CE Week #7: “‘Less is more’ needs revival” Oct. 20th
by Cal Thomas
The Spokesman-Review
“That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change …” (Bruce Hornsby song lyric)
The Washington Post headline sounds as if a comedy writer, or someone fluent in George Orwell’s “Newspeak” wrote it: “Record-High Deficit May Dash Big Plans,” it said.
As if a contributing factor to the projected record-high deficit of $1.4 trillion has nothing to do with big spending by this and previous administrations. Is there no end? Will we ever reach a limit where government says, “no more, we’ve done enough; you’re on your own now”? Apparently not. The “greatest generation” mostly lived within their means. They knew what it meant to go without all but essentials. Today, we think the sky is the limit when it comes to spending and that if we can conceive it, then we are entitled to it.
This is partly because of how dysfunctional Washington has become and partly due to our own sense of “what we are owed.” Government can spend, tax and do whatever it wishes. If you oppose what it does, you are a selfish, greedy, rich elitist who cares nothing about people less fortunate than yourself. But wait. Did we have fewer poor people before government stepped in to “cure” poverty? Do we have fewer now? We aren’t sure if the war in Afghanistan can be won, but we know the war on poverty was lost. Once, the prospect of an empty stomach motivated most people to get up and start chasing opportunity. Today, people can do whatever they want and government will bail them out with a welfare check (for the poor) or a corporate welfare check (for the rich). Bad decisions? No problem. Failure is no longer an option.
Thomas, you are such a racist and an uncaring person. You’ve been lucky and should have to pony up for the less fortunate.
How about showing the “less fortunate” the way to become fortunate? Does anyone hear a politician in either party encouraging people to do for themselves, instead of relying on government? And that goes for big corporations, too.
People who play by the rules, stay in school, refuse to take drugs, marry before having children, and stay married, are no longer considered worthy role models by government, which has no intention of making them the norm. These norms have disappeared in a cloud of diversity and political correctness. Government now proposes to transform health insurance and tax responsible citizens at increased rates to pay for the votes, uh, benefits of others who are more content to take slices of other people’s pies rather than learn to bake their own.
If you have been an honest businessperson and give money to your church and charities to help others who want to succeed but are having difficulty doing so through no fault of their own, that no longer matters. In fact, government proposes to reduce the deductibility of your charitable giving because government sees itself as more capable of charity than you.
That’s what the Obama administration’s proposal to send a $250 check to every senior citizen is about. Seniors won’t get a cost of living adjustment in their Social Security checks next year because the cost of living hasn’t gone up. But because seniors have become accustomed to an annual raise, the president apparently thinks by giving it to them anyway, he can buy their support for health care legislation that is not in their interest.
Washington’s attitude toward those who make right decisions for themselves so as not to become a burden to government seems to be, “Good for you, but because you made all those right decisions (‘right’ being a relative term, so the government will say they were right FOR YOU), we will penalize your decisions and your success and take the money you earned and give it to others who didn’t earn it because we want their votes so we can preserve our political careers.”
“Well they passed a law in ’64,
To give those who ain’t got a little more,
But it only goes so far.”
For government, it’s never far enough.
Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.
Get more news and information at Spokesman.com
A. Our country’s deficit is 1.4 trillion. Obama wants to give every senior a $250 dollar check because there won’t be a cost of living adjustment in their social security. This article led me to question what politicians hope to achieve with social security and welfare reforms.
B. Live and let live. If there were less poor people before “government stepped in to ‘cure poverty’”, then there’s something wrong with our system. Will spoiling a child make it more responsible? No. Will throwing welfare at people make them more successful? No. The key is “showing the ‘less fortunate’ the way to become fortunate. Educating the poor on how to break the poverty cycle is the best tactic there is. Welfare is enough to keep this cycle turning, but welfare plus hard work is enough to end it. Success is possible if people are willing to work. A classic success story: Oprah. Working for a better shot at life won’t make everyone billionaires (Oprah’s worth 2.7 billion) but it has its benefits.
Extension:
Education attained Median weekly earnings
in 2008
Doctoral degree $1,555
Professional degree 1,522
Master’s degree 1,228
Bachelor’s degree 978
Associate degree 736
Some college, no degree 645
High-school graduate 591
Less than a high school diploma 426
http://www.bls.gov/emp/emptab7.htm
Hard work brings success in education and education pays. Some may have to work harder to get it, but just because they were given the short end of the stick at the beginning of their lives doesn’t mean that that is the end they have to keep.
What I learned: I feel like there are some valid points in this piece, which question the American work ethic. I never thought about the idea that government is not encouraging a “norm” of productive and responsible citizens by engaging in so many programs to give to those who have made wrong decisions. Are such actions on behalf of the government futile – the author seems to think so.
