America, land of the free, has become land of the dependent
by IDB Editorial
"Is
Welfare The New Normal?" we wondered in an editorial last Thursday, and we
didn't have long to wait for an answer. On Friday an answer came back in
depressing new data from the Census Bureau.
CNSNews.com's indefatigable data hound, Terence P.
Jeffrey, dug into a few routine Census releases recently and discovered
something shocking: More people in America today are on welfare than have
full-time jobs.
No, that's not a misprint. At the end of 2011, the
last year for which data are available, some 108.6 million people received one
or more means-tested government benefit programs — bureaucratese for welfare.
Meanwhile, there were just 101.7 million people with
full-time jobs, the Census data show, including both the private and government
sectors.
This is a real danger for the U.S. — the danger of
dependency. Anytime more people are being paid not to work than to work, it
imperils our democracy. No one votes to cut his own welfare benefits. So
welfare grows.
In recent years, the welfare state has expanded to
create an all-encompassing security blanket to protect Americans from all
vagaries of economic life. For everything from losing a job to having trouble
paying the rent, there's now a welfare program for it.
Those who say the poor deserve such largess will find
no argument here. Sometimes people have such dire need that a helping hand may
be necessary, if only for a limited period of time.
But this goes way beyond that.
According to official data from the government, 46.5
million people live in poverty in the U.S. Doing the quick math, that means
just 43% of all those on welfare are officially considered poor.