Steve Quayle News Alerts

April 26, 2002

WASHINGTON – A Republican congressman says Americans are too dependent on government, and politicians are taking advantage of it.

Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., this week addressed a Heritage Foundation forum examining America's growing dependence on "entitlement" programs.

"Americans are becoming increasingly addicted to government, and politicians are becoming the dealers of the drug named 'dependency,'" DeMint said.

Everyone Line Up at the Trough

"Everyday in America, more and more people are receiving benefits from the federal government, getting their income and their health care from the federal government, and fewer and fewer people are paying for it," he said.

The conservative congressman says the republic cannot continue if the number of people dependent on government continues to increase.

"We must figure out how to convince people that they are most secure when they hold their own future in their own hand, that they're most secure when they're most free," DeMint added.

Peter Kirsanow, President Bush's disputed appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, agrees. Government dependency is the "antithesis of liberty," he said.

"Those who get government housing forfeit the right to determine where, how, and with whom they live. Those who get food stamps have given up the choices as to where and for what to shop, and those who depend on government for education have given up the ability to choose where their kids or how their kids are going to be taught," he said.

Kirsanow believes there are now more than 100 major federal programs that foster dependency.

'Modern Serfdom'

"It's degrading, demeaning, and dehumanizing. And it's not an exaggeration to say that it's modern serfdom," he added.

The former chairman of the board of the Center for New Black Leadership blames much of the dependency problem on what he sees as the inherent unfairness in the tax code.

"When citizens have figured out that they can vote themselves benefits paid for by others, they're going to do so with unbridled gusto," he said.

"This is fed by a radically progressive tax code where the top 25 percent of taxpayers pay 80 percent of all taxes, the bottom 50 percent pay only four percent of all taxes, and that doesn't include the millions who pay no taxes whatsoever," he continued, "and those who pay little or no taxes are the ones most likely to access dependency programs."

Kirsanow says those who receive benefits must be made to perceive their costs if they are ever to support change.

To track those costs, the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis has developed the "Index of Dependency." The index charts the growth of five categories of federal programs that substitute for similar initiatives from lower levels of government or private organizations:

Housing assistance: 30 percent.
Health and welfare support: 25 percent.
Retirement income: 20 percent.
Post-secondary educational subsidies: 15 percent.
Rural and agricultural services: 10 percent.

The percentage after each category is the "weight" of that individual category in the index, based on its relative importance.

William Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis, says the weights center on the year 1980 because that year is believed to mark "the beginning of the decline of left-of-center public policy and the emergence of right-of-center challenges" to those policies.

Therefore, when the historical data dating back to 1962 and projections through 2020 are viewed, the year 1980 appears as a "100" on the graph.

Beach says conservatives may be surprised at the current trends in the index.

Spending Even More Than Jimmy Carter

"If Congress and the administration continue to spend, they will be outstripping the growth rate of the index in the Carter and first Bush administrations," he said.

The index stands at 138, its highest ever. It has declined only twice since 1962, once during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and again after Republicans were elected to a majority in Congress in 1994.

"Several key policy debates over the next few years - welfare reform, higher education support, health care reform - will likely determine the index's rate of change for the next decade, if not well beyond," Beach added.

Strategies

DeMint says conservatives must use a "liberal means" to reach a "conservative end" in those policy debates.

"We must recognize that there are some people who are disadvantaged that need help," he said.

"We have to convince them, on these major entitlement programs, that they're going to actually get more in terms of benefits if they own their own Social Security, that they will have more flexibility with their health care if they actually have a medical savings account that the government contributes to, whether it be through Medicaid or Medicare," DeMint said.

It is the difference, he says, between cutting spending and spending smarter.

"That's the challenge that we face. The illusion that we are going to take all the folks who are dependent and win them to the idea of cutting benefits; it isn't going to happen," DeMint added.

He cites the bill that he and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, have introduced to change the nation's supplemental retirement income system as an example.

"It guarantees Social Security at the current level for every American," DeMint explained. "It only creates an up side for the future generation as their accounts get larger than the current program."

He believes people will willingly participate in alternative programs that obviously produce greater benefits, including the benefit of independence.

"We're going to make people better off by transforming a benefit that makes you dependent into one that's actually wealth creating and creates independence," DeMint concluded. "We're going to have to entice them out of dependency.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/25/160410.shtml