Opinion: I don’t really think it is as simple as Thomas puts it. I agree that the American work ethic is declining. That is rather annoying I must admit – especially now that I work and my teenage coworkers avoid work like the plague. Regardless, we can’t put all of the unfortunate under the umbrella of being lazy slobs. There are SO many factors that contribute to someone being poor: growing up in poverty, drug addiction due to exposure at an early age, absentee parents – the list goes on. Many of these citizens are not afforded the same opportunities as the wealthy. Should we give them money and food because of their struggles? No. We could invest in them; show them the way and mold them into the citizens we want them to be, but also help them financially until they get back on their feet. There is tremendous abuse in the current system, but we can’t make any generalizations.
Question: Did the rates of those receiving state and federal aid such as welfare etc increase, decrease, or remain the same during the economic boom of the 1990s?
Connection: Welfare makes me think about our federalism unit where Clinton passed a welfare reform bill in 1996, which basically gave states the responsibility to run the welfare program and receive aid from the states via block grants.
A. I didn’t realize how in control that the government really had over the people. This article was eye-opening to how very true this is.
B. This article was somewhat disturbing to me, as it discussed the idea that the government has the power to decide where Americans invest their money. If one family has decided to donate a certain amount to a charity every month and the government raises their taxes so that they are not able to donate that amount anymore, then that charity is going to lose its income and possibly cease to exist. That right there shows where America’s priorities are.
C. The article said that Obama plans to send out a $250 check to seniors this year even though the cost of living has not gone up. How can the government afford to do that for no apparent reason? Why are we spending money on unnecessary things such as that, while trying to find ways to come out of a recession like raising taxes? Those two don’t make sense together.
Connection: For a different article, I wrote about America being a selfish culture because of its greedy tendencies with money. This article made me reconsider this because I realized how stereotyped that sounds. The author wrote, “If you oppose what it does, you are a selfish, greedy, rich elitist who cares nothing about people less fortunate than yourself.” This made me realize that while this may be true in some rare circumstances, it shouldn’t be assumed that all rich people who are opposed to raised taxes are selfish and greedy.
(This one has a part C)
Our country’s deficit is 1.4 trillion. Obama wants to give every senior a $250 dollar check because there won’t be a cost of living adjustment in their social security. This article led me to question what politicians hope to achieve with social security and welfare reforms.
B. Live and let live. If there were less poor people before “government stepped in to ‘cure poverty’”, then there’s something wrong with our system. Will spoiling a child make it more responsible? No. Will throwing welfare at people make them more successful? No. The key is “showing the ‘less fortunate’ the way to become fortunate. Educating the poor on how to break the poverty cycle is the best tactic there is. Welfare is enough to keep this cycle turning, but welfare plus hard work is enough to end it. Success is possible if people are willing to work. A classic success story: Oprah. Working for a better shot at life won’t make everyone billionaires (Oprah’s worth 2.7 billion) but it has its benefits.
Extension:
Education attained Median weekly earnings
in 2008
Doctoral degree $1,555
Professional degree 1,522
Master’s degree 1,228
Bachelor’s degree 978
Associate degree 736
Some college, no degree 645
High-school graduate 591
Less than a high school diploma 426
http://www.bls.gov/emp/emptab7.htm
Hard work brings success in education and education pays. Some may have to work harder to get it, but just because they were given the short end of the stick at the beginning of their lives doesn’t mean that that is the end they have to keep.
C. Could someone find a chart mapping the country’s deficit from 1950 until now?
A. Some people in today’s economy just spend more and more because they “have to have” something. The government can spend, tax, and do whatever they want. In the article, it said if you don’t like this then you are considered greedy, selfish, and one who only cares about themselves.
B. I think that if you worked hard to provide for your family, then you should be able to get the benefits that you need. Just because others aren’t as fortunate as you are to be successful, doesn’t mean that you have to give up more to those who need it. Yes, that may sound selfish, but you deserve what you worked hard for. If I never went to college and worked at McDonalds all my life, should I get the same benefits as someone who was a doctor and was in school all those years? I think not. But, that’s not how things work. The government will bail you out of many situations with a welfare check or a corporate welfare check. “Well they passed a law in ’64, to give those who ain’t got a little more, but it only goes so far.”
C. I would like to know a little more about a corporate welfare check.
D. I looked up what percentage of Americans are on welfare and it said 11.3% which is 33.8 million American. This number was as of April 2009.
