Image (c) Depositphotos.com This article is an excerpt from Godvernment: Government as God
The False Security of The Welfare State
Consider the welfare reform, passed in 1996. The debate surrounding that legislation turned
on a series of moral propositions: that
·
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)
had created a culture of poverty;
·
that it rewarded indolence,
·
fostered dependence, and
· encouraged broken families.
The argument in favor of the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was,
in turn, framed in terms of the moral norms of equality, reciprocity, personal
accountability, and the inherent dignity of work.
It is undeniable that the law has
brought federal policy more in line with those deeply held American values. As a result of the new law, many former
welfare recipients have morphed into the working poor, and there are early signs
that this change has left most Americans less prone to stigmatize them, and
more disposed to assisting them through both governmental and nongovernmental
outlets.
PRWORA was set to expire in 2002. While some provisions have been extended as
far as 2012, many key provisions have lapsed.
Since then, the welfare state has once again resumed its meteoric
growth, most notably with the introduction of the disastrous and ironically
named Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and President Obama’s massive
expansion of eligibility for food stamps.
This kind of wholesale government dole hasn’t been seen since Roman politicians handed out free food and tickets to the Coliseum in order to gain votes and distract voters from the real issues of the day. The end result of that welfare program was the rise of the Roman Emperor and the dissolution of the Roman Republic. After that time, Romans were no longer ruled by laws they enacted through an elected assembly. Instead, they were ruled by the whims of a self-proclaimed monarch who brought all the branches of government directly into his own hands, where he could rule without regard to the will of the people, collectively or individually.
Life on the Plantation Today
Entrepreneur,
author, and social critic Star Parker refers to the U.S. welfare program as Uncle Sam’s
Plantation, and she maintains that it has effectively re-enslaved a
significant portion of the black population in this country by making them
dependent on government handouts.
What do you think of when your read
that phrase: "Uncle Sam's Plantation?" I get this image of Uncle Sam sitting on a horse
in the midst of a field of cotton, cracking a whip over a bunch of poorly clothed
black slaves, bent over working in the hot sun.
For me, that conjured image is offensive
in a lot of ways.
First, Uncle Sam is supposed to be an
image representing justice, the rule of law, opportunity, and the greatness of the
United States of America. To imagine that
image overseeing a slave state is both disturbing and slanderous to the character
the image should represent.
Second, slavery—regardless of who is
enslaved—is a profound
insult to the inherent divinity of humanity.
Children of God were not brought into this world to be owned like property,
pushed to work by cruelty, and robbed of both their dignity and the fruits of their
labor because of accidents of birth or the abuse of power.
Because of that appallingly offensive
mental image that was conjured by the title, I was very reluctant to invest my time
and money in reading Star Parker's book, Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What
We Can Do About It. Knowing that
the author is a black woman, and seeing the title, I was pre-disposed to dismiss
it as an anti-American rant aimed at heaping guilt on whites for the misdeeds of
generations long gone.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Star Parker is no apologist, nor is she approaching
her topic from a victim mentality. In fact,
her life stands as a beacon of hope for poor, for single mothers, for ghetto-denizens,
for drug abusers, and for welfare recipients.
Just a few paragraphs into the book, she makes it clear that this is not an apology for principles that America has championed. The following excerpt gives a hint of what is to come:
One of nine children, my mother learned as a “young’ un” that, more than anything else, poverty is a state of mind. Her father showed her by example how to live free. “Buy property and a gun” was his edict. His faith and convictions told him free men have a right to own property and to protect it.
Ms. Parker hit right away on two fundamental
issues that are needed for people to be truly free—property rights and the ability
to preserve those property rights, by individual force, if necessary (AKA gun ownership
rights).
This early acknowledgement is a true indicator
that Ms. Parker is neither a progressive/socialist/liberal, nor is she going to
earn any points with the anti-gun lobby.
A short while later in the book, she reveals that she is not some soft-headed zealot—rather that she is taking a fact-based approach.
