Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Dependency Breeds Complacency

 Judge Andrew Napolitano speaks frankly on the painful truth:
Dependency breeds a sense of complacency and entitlement and fosters a government that – in order to stay in power – will further that dependency. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton agreed on little publicly, but they did agree that when the public treasury becomes a public trough and the voters recognize that, they will send to the government only those who promise them a bigger piece of the government pie. (Read entire article.)
(Via A Conservative Blog for Peace.) Share

1 comment:

The North Coast said...

I am as opposed to Welfare Statism as any Republican or Libertarian, but I beg to differ with Romney on his sweeping statements regarding the 47% who do not pay taxes.

These people are not usually welfare dependents, but the working poor who slave for minimum wage just to put a roof over their heads, college students, and single parents who make less than $30,000 a year. Or, they are SS recipients who are taking out the "savings" they were forced to pay in for 40 years of working life. Should I have to pay taxes on my savings principal when I start drawing it out?

And there are also many millionaires in this category who deduct their way almost to zero taxes, plus many, many more middle class people who have mortgage interest deductions and deductions for 6, 7 or more children that bring their tax bills to zero.

I'm subsidizing them all, but I am less resentful of "subsidizing" the working poor on whose backs the great fortunes are built, than I am the many others who are much better off than me, whose personal preferences, such as expensive houses with large mortgages and numerous children, are made possible by the people who are not subsidized at all.

Romney is correct about welfare dependency and the growth of welfare entitlements, but he conflates that dependency with the kind of poverty that our hard-working working poor, and unemployed are experiencing. Thus, he's managed to offend and alienate many of he people who might otherwise have supported him. What a goof.