.

As caseloads for all the programs have soared, so have costs. The federal price tag for Medicaid has jumped 36% in two years, to $273 billion. Jobless benefits have soared from $43 billion to $160 billion. The food stamps program has risen 80%, to $70 billion. Welfare is up 24%, to $22 billion.

It is almost inconceivable that 40 million Americans receive food stamps. With 10 million people collecting unemployment insurance, Obama wants to extend the program to cover people for 99 weeks – that’s nearly 2 years. If someone is on the government dole for 2 years it isn’t unemployment insurance, it is a welfare program. How about 50 million people on Medicaid? Medicaid was supposed to be a way to insure people mired in poverty. Despite Obama and the Democrats best efforts, 50 million people are not one paycheck away from debtors prison.

Pick any example from the USA Today story and look at the enormous numbers. President Obama has put the United States in the fast lane on the road to serfdom. The aforementioned ever expanding welfare programs create, promote, and maintain a culture of helplessness. People are encouraged to stay home and depend upon a benevolent federal government for their well-being.  At this juncture there can be no doubt that the Democrats do not care if they collapse the system from within, so long as they can maintain their ironclad grasp on power a little while longer.

Warning: Limited Government May Ensue

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The above warning can now be found on… the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, and other documents associated with the founding of the United States.

Parents are actually being warned of the evils of the Founding Documents – the bedrock of the United States. Moreover, parents are encouraged to tell their children that their country is inherently racist, bigoted, etc. Do you need any more evidence that the left hates the United States?

Preceding Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency, he promised to “fundamentally transform” the United States. He made this promise because he,  and his disciples, view the United States as a fundamentally flawed nation. The left believes that the federal government is too limited by the “horse and buggy” mentality of the Founders, as Franklin Roosevelt put it.  The left wants to impose a European style welfare state on the United States. The largest obstacles preventing the final implementation of this leftist distopia are the Constitution and a proper understanding of American history. As such, the left has used the Alinsky tactic of isolating and demonizing their ‘opponent.’ The Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution have been ceaselessly pilloried. They are known to a new generation as racist, sexist bigots – not heroic and brilliant patriots that risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to live in freedom. Now the left has moved onto the actual documents that make America great. This warning label is just the next step by the left to delegitimize the checks and balances on the federal government.

(From: FOX News)

Socialism's Problem

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A great article from the brilliant George Will on the two models of government the United States must chose between:

The danger of a government with unlimited power

By George F. Will
Thursday, June 3, 2010; A17

Today, as it has been for a century, American politics is an argument between two Princetonians — James Madison, Class of 1771, and Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879. Madison was the most profound thinker among the Founders. Wilson, avatar of “progressivism,” was the first president critical of the nation’s founding. Barack Obama’s Wilsonian agenda reflects its namesake’s rejection of limited government.

Lack of “a limiting principle” is the essence of progressivism, according to William Voegeli, contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, in his new book “Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State.” The Founders, he writes, believed that free government’s purpose, and the threats to it, are found in nature. The threats are desires for untrammeled power, desires which, Madison said, are “sown in the nature of man.” Government’s limited purpose is to protect the exercise of natural rights that pre-exist government, rights that human reason can ascertain in unchanging principles of conduct and that are essential to the pursuit of happiness. (Continue)

'4/20'

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In case you have a job, family or modicum of self-respect, you may not be aware that yesterday, April 20th, was ’4/20′ – a day celebrated by the unemployed, university students and other core Democratic constituencies, wherein marijuana is smoked en-masse. Around the world, April 20th has become a day that celebrates lawlessness, immaturity and downright stupidity. The numbers are staggering; in Boulder alone 12,000 – 15,000 people gathered to smoke drugs in public. Pictures from the Daily Mail show what we have come to:

These people are actually out in public advertising that they are drug users. The next picture is of a child participating in the ‘festivities’

How old could that child possibly be? Where are his parent(s)? Today the traditional Judeo-Christian values that have made Western civilization the greatest civilization in human history are under assault every day from the relentless left.  They want to chase all religion out of the public square, and replace it with their sick moral relativism that is founded upon the notion that “if it feels good, do it.”

Many of today’s problems stem form a leftwing socialist welfare state that destroys the family. The left seeks to replace the traditional wage earner with the government. Through the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and now Barack Obama, the left has been waging a full scale war to dismantle traditional families. With  families destroyed, the left has a free hand to peddle their poison. Whereas children used to learn morality at home and from religious institutions, without strong families, the government is left to be the arbiters of morality.

The primary agency through which leftwing cultural poison is dispensed is college and university campuses. While some parents may think their children are learning important lessons at school, in fact, they are being taught to shun religion, ignore their parents, hate the private sector and trust  benevolent big government and spread the deadly vision of moral relativism. It is no coincidence that  many of the ’4/20′ revelers were university students.

The left has been succeeding in its war against the family. As I have written about before, illegitimate birth rates are up. Single motherhood is praised as though it is some ideal worth striving for, not a sad and difficult reality to be avoided. Religious teachings, prayer and the like are banned at schools. When society condones bad behavior and  denigrates traditions that have been proven to be effective over time we ought to not be surprised when the dregs of society gather to blow smoke in our faces.

Rollback?

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In the previous post on this site Andrew made the point that the Conservative Party of Canada’s new budget is anything but conservative. Now there are a plethora of reasons for the size and scope of the budget that could be debated from here to kingdom come, but the unavoidable fact is that Canada’s ‘conservative’ government has not been conservative. Under the Conservative Party of Canada there has not been a rollback of the welfare state. Canada still has state-run medical care and there is no discussion over abolishing or even really reforming the system coming from the Conservative Party, as health care is seen as a political third rail. The question that arises is “is it even possible for a government to be conservative in a welfare state?” In 1955 William F. Buckley Jr, said the goal of National Review, and the conservative movement he would lead was to “stand athwart history, yelling Stop…” What do we do if we don’t stop the left?

The left has followed Norman Thomas’ plan and implemented socialism incrementally. Once an entitlement is entrenched it is all but impossible to have it repealed. In a country like Canada even a nominally conservative government will not touch the enormous welfare state. Rather, the political debate rages over who can most effectively manage the welfare state. This is not so much an indictment of the Conservative Party as it is a realistic view of  government. Most people do not have the courage to dismantle an unsustainable welfare state because they fear the political backlash. Instead, governments pile on debts, put on band aides and kick the can down the road. This can work as a quick fix, but eventually countries have to face a day of reckoning. In order to make this eventuality less painful it would behoove  conservative governments to start scaling back the government while it is still our choice. The question is, is there the political will to rollback the state? In the United States, if Obamacare passes and Democrats lose in 2010 and 2012 will the GOP have the intestinal fortitude to scrap Obamacare? Will Social Security be reformed to make it solvent? Will the precious entitlements in the budget actually be cut? One can only hope that it is still possible not just to run on a conservative platform, but to actually implement conservative solutions once in power.