"...in 2001, welfare spending in America exceeded $400 billion. That is a whopping 14 percent of the federal budget. That’s more than a billion tax dollars per day being spent on various poverty programs, yet Rector’s data shows that less than twenty cents of each dollar actually gets into the hands of the people society is trying to help."
While her affinity for citing facts is heartening,
the facts she cites are hugely disruptive to the crowd that pushes the notion that
government should be in the business of charity. "... less than twenty cents of each dollar
actually gets into the hands of the people society is trying to help."
If your favorite charity publicized that 80 cents of every dollar you give goes into overhead, you would likely drop that charity and try to find one where less than 40 cents of each dollar contributed went to overhead. However, with government, cost-effectiveness and the overhead expense ratio tend to get swept under the rug and taken out of consideration. Parker continues:
"Despite growing evidence to the contrary,
organizations such as the Center for Urban Policy Research continue to claim that
racism, sexism, and capitalism are fundamentally responsible for the problems of
the poor, but if true solutions are developed, these organizations could be obsolete.
Actually solve those problems, and half
of the liberal campaign platform evaporates. Self-interest will always be the driving force
behind the machinery of politics. We need to admit that and move on."
So, when you see a wealthy capitalist like
George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, or Warren Buffett espousing liberal politics, look
closely and critically, and follow the money.
What do these folks have to gain from supporting liberal politicians? The simple answer is that they create barriers
to prevent others from rising to the level of wealth that they have obtained. They are not interested in helping the poor. They are interested in preserving the poor, and
keeping them in their place. That way, they
have cheap labor and a ready pool of uncritical, unthinking voters.
Parker also isn't afraid to attack the phony altruism that liberals use to wrap up their oppressive and poverty sustaining policies:
"The economically challenged are also the ones
most negatively affected when the government involves itself in the affairs of business
owners and their employees with legislation like minimum wage. Mandates for a “livable wage” make great sound
bites on the evening news, but the reality is that most new laws passed to regulate
the business community to protect the economically challenged end up narrowing their
opportunities to advance."
The frightening reality is that if the poor of this country would rationally examine the facts, they would run headlong toward the support of principles and proponents of Constitutional conservatism. The Democrats, and to a lesser degree, the Republicans, would find themselves out in the cold as voters flocked to support politicians who implemented massive tax repeals and tax simplification, as well as promoting capitalism and free enterprise, both in the U.S. and abroad. The result would be what happened when Ronald Reagan did exactly that, historically low unemployment and long-term sustained (and sustainable) increases in the standard of living for everyone, rich and "poor." In other words, the poor would be much less poor and have much better lives, regardless of what happened to the wealthy. The whole "soak the rich" class warfare ploys are just moves to destroy the rich—not to help the poor.
"The only true beneficiary of minimum wage laws is the government, which collects more sales tax on the higher prices. Higher prices mean higher taxes, and the struggling poor cannot understand why, although government demanded they get a raise, they have no more money left over than before. It gets worse."
Note the points that her conversion to Christianity
led her to the conclusion that she couldn't remain on welfare and be a good Christian.
Emphasize her points that the welfare system
today combines euthanasia and slavery into one neat package.
Conclusions
Once you understand the circumstances, behavioral
patterns, and choices of today’s poor, you will agree that the battle we face is
so complex that it cannot be solved with one-size-fits-all government handouts to
individuals or to organizations.
It also becomes evident that government,
with its built-in disincentives to curing societal ills and its focus on
attempting to manage the circumstances of the poor instead of helping them to
help themselves, is the worst possible vehicle for attempting to solve the
problems of poverty.
Government should get entirely out of the
business of charity. Helping the poor
can be done most effectively by organizations that teach the poor how to help
themselves and become self-sufficient, while giving them a helping hand to save
themselves physically until they can stand on their own and become contributing
members of society.
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard
Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).
The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.
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