Tag Archives : Welfare and Entitlements
A Despicable Human Being Created by the British Welfare State?
Every so often, I can’t resist condemning someone for grossly immoral behavior. I beat up on Robert Murphy for stealing the value of someone else’s property. I attacked Olga Stefou for symbolizing the looter-class mentality of Greece. And I mocked Michael Wolfensohn for ratting out a couple of kids who were having an unlicensed (gasp!) […]
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Exaggerating Poverty for Political Gain
Is America filled with tens of millions of people suffering from harsh material deprivation? That’s what the pro-redistribution crowd wants you to think, but a new report from the Heritage Foundation demolishes that stereotype. Here are some of the most remarkable findings in the study. For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability […]
read more...Two Pictures that Perfectly Capture the Rise and Fall of the Welfare State
In my speeches, especially when talking about the fiscal crisis in Europe (or the future fiscal crisis in America), I often warn that the welfare state reaches a point-of-no-return when the number of people riding in the wagon begins to outnumber the number of people pulling the wagon. To be more specific, if more than […]
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Why on Earth Should We Consider Tax Increases When Politicians and Bureaucrats Allow Multi-Billion Dollar Losses of Taxpayer Money Because of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse?
Maybe I’m just old fashioned, or maybe I’m a bit stiff-necked, but I will never relent in my opposition to tax increases so long as the crowd in Washington is spending money on things that are not appropriate functions of the federal government. But that’s just one obstacle that has to be overcome. I will […]
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How Redistribution Creates a Poverty Trap
I’ve beaten up on Newt Gingrich for his views on global warming and his attack on the Ryan budget plan, but I’m completely on his side in the faux controversy about whether it is racist to call Barack Obama the “food stamp president.” This story from ABC News should worry everybody, regardless of whether the […]
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Gee, I’m Glad I Pay Taxes to Give Food Stamps to a Millionaire
Not that we needed any additional evidence that the government wastes money in truly spectacular fashion, but this story from the Detroit Free Press is especially disgusting and outrageous. A man who won $2 million on a Michigan lottery show has told a TV station that he still uses food stamps. Leroy Fick of Bay […]
read more...New York Leads the List of the Five Biggest Moocher States…and Utah Tops the List of the Five Most Self-Reliant States
I may have to stop being a New York Yankees fan. The state of my birth is a national embarrassment. People in the Empire State are national champions in the contest to rip off their fellow citizens according to analysis from USA Today. West Virginia, however, is the biggest deadbeat state if handouts are compared […]
read more...This Cartoon Is Very Funny, but also Does a Great Job of Teaching Economics
Economists often do a crummy job of teaching people about the impact of fiscal policy on the labor force, largely because we put people to sleep with boring discussions about “labor supply” decisions (my blog post from last year perhaps being an example of this tendency). From now on, I will try to remember to […]
read more...A Rather Depressing Article about the Human Cost of the Welfare State
This story from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal makes the point, excerpted below, that the welfare state subsidizes dysfunctional behavior. But read the story to understand how big government destroys lives, ruins families, and creates inter-generational poverty. A very powerful, albeit very depressing article. It’s basically the American version of this grim news report from […]
read more...What Rabid, Hate-the-Poor, Right Wingers Uttered these Spiteful Words?
Here’s a passage from a speech by a well-known political figure, but it wasn’t Ronald Reagan, Ron Paul, or Milton Friedman. The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief […]
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