The era of big government didn’t end with Ronald Reagan, and it didn’t end with Bill Clinton.
Over half of all Americans receive government handouts of some sort, according to an economic analysis published this week.
Worse, about one in five Americans hold a government job or a government-funded job, according to the analysis.
Slightly over half of all Americans — 52.6 percent — now receive significant income from government programs, according to an analysis by Gary Shilling, an economist in Springfield, N.J. That’s up from 49.4 percent in 2000 and far above the 28.3 percent of Americans in 1950. If the trend continues, the percentage could rise within ten years to pass 55 percent, where it stood in 1980 on the eve of President’s Reagan’s move to scale back the size of government.
That two-decade shrink-the-government trend now appears over, if for no other reason than demographics. The aging baby-boomer generation is poised to receive big payments from Social Security and government healthcare programs. . . .
Mr. Shilling’s analysis found that about 1 in 5 Americans hold a government job or a job reliant on federal spending. A similar number receive Social Security or a government pension. About 19 million others get food stamps, 2 million get subsidized housing, and 5 million get education grants. For all these categories, Mr. Shilling counted dependents as well as the direct recipients of government income. — Christian Science Monitor
Shilling also predicts that the number of government beneficiaries will grow to 60 percent by 2040. This seems like an underestimation to me.
The Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress which audits government agencies’ books, has been warning for years that spending on welfare and other government entitlement programs is “unsustainable.” Even Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress last month that the “expansion of debt would spark a fiscal crisis . . . sort of like a snowball rolling down the hill.”
An editorial in Monday’s Investor’s Business Daily sums up the problem and the likely consequences:
The left delights in shrieking about how the rich beat down the poor, about how the wealthy benefit from the tax cuts at the expense of those at the bottom. But as we pointed out on this page Monday, the top 5% of income earners pay 57.1% of all federal income taxes. At the same time, 45 million Americans, many of them in the lower-income grouping, pay no taxes at all. Instead of the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, the rich are paying a growing share of the tax burden while the poor’s share shrinks.
How long before the richest and most productive Americans decide that they will no longer prop up the poorest and least productive? With their political influence waning as that of the untaxed and low-taxed Americans and those who live off the government grows, they can either seek a tax-haven nation where government isn’t a growth industry, or they can choose to be less productive.
Neither choice is good for America’s future. A dependent nation is a nation that cannot last long. — Investor’s Business Daily
How long before they outlaw quitting your job and phase in the Soviet-style program of dictating what work everyone will do? This is the natural next step.
Galt’s Gulch, anyone?
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Ogre
Apr 17, 2007
I’ve been searching for Galt’s Gulch since I read about. I think it’s in New Hampshire somewhere…
Jerry A. Pipes
Apr 17, 2007
Yeah, I was going to say, I thought that’s what the FSP was supposed to be.
Ryan
Apr 17, 2007
Jerry A. Pipes | April 17, 2007 3:03 pm
Yeah, I was going to say, I thought that’s what the FSP was supposed to be. You’re way off. The Free State Project is meant to try to get government out of people’s lives by getting a lot of people who are not so progovernment to move to New Hampshire.
Single Working Mom
Apr 17, 2007
I am a single mother who was once married and my husband left me and two children to survive on our own. He still does not pay child support to this day. I was forced out of survival to grab on to the programs that the govt. has to offer. I STILL work part-time and try to grow a business I started out of desperation. Even though I am recieving medical and foodstamps, I am still against the way the govt runs it. Because I work I get less benefits and am denied certain benefits. They reward the lazy and it should be the other way around. It should be: “You can’t recieve full benefits for ANYTHING unless you are handicap. perm or temp.” You will recieve benefits ONLY if you work otherwise. Over 40% of that 52% are able-bodied individuals…believe me…I’ve been in the same lines with them at the welfare office…they do it because they can. I did it because I had to and I wish the govt would give me help finding a better job or supplying me with income and money for school at the same time. We could eliminate lazy persons from abusing the system and our country would get stronger financially because of it. “God helps them who help themselves” Why doesn’t our govt believe this? Were we not founded on Christian beliefs? Where did we go wrong by straying from that?