In response to Jaclyn Brim:
The whole welfare/federal aid/deficit issue kind of gets me going. I know there are people out there who purposefully live off of welfare and make the minimum to continue to receive aid. I like how you said that the way to end the cycle is to educate people and show them that hard work equals success. It makes me wonder how long I will have to work until I can retire. It’s so depressing. Well anyways, I found some charts to show the national deficit from 1950 until now. During Reagan’s presidency the deficit was quite low. But over the past 20 years the deficit has been rising.
http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/politics/USA_debt_2009.html
http://911review.org/Media/National_Debt.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png
In Response to Kylei Tompkins:
I went straight to the welfare website http://www.welfareinfo.org/ to find out more about the welfare program.
First-off they list specific criterion that a candidate for welfare can fall into to receive aid such as:
“A basic lack of gainful employment opportunity through either lack of places of employment or lack of job skill.”
“A household financial budget must be created and adhered to.”
Whether or not these are followed is another question.
After candidates are accepted they are given aid according to their need:
“US welfare services and benefits may include direct cash, support services, tax breaks, specific goods, or any other measure that provides assistance to individuals or families that can meet welfare requirements. When direct cash is given, the recipient has free rein to disperse the money. However, the use of in-kind benefits instead of cash tends to be more common in the US welfare system. Health care, vouchers for childcare, electronic bank cards for food purchases, subsidized rent, tax discounts such as the Earned income Tax Credit (EITC), job assistance and training, and programs for alcohol and substance abuse are examples of in-kind goods and services that may be awarded, and each one can be extremely useful to those in need.”
So the goal is to help people get on the right track, but there is a lot of room for fraud and abuse and that is why welfare has a bad reputation given its extremely high costs.
In response to: Sadie Peterson
The Obama Administration plans on giving a 250 dollar check to the elderly because they want them to support the health care plan they propose. Although the cost of living hasn’t raised, and it probably is a stupid idea, elderly people have a much higher voter turn out so in way this is a smart idea, but I do agree it should not happen actually.
And yes of course we are trying to get out of a recession, but, not to be rude to the Democratic party, of course their brilliant idea is to tax things. I’m not saying it is not going to work. But two things do not work together, but separately make sense.
In response to Jaclyn Brim:
“Could someone find a chart mapping the country’s deficit from 1950 until now?”
I found a couple maps, they all looked relatively the same, but the ones on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt are detailed and there are a couple different maps along with charts showing the percent of gross domestic product of the US.
A. Learn
So, I found out that we only have a $1.4 trillion budget deficit; no big deal, right?! Wrong. Obama also wants to give out $250 dollar checks to senior citizens. Whose pockets is it coming out of? People who actually have a life, and who actually made their life, are going to pay for this. And this is being done to pass the health-care legislation.
B. Think
I believe that government has gone too far in taking care of the poor. Now, many of them depend on the government, instead of using it as a saving grace once in their lifetime. Obama has no bones, figuratively speaking, he bends both ways (no pun intended), or so it seems to me. He got elected campaigning for change (appeals to young people). Now, the only change he has made is the fact that the president of our country isn’t George Bush anymore, and seniors will have $250 more in their stash (appeals to older people). It is indeed a good political strategy: give them a little, so that they think that they’re happy, and they support you. But you can’t use public money to bribe voters; this doesn’t even guarantee victory. And if Obama fails with his health-care reform, the $250 will disappear along with the reform. However, this dirty trick works very well. I just imagined being offered $250 dollars for free. I wouldn’t think of any principles to accept that cash, although it wouldn’t make a monumental difference in my life. Selfishness will ruin this country’s economy… oops.., it already has.
C. Question
I’d like to know who came up with the golden $250 idea. Who is this genius, who uses our weaknesses against us?
D. Extension/Connection
Senior citizens are a big part of the voting population. Their turnout rates are higher than other age groups. I think that it’s sad how much effort politicians put into getting the senior vote. An executive official shouldn’t be a puppet in voters’ hands. What if they ask for lowering Via(g)ra prices?
Turnout rates by age, 2004 election:
65 and up : 79% (highest)
18 to 24: 58% (lowest)
Source:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/004986.html
I) I knew we were way over budget, not that I knew it was a 1.4 trillion deficit but at least had some idea.
II) The article is somewhat bias. I mean I can’t tell if this is some young political activist going crazy wishing they were in some sort of authority to settle this all out ‘or’ some older political elitist giving us a slice of their opinions from their observations. I agree that the “greatest generation lived within their means, knowing what it meant to go without all but essentials”. And that “today, we think the sky is the limit when it comes to spending and that if we can conceive it, then we are entitled to it” because the statement is so true. We all take many things for granted and want more than what we can have or take more leave less. But somewhere along the lines someone stopped all that madness and understood that they can go without, you know? Not everyone is like what the article is saying.
III) Has Obama had any other say about the government issues brought up in the article?
All in all the article caught me off guard.
Extension: Researching the state of Washingtons percentage of poverty is around two-thirds (62%). My goodness.