The modern western social welfare state has an inevitable end point, a singularity of reductio ad absurdum whereby everybody forms lobbying groups to get the government to pay for everything, and nobody has to work at anything except standing by the mailbox waiting for the ducats to show up from Daddy Government.
The Scottish Tories are claiming that nine in ten of their countrymen are net drains on the public purse, what with one program or another, to say nothing of straight-up transfer payments. A reasonably intelligent Scandinavian could surf the free higher educational system for most of their adult life, studying for a variety of careers they'll never have. Gentleman farmers in Congress vote themselves farm subsidies.
So what do you do? Get everybody to vote to shut off the Free Cash faucet for themselves? (Most people seem four-square behind the idea of cutting off the redistribution of wealth to other people, but will painstakingly explain why their government check is righteous and necessary for the continued survival of the republic.) Or do we just continue to expand various "incentive" and "subsidy" and support programs and just pay everyone in candy bar wrappers and Monopoly money the way Third World countries like Zimbabwe or Italy do?
To quote Glenn Reynolds quoting somebody else, "Whatever can't go on forever, won't."
ReplyDeleteCatch the first transport to Freehold and let the parasites feed on each other?
ReplyDeleteYou focus on the big programs because that's where the biggest wreckage is. Don't know how this will play out, but the debate about Social Security and Medicare is quite lively now, and that just didn't even seem possible ten years ago.
ReplyDeleteIf some sort of reform can be put in place here - a very big "if" considering that the Democrats look like they'll likely keep control of the Senate - then you use those wins to go after some of the other handouts ("Hey, even Grandma compromised, you can too!").
You'll never get rid of the gimmees which go back to Hammurabi, but you start where the big money is.
My $0.02 worth. I have no idea how President Romney will work this with Majority Leader Reid.
It doesn't matter who you are, or who you Think You Are, the math is going to win.
ReplyDeleteThere is a simple answer that would wipe out 90% of this crap, but would take a constitutional amendment to make sure that SCOTUS cannot overrule it with a penumbra of emanations of judicial fiat and is therefore impractical: Just remove the right to vote from anyone receiving government funds, whether that be in the form of a pay check, a social security check, medicare coverage, green energy, stimulus dollars, corn in your gas tank subsidies, etc.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, I don't get to vote myself a raise at my privately owned and funded employer. And worse, all of these people who continue to vote themselves raises are doing it while pointing a gun at my head and the heads of my children.
I keep telling everyone, the correct spelling is O'Bama.
ReplyDeleteWere Social Security run by a private outfit they'd be indicted for operating a Ponzi scheme.
ReplyDeleteWere private industry to keep books as the Feds do they'd be indicted for embezzlement.
Were you and I to run our business the way Congress does we'd be indicted under the RICO statute.
We're not walking away from the base of the cliff like Wiley C. Coyote does.
Geeze, must have had an extra helping of Grumpy Flakes this morning. Off to do laundry. Nothing like the smell of bleach to clear the head.
I seem to recall a recent president whom the media hated mentioning that there might be, you know, a problem with the whole Social Security thing and that it might be worth looking at, only to be blasted in general by the media. Funny how suddenly it's now OK to talk about it?
ReplyDeleteThere's the rub, innit? To truely CHANGE the system, you'd have ta break an AWFULL lotta people's rice bowls. We joke about free ice cream, but whole gov. dept. and agencies full of breaucrats have been LIVING on the stuff for decades. The undenialble is the nature of gov. is to grow, even without the "wouldn't it be great if we just" (fill in the blank) crowd comin' up with fresh bone-headedness on a regular basis. If we manage to elect a true Constitutional conservitive as Prez, how can ONE MAN overcome the courts, Congress and the full weight of the breauocracy? Answer: gotta elect a lot more than one, in a whole lot of different races, give em' time to work while keepin' a fire under them to stay the course. We took decades ta git this fooked up, would'ent surprise me to see getting back to a Constitutionally limited, democraticlly elected Republic taking most of a century. Or, there's always the pain, blood(rivers of it), and Anarchy of open rebellion. WITH NO GUARANTEE YOU WIN. Mittens may not be what we want, but he may be the beginning of the long road back, with encouragement. All Barry's got is hate and distain for anyone without his "vision".
