A strange and disturbing new social pattern is unfolding before our eyes in America today: growing dependence on government handouts in the face of declining unemployment rates. Though we are now preparing to enter into the fourth year of recovery from our Great Recession, the roster of Americans seeking and obtaining entitlement benefits from our government just seems to keep on going up.
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This is not the way the world is supposed to work-even if you are hopelessly infatuated with Keynesianism. Cheerleaders for Keynesianism, of course, take it as a tenet of their faith that the government should be spending aggressively during economic downturns. (To their way of thinking, the social welfare state should be one of the main vehicles for such expenditures: not only to provide a safety net, but to stimulate upswing by making up for insufficient macroeconomic demand.)
Yet to the finely calibrated Keynesian mind, government spending is supposed to be counter-cyclical: meaning that as things get better, the hand of the state is supposed to recede from economic life.
There are many today who maintain that America’s vast array of entitlement programs really just serve a sort of essentially counter-cyclical, ‘social insurance’ function: chief among them, our commander-In-chief. In his second inaugural address last month, President Obama chose these words to describe the workings of modern America’s welfare state:
“We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other — through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security — these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.”
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor from
via The Obama ‘recovery:’ Less unemployment, but more dependence – Society and Culture – AEI.
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In 11 states, private sector workers are outnumbered by people who are dependent on the government, including state workers and those who are receiving welfare or pension. The list: New Mexico 1,53 Mississippi 1,49 California 1,39 Alabama 1,10 New York 1,07 Maine 1,07 South Carolina 1,06 Kentucky 1,05 Illinois 1,03 Hawaii 1,02 Ohio 1,00 Adapted … Continue reading »
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