Each one of us is familiar with dependency. We come into this world helpless and depend
on our parents to meet our basic needs.
As we grow older, we learn to take care of our basic needs and
eventually we not only meet our basic needs but also begin our own families and
meet the needs of our own children as well.
However, we all encounter times in our lives when we need some help from
someone. Perhaps we lose a job or have
an unexpected emergency. This is why our
society has created a safety net and why we have charities, churches, and
synagogues to help people out.
Unfortunately, through the years the safety net created to
help a person in need has expanded to where people permanently live in
dependency on some form of government handout.
People permanently living on some form of handout are what I call the
dependency class and my number 2 grievance with our government leaders is that
they have not only allowed the expansion of the safety net, but use it to continue
getting elected to office.
The most shameful thing is that dependency has become
generational. In 1980 Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas speaking about his sister said, “She gets mad when the
mailman is late with her welfare check.
That’s how dependent she is.
What’s worse is that now her kids feel entitled to the check too. They have no motivation for doing better or
getting out of that situation.” (1)
Children learn from their parents and when the only thing children have seen is
their parent’s dependency on some form of hand out, they do not develop the
work ethic to move out of their situation and live trapped in a cycle of
dependency.
Elected officials have learned to use this cycle of
dependency to continue in office promising to expand the handouts. 70 years ago when Sir William Beveridge
argued for the creation of the welfare state, he only wanted to give the poor a
hand up from the grim life they faced.
In his report, Sir Beveridge spoke of the five evil giants of society
want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness. We can only wonder what Sir Beveridge would
say after seeing how his welfare state has created an idle dependent
class. (2)
Unfortunately, more and more people are becoming dependent
on some form of government handout in our struggling economy. The numbers of people receiving some form of
government handout is increasing. Food stamp
use is up 39% under Obama and those on disability is up 13%. (3)
Unless we do something to get these individuals back to work in good paying
jobs where they are able to provide for their basic needs, we will be expanding
the next generation of children that only know about living on some form of
government handout.
Let me be clear, dependency is not evil for we all are
dependent on others to some extent in our lives. I am not good at working with my hands so
when I need my car fixed or something repaired at my house, I usually have to
depend on a professional to do the work.
However, this form of dependency differs from dependency on a government
handout in that we are being dependent on someone with an area of expertise we
lack. In fact, this interdependence on
each other creates opportunities for each of us to earn a living serving others
that need our area of expertise.
Long-term dependency on government handouts creates a
selfish sense of dependency with recipients developing a sense of entitlement
to other people’s money. Since these
recipients never have to meet those whose money they have become dependent on,
they have zero accountability and become ungrateful for what they receive. People that receive help from a private charity,
church, or synagogue usually have accountability to the organization providing
the assistance and thus have an incentive to get off the entitlement. (4)
This separation of recipients from those paying the
entitlements has created class warfare with recipients feeling entitled to the
wealth of producers in society and producers losing their incentive to produce
more because they fear the government will just take it and redistribute it. Add to this the fact that the biggest victims
of the welfare state are minorities, we also have a racial component in
addition to class warfare. (5)
There is a solution to this dilemma but it will not be easy because
we have several generations that need to be educated on how to live free of
government dependency. One way is to
place a limit on the period of time an individual can continue receiving
government benefits from programs to which they did not contribute. This exempts programs like Social Security
and Medicare that individuals contribute to during their working productive
years. During this period of time we
must begin the education process that not only assists these individuals in
gaining the skills they will need to become productive but also teach them the
benefits of not being dependent on the government for their basic needs.
We can have individuals like Dr. Ben Carson or Justice
Clarence Thomas who came out of poverty to excel teach them how to escape the
cycle of dependency. (6)
(7)
We can also outsource some of our entitlement programs to private charities,
churches, and Synagogues where people will have some accountability. It is my belief that once these individuals
have a taste of success and being able to meet their own basic needs, they will
not want to go back to dependency on government. The resulting decrease in entitlement
payments coupled with an increase in productive members in our society will
begin decreasing deficits and return our nation to the position of greatness
and innovation it once had.
Sir Beveridge had good intentions with his vision of a
safety net to give the poor a hand up.
However, politicians have taken his vision and created a permanent cycle
of dependency in order to get votes and continue in office. By placing limits on the length of time
individuals can receive benefits, we will do away with individuals like Justice
Thomas’s sister, nephews, and nieces who are idle and nonproductive due to
receiving government benefits and move them into becoming productive members of
society.
1. Gordon, Nancy Fraser and Linda. A Genealogy
of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State. www.clas.ufl.edu.
[Online] Jstor, 1994. [Cited: July 16, 2013.]
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/marilynm/Theorizing_Black_America_Syllabus_files/Genealogy%20of%20Dependency.pdf.
2. Humphrys, John.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: How our welfare system has created an age of entitlement. www.dailymail.co.uk.
[Online] Daily Mail, October 24, 2011. [Cited: July 16, 2013.]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052749/Our-Shameless-society-How-welfare-state-created-age-entitlement.html.
3. Hall, Wynton.
FOOD STAMPS UP 39% UNDER OBAMA, DISABILITY UP 13%. FOOD STAMPS UP 39% UNDER
OBAMA, DISABILITY UP 13%. [Online] Breitbart News, June 6, 2013. [Cited:
July 16, 2013.]
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/06/Food-Stamps-Up-39-Under-Obama-Disability-Up-13.
4. Devin, Yuvai.
More Than Dependency. www.nationalreview.com. [Online] National Review,
April 24, 2013. [Cited: July 16, 2013.]
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/346517/more-dependency.
5. Noble, Sara.
The U.S. Welfare State With Minorities the Biggest Victims. www.independentsentinel.com.
[Online] The Independent Sentinel, January 27, 2012. [Cited: July 16,
2013.]
http://www.independentsentinel.com/the-u-s-welfare-state-with-minorities-the-biggest-victims/.
6. Lord, Jeffery.
Ben Carson: America's Doctor. Spectator.org. [Online] The American
Spectator, February 15, 2013. [Cited: July 16, 2013.]
http://www.independentsentinel.com/the-u-s-welfare-state-with-minorities-the-biggest-victims/.
7. Biography.com.
Clarence Thomas. Biography. www.biography.com. [Online] [Cited: July 16,
2013.] http://www.biography.com/people/clarence-thomas-9505658.
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