Year after year, our culture of dependence grows

The best explanation for the tea party phenomenon is the overwhelming sense among so many Americans that our relationship between government and the governed has gotten out of whack.

But it has been easy for critics to pick at the movement because this sense, this feeling, has as many origins as the tea party has leaders. Just as there is no front man for the tea party, there has been no single fact or figure that tea partiers could point to and say, See this? This is what we’re talking about.

But the Heritage Foundation may have come close with the release last week, at an event in Buckhead, of its 2010 Index of Dependence on Government.

Heritage has compiled federal data on public spending dating back to 1962 on housing, health and welfare, retirement, education, and rural and agricultural services. The stalwart conservative institution then indexed them through the 2009 fiscal year.

The not-so-surprising result: Americans’ dependence on government is higher than ever.

One in five Americans — 64.3 million people — relies on government handouts to fulfill basic needs for housing, food and/or health care. That’s double the proportion before Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society,” and it doesn’t even include corporate welfare. Add the number of public workers, and almost three in 10 of us get our livelihood from government.

At the same time, two in five Americans in 2008 — 132.5 million people — did not pay federal income taxes and were not claimed as dependents by anyone who did. The percentage of nontaxpayers has nearly tripled since 1984.

The nontaxpayer figure has been kicked around in the press a fair amount, with detractors complaining that most of those millions do pay state and local taxes, including sales taxes. That’s true enough, although the federal figure is most vital since it’s at that level that most taxing, spending and public borrowing take place.

But the number of government dependents gets less discussion. That’s a mistake.

First, it’s a fiscal problem to have fewer than three taxpayers providing for each effective ward of the state, plus themselves and their own families.

The Social Security system alone says 2.9 workers are needed to sustain each retiree — a ratio that we’ve dipped below temporarily during the recession. We’re expected to fall permanently short of it by 2015. Multiply that gap by all government entitlements, and you see how precarious our situation is.

(An aside to those who bristle when I call Social Security an “entitlement”: Of course I know you paid payroll taxes, as I do now. I also know that these taxes won’t cover the benefits you and I are slated to receive.)

But perhaps more important, and just as animating to the tea party, is the effect the culture of dependence has on our national character.

One of the left’s most insidious canards is that you only care about helping someone if you support a federal program for them. That is true only to the degree that Washington has crowded out private charity.

As the Heritage authors wrote, “In the past, a person in need depended on help from people and organizations in his or her local community. …

“However, the dependent relationship with elements of the civil society includes healthy expectations of the recipient’s future civil viability and ability to aid another person in turn. The dependent relationship with the political system has no reciprocal expectations.”

Well, the politicians do expect votes. Still, the healthier kind of relationship is under ever-greater threat.

I’m sure critics will keep smearing the tea party as having darker motives. But if they don’t understand the importance of the dependence issue, they’ll still wonder what happened after the wave hits them.

243 comments Add your comment

A Hearty Cheese Sauce

October 21st, 2010
9:44 am

“Millions for charity, but not one penny for tribute”

Obama would do well to learn that phrase and it meaning.

Mr. Clean

October 21st, 2010
9:44 am

“Here Here…just confirms the uneducated masses prefer to remain that way.”

The expression is “Hear, hear…” from the days when a town crier presented the news at a public meeting place or a public speaker made an important point. A listener who was in agreement might say, “Hear him. Hear the speaker’s message.” The short version,”Hear, hear!” was understood to mean that the people should listen.

And, don’t get me started on people who use “should of” when they mean “should have” in its contracted form. What on earth are the schools teaching these days?

Southern Comfort

October 21st, 2010
9:44 am

My redistribution is actually doing quite well. The companies that I have an interest in get plenty of business from me. I’m still waiting for someone to explain how capitalism works without money being redistributed through the chain.

A Hearty Cheese Sauce

October 21st, 2010
9:45 am

HERE HERE Mr Clean!!

JKL2

October 21st, 2010
9:46 am

scott- Its a billionaire funded operation

George Soros says “What?”

At least the Kochs are American, not a foreign interest.

John

October 21st, 2010
9:47 am

@A Hearty Cheese Sauce,

“The banks had other fees and sources of income eliminated by Obama and the Dems. ”

What fees have been eliminated? Banks are still allowed to charge the fees they’ve been charging in the past.

A Hearty Cheese Sauce

October 21st, 2010
9:47 am

SC, that would be impossible and/or a excercise in futility as you refuse to listen and bask in the glow of being contrary.

