Handout Nation

WND ^ | 30 OCt 13 | Walter Williams

[SkyPilot]

According to a recent Fox News poll, 73 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, up 20 points from 2012. Americans sense that there’s a lot going wrong in our nation, but most don’t have a clue about the true nature of our problem. If they had a clue, most would have little stomach for what would be necessary to arrest our national decline. Let’s look at it.

Between two-thirds and three-quarters of federal spending, in contravention of the U.S. Constitution, can be described as Congress taking the earnings or property of one American to give to another, to whom it does not belong. You say, “Williams, what do you mean?” Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there’s no Santa Claus or tooth fairy who gives it resources. The fact that Congress has no resources of its very own forces us to recognize that the only way Congress can give one American one dollar is to first – through intimidation, threats and coercion – confiscate that dollar from some other American through the tax code.

If any American did privately what Congress does publicly, he’d be condemned as an ordinary thief. Taking what belongs to one American to give to another is theft, and the receiver is a recipient of stolen property. Most Americans would suffer considerable anguish and cognitive dissonance seeing themselves as recipients of stolen property, so congressional theft has to be euphemized and given a respectable name. That respectable name is “entitlement.” Merriam-Webster defines entitlement as “the condition of having a right to have, do, or get something.”

[SkyPilot]

Williams nails the heart of the problem confronting our nation:

Let’s look at a few of these entitlements. More than 40 percent of federal spending is for entitlements for the elderly in the forms of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing and other assistance programs. The Office of Management and Budget calculates that total entitlement spending comes to about 62 percent of federal spending. Military spending totals 19 percent of federal spending. By the way, putting those two figures into historical perspective demonstrates the success we’ve had becoming a handout nation. In 1962, military expenditures were almost 50 percent of the federal budget, and entitlement spending was a mere 31 percent. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that entitlement spending will consume all federal tax revenue by 2048.

[SkyPilot]

Despite the fact that today’s increasing levels of federal government spending are unsustainable, there is little evidence Americans have the willingness to do anything about it. Any politician who’d even talk about significantly reining in unsustainable entitlement spending would be run out of town. Any politician telling the American people they must pay higher taxes to support handout spending, instead of concealing spending through deficits and running up the national debt and inflation, would also be run out of town. Can you imagine what the American people would do to a presidential candidate who’d declare, as James Madison did in a 1794 speech to the House of Representatives, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government”? If we are to be able to avoid ultimate collapse, it’s going to take a moral reawakening and renewed constitutional respect – not by politicians but by the American people. The prospect of that happening may be whistlin’ “Dixie.”

Even the so-called "Tea Party Republicans" are political cowards when it comes to cutting the real cause of our runaway debt and deficits - Entitlements.

They would rather raid the DoD "ATM" machine and ruin our military futher instead of lifting a finger against the Entitlement crowd.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

America needs to make things.

Lots of things.

We need manufacturing, and we need factories. And we need a strong national manufacturing base, on which to continue to lead militarily.

Bring back formerly American factories from China, and elsewhere.

Now.

[MrB]

As was discussed elsewhere, the left/sheeperals simply promote theft in a “socially acceptable” way.

They wouldn’t walk across the room and rob me - that wouldn’t be “a good person” (and might be dangerous).
They wouldn’t hire someone to rob me - that wouldn’t be socially acceptable.
But they WILL vote for someone that promises to rob me.
For some reason, that’s acceptable. They’ve been “abstracted away” from the theft.

[henkster]

I love Walter Williams for his clarity of thought. He is exactly right. Americans are suffering a mass cognitive dissonance. We know we are heading off the cliff, but we don’t want to do what we know is necessary to avoid it.

So off the cliff we will go.

[MrB]

My analogy is of a passenger train.

The engineer receives word that the bridge is out ahead.
They need to apply the brakes, HARD, in order to stop in time.
The engineer tells the conductor to warn the passengers.
But when the conductor relays the information to the passengers, they refuse to listen and threaten him, because it would make them uncomfortable to stop so suddenly.

The conductor tells the engineer, who shrugs and throttles UP the train.

[concerned about politics]

50% of our wages - half - was being stolen from us through some type of tax, regulation, or government fee each year. We were forced to pay for other peoples support - before we even received our paychecks - and we were left to survive on the few dollars that were left.
That was BEFORE obomacare.
Today, we're slaves for the masses. We work to support others while our own families go without. We no longer work for ourselves.
Millions of working Americans have been forced below the poverty line so those who slumber in their beds all day can live a long and relaxing life at anothers expense.
And, none of the politicians who were elected to represent "us" are willing to give up their limousines, caviars, or fine wines purchesed at the tax slaves expence. They like being our masters.

Slavery never left the United states. Today it just wears a different face. Slavery is now refered to as freedom.

[concerned about politics]

More dependancy on the way folks...
McCain: We'll Try to Pass Immigration Changes After GOP Primaries

[Iron Munro]

The United 57 States Of Obamaland

Home Of The Free Stuff

[SkyPilot]

The engineer receives word that the bridge is out ahead. They need to apply the brakes, HARD, in order to stop in time. The engineer tells the conductor to warn the passengers. But when the conductor relays the information to the passengers, they refuse to listen and threaten him, because it would make them uncomfortable to stop so suddenly. The conductor tells the engineer, who shrugs and throttles UP the train.

Yup - that's about it.

[EnigmaticAnomaly]

Can't bring back jobs until we have a free-market friendly economy. Any corporation that chooses to do so signs its own death warrant in today's political climate.

Nice pipe dream, though...

Maybe if we can find a way to elect a Conservative who will rescind everything Obastard has done, then we might be able to bring back jobs...

[Wolfie]

That won’t do well without a Handout State. American’s won’t accept the standard of living that corporations are willing to provide those factory workers.

[listenhillary]

[SkyPilot]

So true.

So often, you hear liberals and leftists on television or the radio defend their Marxist, collectivist, Communist positions by attempting to drag Jesus Christ into the debate. Michael Moore, who displays nothing but hostility towards Christianity, apparently didn't see the irony of plagiarizing the analogy Christ told in Matthew 7:3 ("Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?") during a recent television appearance.

Any serious seeker of Truth can read Scripture and quickly determine that God is first and foremost concerned about saving us from Hell by turning to His Son.

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:33).

Christ was not a Communist. He didn't go from village to village in Judea as a Community Organizer, agitating the masses to revolt because the more wealthy were not paying more in taxes so that they could get "free" bread and circus tokens and "access to affordable health care."

Communism, Fascism, Nazism - they are all lies of the Evil One. They all claim that we can build Utopia on Earth if we only will bow down before our worldly masters and worship them.

That is idolatry, and it is evil.

[sauropod]

.

[Jack Hammer]

“According to a recent Fox News poll, 73 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, up 20 points from 2012.”

And you know what? Obama doesn’t give a rat’s *ss.