America Grows More Dependent On Uncle Sam

June 17, 2005

 

The Heritage Foundation just released their annual report on government dependency, The 2005 Index of Dependency , and the new figures are not encouraging. Although our overall dependence on Uncle Sam has slowed in the past few years, we still continue to increase our reliance on the government. The dependency index increase was just 1 percent per year over the last couple of years but has risen a staggering 212 percent since 1980. That means we are dramatically more dependent on the government now than we were when Ronald Reagan was elected president. Increased reliance on the government, quite naturally, means less in dependence. Independence is what this country was built on. Unfortunately, we're traded one master for another. We broke the shackles of a king only to tether ourselves to a nameless, faceless bureaucracy.

 

Dependence means generations of Americans trapped in poverty. I've maintained for years that we've made too many people comfortable in their poverty thus giving them little incentive to better their lot in life. Our founding fathers understood this long before the invention of the welfare state. The study quotes Ben Franklin and his thoughts on solving the nagging problem of poverty. “The best way of doing good to the poor,” Franklin said, “is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.” That's basic conservative philosophy dating back to the old Chinese proverb: Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.

 

Liberals hand out fish while conservatives hand out fishing poles.

 

The study speaks of a “tipping point” when society begins a downward tumble; a point of no return. It's difficult to say if we've reached that point but the signs in our own state indicate that we're close, if not already there.

 

One in four Tennesseans is on TennCare. That's unprecedented government dependency from a state that has historically prided itself on its independent streak. Our inner cities are littered with government projects where a third generation has been born into government dependency with little chance of breaking the cycle.

 

But these urban blights of high-rise graffiti magnets are merely the less attractive reminders of government dependency. Far more magnificent monuments have been built to the government gods with more on the drawing board. Our state capitol boasts several high-profile reminders of corporate welfare, namely professional sports facilities, one of which is hemorrhaging like a stuck pig. Now Nashville is proposing to throw more good money after bad with a proposed taxpayer-subsidized baseball complex.

 

Nashville isn't the only haven for government dependency. The City of Murfreesboro is set to vote on a public referendum that would take $17 million of taxpayer money and place it in the pocket of private enterprise. The city is proposing to subsidize a conference center adjacent to a new Marriott designed to give private businesses a place to munch on rubber chicken dinners while listening to company executives extol the virtues of the private sector. Such keepers of the conservative flame like the local Republican Party have caved en masse, unanimously endorsing corporate welfare while chastising Washington politicians for wasting their money on welfare queens and 500-dollar hammers.

 

It's all part of the ever-encroaching government dependency. Like a slow boil, otherwise vigilant defenders of small government aren't even aware that they, themselves, are being cooked. Have we reached the tipping point? Some think so. Unfortunately, lack of foresight on the part of those in control means the only true way to answer the question is with hindsight. And then it will be too late.