Best of luck to you my friend.

TINSTAAFL

October 21st, 2010
9:48 am

Souther Comfort you moron,

Investment is not a zero sum game. I invest in a company, said company takes raw materials and adds value to them that they did not have before, said company sells product, and I receive a portion of the profit due to my investment. There’s nothing redistributive about it. Wealth has been created through the process, and I am entitled to its fruits. Your quaint ideas are cute. Run along now. The adults are talking now.

j

October 21st, 2010
9:49 am

Tea party became concerned about the country when Obama became President.

Gee wizz I wonder why. All this time they were never concerned but now they are?

wow. unbelievable. the country is full of fools who can’t read nor perform simple math.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/us_beats_street_mAXnoMeDhbQgAWomyuJX1H

A Hearty Cheese Sauce

October 21st, 2010
9:50 am

John had you been paying attention you would know. Im not here/hear to educate the masses. Obama and the Dems changed certain rules that resulted in a decrease in the banks revenue and possible profits. The banks then focused elsewhere.

Which anyone couldve predicted with a little forward thinking. Something Obama and the Dims are obviously lacking.

Southern Comfort

October 21st, 2010
9:50 am

I’m an active listener. I also understand there are different forms of redistribution. In my line of work, I come across people who also work in foreign countries. If one does not wish to pay taxes, there are alternatives. Therefore, paying taxes is not a “forced” action. It is just a voluntary as paying for a product. I also know enough about other countries that I don’t mind paying taxes to live here in the US.

JKL2

October 21st, 2010
9:51 am

soco- Everyone always try to say that taxes are taken forcibly

The Constitution says what the government was set up to do (like protect the boarder). Taxes go to provide those services. Charity is not one of those services. Quit taking my money to fund projects the government was never intended to control.

White Trailer Trash...and proud

October 21st, 2010
9:53 am

I jest got my EBT card reloaded today. Git er done! Oh, and thanks gubment!

j

October 21st, 2010
9:53 am

TINSTAAFL

October 21st, 2010
9:48 am
Souther Comfort you moron,

Investment is not a zero sum game. I invest in a company, said company takes raw materials and adds value to them that they did not have before, said company sells product, and I receive a portion of the profit due to my investment. There’s nothing redistributive about it. Wealth has been created through the process, and I am entitled to its fruits. Your quaint ideas are cute. Run along now. The adults are talking now.

Link Report this comment
—-
investment in securities is a zero sum game. in order for you to gain someone else must lose. get it. zero sum. we all can’t win unless you really believe in santa claus.

A Hearty Cheese Sauce

October 21st, 2010
9:54 am

“Tea party became concerned about the country when Obama became President.”

Or one might state

Tea party became concerned about the Country when the Country became non-concerned about its citizens.

Or

Tea party became concerned when the Dems began to implement one-sided, bankrupting legistlation and procdures ie ObamaCare.

Or

Or

Or…

Southern Comfort

October 21st, 2010
9:55 am

TINSTAAFL

Are you the only investor? Are you the only end user of the product? Money has to circulate through the process in order for you to earn your dividend. Just because conservatives feel that the word redistribution only applies to welfare or something just as nefarious does not change the definition of the word. Redistribution happens in almost everything we do. It’s just a fact of doing business, unless you’re getting stocks for free or something.

TINSTAAFL

October 21st, 2010
9:56 am

j

I won’t argue with you there. That’s some pretty shady stuff that I wouldn’t put any money into. To me, an investment is just that. I invest with the hope that it will create more wealth, not disappear into some black hole in wall street, move from account to account to account, and emerge somewhere else with 5% tacked on.

Stu

October 21st, 2010
9:56 am

“Feel free to move to some country where you can roam the jungle with a club and slug it out for the basic necessities.”

Why do Progressives always leap to and rely on the most ridiculous absurd and extreme examples to make a point? Because they have no foundation, no principles, no knowledge, no common sense.

It’s because they’re intellectually dishonest and vacant. Capitalism and free markets have dome more to alleviate poverty and raise the overall standard of living than any other economic system tried. PERIOD.

But Progressive dimwits think Time and Newsweek have all the answers (”Were All Keynesians Now” – speak for yourself authoritarian a-holes) and completely ignore history, economics, and the Action Of Man.

Well, suing the Progressive way, it will be fun to watch is when inflation really takes hold because your beloved central planners have completely screwed the currency pooch with QUANTITATIVE EASING”.

