The Chains of Public Welfare

“Washington, D.C. is the world capital of unintended consequences.”

We often hear Rep. Mike Pence say it in his speeches and interviews, and it’s true.

Taken from lessons of economics, the idea is that while legislation and government programs often provide measurable public good, the costs often outweigh the benefits. Let’s look at the unintended consequences of Social Security.

Workers Retire with Less

For years, Democrats have lauded Social Security as the defining moment of FDR’s presidency. Although millions indeed benefit from it, unfortunately, the tens of millions who pay for it are often worse off than the program’s recipients. Further, the program’s true cost far exceeds the payroll taxes collected from workers and employers.

In anticipation of receiving Social Security checks, workers save less for retirement. With less money saved, retirees invest less, and the overall economy and wages suffer as a result. Untold billions of dollars, decades of progress, and foregone individual opportunities are lost to oppressive social programs like those favored by Democratic leadership — and made possible by an ever-expanding government.

Nowadays, the power-hungry Obama administration speaks of “fundamental transformation” in advancing an insidious fiscal policy that threatens our liberty. Starting with socialist programs in the 1930s, namely Social Security, and continuing with Medicare in the 1960s, today we see the same old ideas dressed up as modern and progressive. Does taking a step back into the 1930s sound progressive to you? It’s regressive. And, when the government mandates it — it’s oppressive.

Handouts Repress All Takers

Democrat politicians and their endless entitlements work to repress minorities by making them less inclined to work. Their own government robs them of any financial incentive to break free from a nanny state of continual coddling via food stamps and other government benefits.

In an article by black conservative commentator Juliette Ochieng, she describes many government programs as “life subsidies” that reward indolence, whoredom and irresponsibility.

Welfare Case Study

A friend of mine who lives in Madison County, we’ll call him “Mike,” once took a job for minimum wage and hated it. He didn’t even last a week. He was somewhat of a deadbeat, and when he saw an opportunity to mooch off the government indefinitely, he immediately jumped on the idea.

His plan was to gamble on a career as a world-famous rap music artist — a huge longshot for anybody and especially for Mike. To help finance his plan, he would count on our tax dollars to provide him a mediocre subsistence. He got the idea for welfare fraud from a friend, and, sadly, other friends soon caught wind of the scheme.

Mike first committed fraud by faking a disability to a doctor — no, not the doctor in Middletown, Indiana. In one visit plus a follow-up, his doctor supplied him the necessary authorization to start monthly paychecks for Supplemental Security Income. In addition, he obtained a legal prescription for anti-depressant medication.

The constant panic attacks made him unable to work, or so he told the doctor. We all knew he was faking it. With all his wheeling and dealing, Mike would not have survived if he were a socially inept recluse. In fact, he was an extrovert and also a philanderer. He was a father to no fewer than five children from three different moms. And, was he current on his child support payments? You already know. I think that if he applied the same energy to ongoing employment instead of ongoing debauchery, he might have made something of himself.

He would even barter his medication for electronics obtained “from a friend of a friend.” The drugs would eventually make their way to the black market. To this day, Medicare provides the meds for Mike’s phony illness, and the USDA provides food and the occasional block party cookout courtesy of monthly food stamps.

A Decade Later: Going from Bad to Worse

With Mike now in his mid-30s, 10 years have since passed and government assistance still supports him. Every August, he hustles and scrounges for money to buy his kids new sneakers for school. Any money left over from his SSI income he uses to feed an addiction to hydrocodone pain pills to get high. He crushes and snorts the pills to intensify the effect. Not even the drug overdose death of a friend could stop his illicit behavior.

I see Mike less and less these days, as he has drifted into an underworld of drug dealers and crime. It’s a bleak existence that I prefer to avoid.

When I last I saw him, I noticed that he had taken up smoking cigarettes, and you can bet our tax dollars are indirectly fueling his newly acquired habit. He lives the life of a bum because the Democrats’ massive government entitlements make it all possible.

Links

• Why is the Black Vote in the Democratic Pocket?
• Middletown Doctor Linked to Overdose Deaths Faces Suspension

Tagged as: crime, drugs, entitlements, minorities, nanny state, oppressive, progressive, regressive, Social Security, unintended consequences, welfare