Verbos
Apr 17, 2007
We are becoming a welfare state mostly because our foreign trade policies have encouraged our own industry to move out of America. Along with the industry went the jobs which allowed American workers to be financially independent and prosperous. This was no accident! The power mongers of the world want a one world government in which there will be no liberty. America has always been the champion of freedom and we must be brought down for their plans to succeed. Stop causing poverty by not supporting domestic industry. “America First” has become politically incorrect. Most poor people in America only want a good job, not a hand out. Our education system has been degraded to the point that our children are not prepared for the few jobs that do exist. Illegal workers have taken construction jobs from Americans who once had a good living. People over 50 are fired from their jobs for trumped up reasons and end up working at minimum wage. Could you live on a part time job for $5.15 per hour? Once workers had health insurance from their employers witch covered most medical cost and high enough wages to pay the rest. Our country has lost all equity. If we regain our honesty and integrity and get over the ME FIRST attitudes, we may still have a chance. Don’t begrudge the disenfranchised a meal. Correct the problems that have reduced hard working Americans into beggars! Many Americans have taken improper advantage of the system. Most of them are NOT poor. Climb down out of your ivory towers now or soon they will fall while you are still pointing fingers.
Apr 26, 2007
Ten years left for Social Security - Homeland Stupidity
Jul 05, 2007
Independence Day - Homeland Stupidity
Jan 07, 2010
Spring food crisis may trigger economic collapse | Homeland Stupidity
Rob S
Jan 13, 2010
Do you really think if there were plenty of jobs that people getting a free ride would go to work? Why would they do that? If you didn’t strive to be a better, more productive part of society wouldn’t you just sit on your a** and live a “free” mediocre life? The US government has produced a 100 million + lazy bums! I’ts time to cut them off completely! I would hate to see people die on the street but if your cut off, and that doesn’t give you any incentive to get to work, then die on the street!!!!
Trevor
Jun 02, 2010
I’m not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination but to pretend like the richest Americans are the most productive is laughable. When they stop using the government to create their monopolies and they still make as much as they do now you can post that statement. Until then, wake up.
You really think Americans will be in trouble if we no longer have the Walton family or Bill Gates? Get real.
Sapphireyes
Sep 09, 2010
I know this is a reaaalllly late reply for Netizens who sleep with their Blackberrys, but for those of us who have lives and surf occasionally, perhaps you can forgive the delay.
As quoted above, Investors’ Business Daily wrote “A dependent nation is a nation that cannot last long.” Although this is indeed eloquent, I would rephrase it as: An independent nation is a nation of independent individuals. A nation of people who are dependent (upon tax-based subsidies extracted from others) is no nation, but a dependent upon other nations, and therefore controlled thereby.
There are many who are exploring good old-fashioned politically-incorrect independence (as opposed to “it takes a village to raise a child” communist dogma). The Burning Man community exists for only a few days each year, created from nothing, all people, materials and supplies imported, and at the end, it returns to wilderness. The foundation upon which all the exuberant art and expression is built is self-sustenance. Each participant is individually responsible for supplying his or her own sustenance. Beyond the level of basic independent self-maintenance, magic happens.
Most of the participants of Burning Man identify with the “liberal” end of the political spectrum, as the limiting jargon of the mainstream media would express their beliefs. They would find they have much in common with many “conservative” or “far-right” people politically, based upon our currently-fashionable, limiting and deceptive classification vocabulary.
There is another way of categorizing political thought: “left” and “right” only serve to identify by which methods corporate governance will subjugate the populace. Orthogonal to this spectrum, there are those who buy into the arguments in favor of controlling their fellow man, and those who recognize that freedom flows from individual responsibility, and the many in between. Most people accept some level of governmental control over their lives in return for predictable behavior from their neighbors. Just where that live is drawn separates people in the spectrum orthogonal to “left” and “right”.
Burning Man regulars may find they have more in common with ranchers in rural Arizona than they ever imagined, if only the discourse would abandon the limiting two-dimensional political spectrum of “left” and “right”. Independence versus dependence is the “other” spectrum, and ALL Americans should consider well toward which end of that spectrum they lean.
An independent nation is a nation of independent individuals. Dependency as individuals leads to dependency as a nation, which leads to a loss of nationhood.
