Historically, for most of U.S. history, farmers, shop owners
or entrepreneurs lived an entire life without getting anything from the federal
government, except essential services, e.g. mail delivery.
The Heritage Foundation reported that in 2010 67.3 million Americans received either Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Social
Security, support for higher education or other assistance once considered to
be the responsibility of individuals, families, neighborhoods, churches, and
other civil society institutions – an 8% increase from the year before.
In 2012 the Wall Street Journal reported that 49% of the population lives in a household where
at least one person gets some type of government benefit.
These people aren't necessarily dependent on government;
many could live (even live well) without their Social Security check, Pell
grant or crop subsidy. But that's not
the point. The problem is that Washington is building a culture of dependency,
with ever-more people relying on an ever-growing federal government to give
them cash or benefits.
This is a growing and arguably dangerous trend. The U.S. thrives
because of a culture of opportunity that encourages work and disdains relying
on handouts. The growth of the welfare state is turning us into a country where
many expect and see no stigma attached to drawing regular financial support
from the federal government.
Consider means-tested social welfare programs. The federal
government operates at least 69 programs that provide
assistance deliberately and exclusively to poor and lower-income people. The
benefits include cash, food, housing, medical care and social services.
Yet when poverty expert Robert Rector, a senior research
fellow at the Heritage Foundation, examined these anti-poverty programs, he found
that only two, the earned income tax credit and the additional child refundable
credit, require recipients to actually work for their benefits. It had been
three, but earlier this year, the Obama administration effectively set aside the
most well-known welfare work requirements, those specifically written into the
1996 Temporary Assistance to Needy Families law. The Department of Health and
Human Services announced that states could apply for a waiver of the law's
clearly stated work requirements.
Meanwhile, although spending on welfare has been cut in half since it was reformed in 1996,
other federal spending on programs, such as food stamps, has soared year after
year and decade after decade. Simply put, spending on social welfare programs has exploded.
Under a culture of dependency, poverty becomes a trap, and
recipients get stuck. Long-term welfare recipients lose work habits and job
skills and miss out on the marketplace contacts that lead to job opportunities.
That's a key reason the government should require welfare recipients to work as
much as they can.
Another problem is that we simply can't afford all this
spending.
The national debt is greater than $16 trillion, more than
the entire GDP of the United States last year.
High as it is, that debt is about to soar. More than 78
million baby boomers are retiring onto Social Security and Medicare in the next
15 years or so. Under Obamacare, Medicaid is set to explode as well. Within
just one generation, total federal spending could reach nearly 36% of GDP, and
the Congressional Budget Office says debt held by the public could reach nearly 200% of GDP.
That will crowd out virtually all other government spending,
including national defense. Future Congresses could impose deep cuts in social
welfare programs across the board or raise massive taxes to support these
exploding programs. The results would be chaotic and unpredictable.
It doesn't have to be this way.
We can reduce dependency on government and focus benefits on
those who are truly needy. All poverty programs should be reviewed to make
certain they're helping people instead of harming them. Social welfare programs
should help people up, not hold them down.
