Originally Posted by
IPD
*jumps on chautauqua-tent soapbox*
Entitlement is the product of bleeding-heart agendas. When you put a safety-net under everyone, you take away personal responsibility, the threat of failure, and encourage slacking-off. There's no need to try hard when you're covered. This is a self-replicating cycle, because the more people who abuse the safety-net (welfare, etc), the more people WANT to abuse the system. After all, if the Jones' don't have to work for their livelihood, why should anyone else? Of course, all of this directly contradicts the underpinnings that made this country the greatest and most powerful country on earth; self-reliance, personal-responsibility & personal-accountability.
Now here's something that occurred to me this week in an epiphany. It's hard to explain what has happened with the Federal government in terms that laypersons can understand. So I use this metaphor. Have you ever had a job where your responsibilities were fairly well defined, but not meticulously so? And after being in that job for a while, there was some task or duty that was falling by the wayside and not being completed appropriately in a timely and quality fashion? Well what happens usually is that someone--perhaps yourself--voluntarily takes on that responsibility where the need has arisen. Eventually this becomes such a regular occurrence that this new duty is now considered part of your job--even though your contract says nothing to the effect. You've picked up the slack because things weren't getting done. Over time, this can happen repeatedly until you (or whomever the unlucky soul is) now has a list of duties that no longer reflect their job description, and in fact they may have difficulty completing their fundamental tasks because of this. Worse, others employed there may start to assume less and less responsibility for things because someone has volunteered to pick up the slack. This is known as job-creep.
When job-creep happens, there are only two appropriate ways to deal with the situation. 1. Renegotiate the job contract to outline the new duties/responsibilities & renegotiate for compensation accordingly. 2. Shed the new duties, refer to the original job description/contract & push the additional duties off onto someone or something else. The "status quo" in this situation will never remain a tenable position indefinitely.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is precisely what has happened with the Federal government. The ORIGINAL job contract is fairly clear--it's outlined in the preamble to the Constitution. The previous contract--the Articles of Confederation--failed in many respects. In it, the FEDERAL government is charged with (among other things); Providing for a common defense, insuring domestic tranquility, and establishing justice. I will note here that "Promote the general welfare" is not the same as Providing or INSURING the general welfare. This means that the Federal government should not obstruct the general welfare, but it is also not responsible for it.
Now what has happened over time (and we're talking at least a century), the Federal government has now taken on many, many responsibilities that are not part of its job contract. These include things like Medicaid, Welfare, Social Security, Arts Endowments, Educational grants & loans, No-Child-Left-Behind, PBGC, etc. I won't dispute that--at least to the beneficiaries--these programs are nice to have. However, they do NOT fall within the original job guidelines of the contract. This has produced job-creep.
Now as I noted above, when job-creep occurs, there's only two ways to deal with the situation. In this case, these translate into the following:
1. The Federal government (and the states) amend the constitution to more accurately frame the current responsibilities of the government. This will also include a substantial increase in taxation, as additional duties warrant additional compensation (or in this case, additional resources to complete the assigned tasks). Taxation has NOT kept pace with the additional duties being piled on, and this is the primary cause of budgetary deficits and the national debt.
2. The Federal government drops the additional duties and refocuses on core responsibilities. The taxation levels can be re-evaluated as required to insure that they accurately match these responsibilities (read: a likely reduction in taxes--possibly even a substantial one).
I firmly believe that #1 is not really a viable or palatable option here. #2 is realistically the only hope we have of extricating our country from a financial mess at the Federal level. Now understand that just because the Federal government has stopped providing these additional duties, the individual states are in no way restricted from concocting methods to provide them to their respective residents. This is how the Constitution was written--with the intent that the states have a large degree of freedom, provided it does not interfere with federal jurisdiction.
It will also be important for the Federal government NOT to bear responsibility for individual states bankrupting themselves on ill-advised duties and responsibilities (in much the same fashion the Federal government currently has). Doing so would force the residents of all states to bear the financial burden caused by the irresponsibility of a few states' legislatures. This would put the federal government in much of the same position it is in now. There has to be accountability. So long as the Federal government remains insolvent, it cannot hold anyone else accountable.
/end sermon