BookWyrm
Sep 18, 2010
Very old thread, I know, but I can’t help myself today…
@ Single Working Mom
>“God helps them who help themselves” …Were we not founded on Christian beliefs?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is not a Bible quote, nor is it found in Christian philosophy / Theology. That form of the quote comes from Ben Franklin, though earlier versions exist, (in Aesop, and in Greek / Roman philosophers for example). Search as you will, it will be in vain: You cannot find it in scripture. Indeed, the opposite is true in Christian and Jewish scriptures. The opposing philosophy is also behind the Muslim practice of Zakat (giving of alms), one place where all three are in agreement.
Oct 12, 2010
Government Accountability Office 2010 Long-Term Outlook | Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Samuel
Oct 13, 2010
Long ago, I was a bill collector. I noticed a big difference between people who needed help and people who were just working the system.
Trouble is, you cannot tell the difference just by looking at them, and even working people work the system.
For example, I know someone who has milked Worker’s comp twice and went bankrupt to avoid a mortgage. His timing was perfect, of course, setting claims right after the bankruptcy. A whole collection of guys at a local bar brag about how the work UECC, then talk about their new trucks sitting right outside.
Up the ladder, the lower middle class works the system, too — They know exactly how to get money for college, mortgage loan modifications, and much more.
The upper middle class, well, they just have to pay cash.
Above that, it doesn’t matter, because they’re wealthy, and they just don’t care anymore.
What we’re seeing is the end of America’s benefit of having won WWII and the Cold War. The pie is shrinking, and now there will be a fight over slices of that pie.
While we were prospering, we got complacent as government sold out, piece by piece, to big money donors who have only one interest: to make more money.
We’re not done yet — It isn’t as bad as it may seem. But we MUST stop harming ourselves.
The Tea Party could get real traction if they changed their slogan to “Americans FIRST” Not ‘only’, but FIRST, in all policy. The sub-text is really pretty simple: (1) Stop ignoring systemic theft-like behavior of trading partners (2) Stop ignoring the costs of ultra-liberal immigration policy (3) Fair tax means minimum tax; nobody rides for free; min % federal tax, national 1% sales tax (4) Trust but verify: all benefits, especially disability claims and welfare (5) Trust but verify: make penalties for getting caught taking money under the table so high that it stops (6) Raise all fees to reality: Government fees for land rights, minerals and even patent applications are stupid-low (7) Raise all fines to reflect the cost of the system it burdens and, perhaps most importantly (8) launch a moon-shot style program to federally back businesses which are the next generation of employment, just like our ‘fair’ trading partners have (8) cut defense spending by removing free protection for others around the globe; they either pay us, or we leave (9) Outsourcing labor tax (10) non-US student tax at about 5X tuition, funnel the money to US students
I know this is a very conservative BLOG, but look carefully — That’s tax fair, fee fair, nobody rides for free, spend to build America’s future first.
Samuel
Oct 13, 2010
I noticed that there is no national INBOX for the Tea Party; no national BLOG to exchange ideas, nada. By default, then, they’re lead by whoever gets the most press: Sarah Palin. That’s untenable, gang — See: Couric interview disaster, even FOX on Sarah not knowing that Africa was a continent. What a shame, because a 3rd party might fly right now. Oh, well, maybe in a decade or so.
The Real Reason
Oct 04, 2011
@ Investor’s Business Daily – I agree with you, and the 2nd post that extolled simmilar beliefs as to how we should run this country.
The bottom line is: this is supposed to be the UNITED States of America. As such, we are supposed to find solutions to common problems. We are not supposed to be advisories – but brothers and sisters, UNITED in a Republic with common interests. WHY ElSE are we born or immigrated in this nation.
If the parents of the 80′s and 90′s did not teach their children the value of being a citizen of this great country, then we will reap the results of their discontent, disenfranchisement, and neglectful attitudes – which will lead, eventually, to the demise of America as we know it today.
THAT INCLUDES the advance of Socialism (as advocated by our current president) and the expansion of egalitarianism to LEVEL “the playing field” – as seems to be the disire of those who are currently protesting in the streets of NY (et al).
If we are not willing to talk, understand the problems, and reach a commen resolution – we will – as other democracies, FAIL as a Republic. And will wind up with radicals all over the place who will ONLY “Inherit the Wind.”
Then. this (dis-inherited) United States of America as founded, will cease to exists, as founded. FOr the radicals will have had their field day, and the end-result will not be what they, or any of the “silent majority” wanted.
God bless America – I hope.