Then the riots will start here.

That’s when all the poverty-swooning government-dependent boot-lickers will be eating their words alongside their grub stew with minced bark sprinkled on top.

Real Athens

October 21st, 2010
9:58 am

Several have mentioned the Koch brothers this morning. Consider the source of the article accordingly, but read a short yet chilling account of their agenda — follow the links too. Everything is footnoted. You can’t make this stuff up.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/10/20-4

Southern Comfort

October 21st, 2010
10:00 am

JKL2 @ 9:51

That is a valid argument. I wouldn’t have a problem agreeing with that. The point I was originally trying to make is that just arguing about the redistribution of wealth/money is too vague of an argument for me to take seriously. Money has to be redistributed for defense, securing the border, and other essential government functions. When you pinpoint specifics, as you did at 9:51, the argument then is, in my opinion, a valid argument.

LukasAtl

October 21st, 2010
10:01 am

This is how I think the situation with government dependency regarding working-age adults should be handled.

1. Loss of some civil rights while on the dole, especially voting.
2. Mandatory birth control.
3. If single & no children, mandatory, single sex group housing.
4. Absolutely no alcohol or drug use, frequent testing
5. Physical labor cleaning the streets or something similar. We are already paying to feed, house, and clothe them, the should be made to perform some work for the money.

Basically, we should be compassionate for those in difficult straits through no fault of thier own, however we should give tough love to the remainder.

TINSTAAFL

October 21st, 2010
10:01 am

Southern Comfort,

In a successful investment, all parties involved benefit. I invest money. Wealth is CREATED (I’m not sure you acknowledge that wealth is created). The company sells a product to a third party. The third party BENEFITS from this product because they value the product at or above the product’s price (economic surplus). The company makes money, and I get some money back. If you’re saying that redistribution, I guess it is in that my money makes it through sort of a loop back to me. But wealth is created at every step, and the process has a net gain.
The difference between this and what conservatives refer to as redistribution, is that my money is being taken by a government for purposes we consider not part of its jurisdiction. The money is taken from me, and it is handed out to anybody that seems to want it. I can understand that society as a whole, including myself, do include some nice spillbacks insofar as its nice not to have hordes of homeless all across the country, but no wealth is created through this process. You’re just feeding leeches.

Beavis

October 21st, 2010
10:02 am

Scott
I do expect this one sided stupidity from you lefties, so tell which billionaire has spent over 300 million to make 529 groups, websites and donation to ONLY democrats? George Soros, but why don’t you mention him in you loser tirade? Better yet what president received over 100 million in overseas contributions to his campaign? Obozo…
So why is it OK for the democrats?

Finn McCool

October 21st, 2010
10:03 am

Was the bank reform law intended to tell banks what they could and could not charge fees on?

Me think s some folks watch too much Fox News.

John

October 21st, 2010
10:04 am

@A Hearty Cheese Sauce,

Exactly, they changed some rules…to protect the consumer. They did not eliminate fees. What they did is tell the banks they cannot charge hidden fees. For instance, before banks would automatically cover the purchases made on debit cards if there were insufficient funds in the account and then charge a fee without the consumer knowing it. So a $2 cup of coffee could cost the consumer $35 or more. They are still allowed to do it but the consumer has to opt it, being fully aware of it. If the consumer does not opt in, then they transaction is denied.

Of course, some big banks are eliminating “free checking” accounts. A spokeswoman for Bank of America has said there never really was free checking due to the fees banks charged. Notice, it’s only the large banks that have been eliminating “free checking” accounts. If you believe in free enterprise and competition this can lead to people moving their money from the large banks to smaller banks which do not charge outrageous fees. Competition can kick in and force some of the large banks into being more competitive. Competition doesn’t only happen in regulation free environments.

They have also raised interest rates on credit cards and will tell the consumer it’s due to new federal regulations. This is false. I still have a credit card with a fixed rate of 4.9% through a credit union. Competition works, I moved my accounts to a credit union which offers lower interest on credit cards, higher interest on my savings and less fees than the large banks.

TINSTAAFL

October 21st, 2010
10:05 am

LukasATL

I’m all for making them work for their handouts, but some of that stuff is a bit scary…

Finn McCool

October 21st, 2010
10:05 am

LukasATL,

A hearty “Heil Hitler!” to you this morning!

barking frog

October 21st, 2010
10:07 am

How many rich people have died in the wars fought to
‘keep the country free’ ? How many died in the ‘rubber’
war in Vietnam, the ‘oil’ war in Iraq? If the poor do the
dying, the rich should do the paying. Tax rates are too
LOW. Are the wealthy ‘dependent’ on the poor for
their defense? You betcha.

