I went online to see if the email sent to me was true or if it was a hoax. As most of you already know, there are a lot of emails circulating stories that seem to be true but are actually unfounded. The sad thing about these untrue stories is that even the most outrageous thing could be true. Well, turned out that something as outlandish as the "Obama-phone" was true. But it wasn't until one day, I was working at one of my client's home and she received in the mail, information on a Government Assisted Cellular Service.
Then it really struck me that hey, this is really true. You can get a free cell phone from the government with free minutes. Then I thought, "When does it end?" Seriously! Just look at the list of government assistance a person can get just on this letter alone! And it doesn't even account for everything that is available. But on this letter you can see food stamps, Medicaid, supplemental security income (aka SSI), federal public housing assistance (aka section 8), the national free lunch program, temporary assistance to needy families (TANF), and low income home energy assistance programs. WOW! What the heck am I doing working when all of my needs can be taken care of by the government!? Now, I can even get a free cell phone and not work for it. Gee, ain't that great, we have destroyed any and all incentive for man to work. I'm sure that what's next is that we can get free fuel-efficient cars from the government. After all, they're willing to pay for the gas in welfare recipients' cars.
The problem with all this is the myth that there are such things as "free lunches" or that cradle-to-grave welfare programs do no harm to our nation. The fact is that a welfare state is harmful to us financially, and morally, and as well reduces our individual freedoms.
Our nations debt ceiling has been reached this year and yet at the last townhall meeting I attended, the main topic was not the debt crisis as it should have been but it was keeping entitlement programs in place such as Social Security and Medicare. Of course, what politician would want to give the generation who fought WWII the boot. No one does of course. Everyone appreciates what our grandparents did for us in that war. There's no argument there. The argument is does that generation wish to leave a legacy of debt for their generations to come as a way for us to thank them for their service?
As Barry Goldwater would put it, there are plenty of politicians who promise to go to bat for lower taxes and in the same breath vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible. We demand for government to spend money on us and yet we don't want to see our tax rates go up. So, the problem is not so much that politicians aren't listening to their constituents. They are listening and that is part of the problem. So, when it comes time to do anything about entitlement programs that are not working or are straining the economy, politicians are hesitant to do anything about them. They are also hesitant about raising taxes as that's another way to end a politician's career. So to find a way to pay for the cradle to grave social state, they print money. Printing money has been a popular way of governments throughout history to pay for welfare and war without actually raising taxes on citizens. Thing of it is that inflation IS a form of tax. Whenever your currency is inflated, you pay more at the check stand or at the pump. The thing about inflation is that you don't get to vote on it but you do have to pay it and hence you're still paying for the entitlement programs.
A point that never gets discussed about welfare programs is the demoralizing aspect of it. Welfare is what I consider to be as a double edge sword. First it takes from the worker in the form of taxes, be it hidden or not. The worker's incentive to want to produce, innovate, or create is destroyed as they will inherently have nothing to look forward to. Instead, you have producers who see what kind of welfare being made available to the recipients and become disheartened that the un-producer is being rewarded for taking a handout from the government. Second, the welfare recipient mortgages himself to the government in return for the benefits and the government then gives or withholds benefits as they see fit. The welfare recipient also lose their sense of responsibility to themselves and their families as they transform from an individual of dignity, self-reliance spiritual being into a dependent animal creature without his knowing it.
Barry Goldwater said, "I am unaware of any moral virtue that is attached to my decision to confiscate the earnings of X and give them to Y." Should a person approve of a welfare program, why is it that he can't contribute that money to private charities? To force everyone to pay into any welfare programs forces individuals to work against themselves. But when we instead allow for individuals to chose for themselves what private charitable organizations they wish to contribute, then their individual rights are preserved and the recipient is then uplifted as they become aware that the charity is the product of the humanitarian impulses of the giver, not the due of the receiver.
In short, let us remember that the material and spiritual sides of man are intertwined. For the State to assume the responsibility of one without intruding the essential nature of the other is impossible. In the face of sounding religious, I would like to say the following. That is, as a nation as a whole, we have lost faith. No, not faith in that there is a God. But faith that we are capable beings, that God can provide. We hear so much more often now than before from family, friends, and even members of church to simply go and get what you need from the government. We have lost that faith that we don't need to turn to government for our material needs and have hence lost our spirituality and our ability to think for ourselves. If we take from a man the personal responsibility for caring for his material needs, we take from him also the will and the opportunity to be free.
Siska DeYoung
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