The Redhunter

The political danger of a rising dependent population
The Washington Times
By William W. Beach
Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Every passing year sees significant growth in the mass of Americans dependent on the federal government for life's necessities, from basic nutrition to shelter and health care.

This implacable trend -- long a concern of economists and political scientists -- is beginning to alarm ordinary citizens as well. They rightly sense that growing dependency drives the explosion of federal spending and public debt. They are connecting the dots between out-of-control spending and the public debt crisis here and abroad. They are guessing, again rightly, that every passing day makes controlling dependency more and more difficult, perhaps even more dangerous.

Signs of growing reliance on government -- the antithesis of the traditional American value of self-reliance and self-determinism -- emerge with alarming frequency.
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Why the increase? Well, for one thing, dependency-creating programs keep offering Americans more and more benefits. Government support for dependent persons has grown from $7,293 per person in 1962, to $31,950 last year (both figures expressed in 2005 dollars). That's a more than fourfold increase in the richness of the benefits, making dependence on government an ever-sweeter deal -- one that gets harder and harder to walk away from.

Another reason is that fewer and fewer people pay for the richer benefits. All adult Americans can vote, but not all voters pay taxes. In 2008, more than 132 million Americans paid no income taxes. That's nearly half -- 43.6 percent -- of all Americans, more than three times the percentage that prevailed just 25 years earlier.

Spending on dependency-creating programs has increased by 49 percent since 2000. But last year alone it jumped a whopping 13.6 percent. Programs experiencing the greatest increase were: Health and welfare, 22 percent; food support, 20 percent; and housing support, 15 percent.
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Unsustainable growth in dependency programs is at the root of every public debt crisis around the world. While the global recession was the trigger that pushed Greece, Spain and other countries into bankruptcy, the underlying financial problem was unsustainable spending on dependency-creating programs.

Politically involved Americans sense that the pension riots in Greece or the retirement street actions in Paris could come home to the U.S., when the federal government is forced to reduce dependency-related spending. That day could come soon, and the growing connection between financial crisis and political instability has many worried.

Rather than toy with this prospect, Congress needs to address the deep reasons for its excessive spending. That means examining the drivers of dependency and reducing the magnifying utilization of dependency programs. The longer policymakers delay acting on this fundamental challenge, the greater -- and graver -- both the political and economic stakes will become.

It's a problem when only half of the people pay taxes. Their incentive is to take even more money out of the pockets of the "wealthy" to put in their own.

Note please that I'm not really talking about poverty programs here. True poverty programs are necessary. This is as much about "middle-class welfare" as anything.

Yes, Congress needs to address the issue. But this simply begs the question as to what is their incentive? Up until recently, their incentive was to expand dependency programs because it created more dependency and thus the built-in voting constituency that I discussed above.

But the situation has come to a head, so there may well be a way out. George W. Bush and Republican leaders like Denny Haskert and Trent Lott lost conservatives, who had only voted for them in 2004/06 because the Democrats were so much worse. Bush spent a lot, but Obama is Bush on steroids when it comes to spending. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have disgusted not just ordinary Americans but many in their own party as well.

The Tea Party movement is not by itself the answer, but perhaps it represents the answer. First we'll see how well the GOP does in November, and then whether they do as they say once elected. The Tea Party folks say they'll hold them accountable, and I believe they will.

We're not going to overturn the dependency culture in an election or two, but with any luck we can make some dents in it. The alternative is national decline of a sort that will result in a much worse world. The planet needs a strong United States to stand against the dictators. We must not fail.