ReplyDeleteThe scandinavian who tries surfing the free higher education for most of their adult life will be very poor indeed. There's a limit on how long you can rack up student loans, so that faucet will run dry, meaning they'd have to finance their living expenses by *gasp* working. Sure the education continues to be free(except for the books, which usually cost $80+ a pop), but living isn't.
ReplyDeleteMikael,
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the government cheese is apparently capped at twelve semesters in Sweden.
Still, student life everywhere allows some pretty sophisticated gaming of the system, and if one's prime mover is avoiding work and responsibility rather than living in middle class luxury, I'm sure that things could be stretched nearly indefinitely.
As far as I'm concerned, I have only gotten government help when I was injured at work, and that isn't the same as free stuff. I feel we should push to not cut funding for EBT cards, but make them work for it. Plenty of streets in my state of Ohio can be cleaned, yards for seniors mowed, ect... why should ppl get paid to do nothing? This would probably help in the fight against obesity to......
ReplyDeleteTo Armed Texan
ReplyDeleteSince we are not given a choice about some of these things like Social Security, Medicare and corn in the gas tank, you might want to temper your remarks. In the case of Social Security, if the politicians had invested the money instead of stealing it, there would be plenty to pay the benefits. I am not in favor of giving the politicians that power but the math works. Better to abolish it but with provisions for people who have built their retirements on getting some money back from their forced contributions.
Student-lif3 continues on nearly indefinitely in Bubble-places like Googleopolis where the perpetuality of Grad-student Lifeism is subsidized and fostered with enough free ice-cream to make clever people invent perpetual-motion machinery, and sell it to the borg-mass as glittery-sparkly telephonics, self-driving cars, thin world-viewers, and various other ways to "connect" each self-important feeling borglet with another - remember, "fishing lures" catch more fishermen than fish.
ReplyDeleteUntil the campaign adds started, I thought I might have seen an honest politician. He said his problem with the constitution, was that it restricted the Government, not the people. He said he believed in spreading the wealth around. He said that he wanted to fundamentally change America, and somehow he still got elected. Now I simply pray that we can remove this honest politician from office, and restore our country to some imbalance of what it was designed to be, as outlined in The Constitution of The United States.
ReplyDeleteSocial Security is a tax, not your money. It's the governments money and in this case they promise to give you some back at a date that suits them.
ReplyDeleteThe Social Security lock box is in the building with the tooth fairy and the rainbow farting unicorn.
Gerry
Since it looks like we'll never get rid of the Free Cheese until the whole things collapse, could they at least follow Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and "To provide for the organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia...." and give me my Free M4?
ReplyDeleteLes, your free M4 is probably in Mexico.
ReplyDeleteYou do it the same way we did it with the Gun Control debate- a little at a time.
ReplyDeleteOne thing- that I've said before- would be for the Libertarian party to give up trying to be the #1 non-entity on the ballot and actually do good by becoming something akin to the NRA. Like an NRA for small, efficient, constitutionally limited government.
Just remove the right to vote from anyone receiving government funds, whether that be in the form of a pay check, a social security check, medicare coverage, green energy, stimulus dollars, corn in your gas tank subsidies, etc.
ReplyDeleteI receive disability from injuries I received while serving our country. I worked over 30 years after my medical discharge. So because I'm a disabled veteran I'm not going to be allowed to vote? It may just be my opinion, but I think I earned that check.
Robert Fowler,
ReplyDelete"So because I'm a disabled veteran I'm not going to be allowed to vote?"
How about serving military? They also receive a government check.
The problem with "don't allow people who (reason) to vote" is that you now have a lot of people who can be taxed, regulated, and etcetra, but have no say in the matter. This is what causes revolutions and unrest.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely correct, Panamared.
ReplyDeleteHe did say, unequivocally, that the Constitution stood in his way of redistributive change.
I think a more fair way of determining who gets to vote or not is to block any moron that voted for a man whose oath of office required him to protect and defend the constitution, yet openly abhors its restrictions on his vision for change.
Mikael,Son-in-law Three is a German national, and tells me that a majority of medical students there are women, as it is easier for them to recruit Johns.
ReplyDeleteEvidently, prostitution, legal over there if you get a license, is the number one method of making ends meet (sorry) when the government money runs out 2.5 years before the classes do.
Anonymous, what we and our bosses pay in social security is put directly into the general fund, and is not earmarked for redistribution. Government reserves the right to shut off the faucet at any time.