Southern Comfort

October 21st, 2010
10:07 am

Wealth is CREATED

So, what you’re saying is that there is some wealth fairy sprinkles pixie dust and money just appears out of nowhere? I understand what you’re saying about wealth being created. However, you can create all the value in the product that you want to. Until someone PURCHASES the product, there is nothing. That purchaser is what allows you to gain your dividend.

On the second half of your statement, you acknowledge some benefit to what the government does. It may not create wealth as a primary benefit, but do you think Kia, Hyundai, or others would bring investments to this area if we were overrun by homeless and other negative stuff?

Tychus Findlay

October 21st, 2010
10:08 am

@LukasAtl

Some of your points are very popular in concept re:#1, 4, and 5. #2 and #3 would be particularly difficult to enforce, but #1 resonates strongly. When the 47% that does not pay income taxes crosses the 50% threshold, it’s game over. The Pauls of the world will never vote against robbing Peter.

j

October 21st, 2010
10:08 am

Tea party became concerned about the Country when the Country became non-concerned about its citizens.

Or


You probably meant federal government rather than country the second time you mentioned country.

this should have happened when the previous guy lied and got the country in a war. Don’t remember any tea party folks running around complaining.

Do tea party members refuse to cash their social security checks each month? :)

FYI the feds (D or R) have never been concerned with the citizens just big business and maintaining the power structure.

Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)

October 21st, 2010
10:11 am

And, don’t get me started on people who use “should of” when they mean “should have” in its contracted form. What on earth are the schools teaching these days?

Well, I figured somebody was going to get all hoity-toity on us. This blogger should of been banned.

TINSTAAFL

October 21st, 2010
10:14 am

Southern Comfort

I would call the wealth fairy my time and work. If you invest time and work into something, you can create utility and wealth.

I don’t have to sell something to have created wealth. If I’m a caveman and I took a good stick and sharpened it into a spear, I have, in a way, become more wealthy. I can use said stick to multiplicatively impact how much I can eat. I don’t have to sell it to another caveman to realize its worth.

And so what if somebody purchases it? That person wouldn’t purchase it unless the deal were mutually beneficial. That person has become more wealthy themselves.

John

October 21st, 2010
10:15 am

@JKL2

“The Constitution says what the government was set up to do (like protect the boarder). Taxes go to provide those services. Charity is not one of those services. Quit taking my money to fund projects the government was never intended to control.”

Show me in the Constitution where is says that. The 16th amendment says “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

It does not state what those taxes can or cannot be used for.

JKL2

October 21st, 2010
10:19 am

SoCo- Money has to be redistributed for defense, securing the border, and other essential government functions

We can always debate ways to save money. The government is too big of an organization to operate efficiently. Congress is still operating under the assumption “here’s a problem, let’s throw a checkbook at it and make it go away”. That worked for a while, but now we’re out of money and have little to show for what we spent.

TINSTAAFL

October 21st, 2010
10:23 am

John,

Because that’s not what the 16th amendment has to do with. Remember, our constitution, for the most part, tells the government what it is allowed to do. That’s why it was so revolutionary 200 years ago. It confers limited powers. You’d best look at the rights enumerated. Those are the ONLY powers that congress has. You can argue all day about “B-b-but the general welfare clause lets us make general welfare!” In that case, I would go take a look in the Federalist Papers about what the constitution’s writer had to say about the general welfare clause.

John

October 21st, 2010
10:27 am

“Tea party became concerned about the Country when the Country became non-concerned about its citizens.”

Are you talking about the tea party financed by very large “small businesses” who do to eliminate all regulations, pay no taxes and ship our jobs overseas. That’s showing concerns for it’s citizens.

Dr. Pangloss

October 21st, 2010
10:28 am

Kyle says, “At the same time, two in five Americans in 2008 — 132.5 million people — did not pay federal income taxes and were not claimed as dependents by anyone who did.”

According to the Census Bureau:

The old age dependency ratio is 20. The child dependency ratio is 39.

The age dependency ratio is derived by dividing the combined under-18 and 65-and-over populations by the 18-to-64 population and multiplying by 100.
·The old-age dependency ratio is derived by dividing the population 65 and over by the 18-to-64 population and multiplying by 100.
·The child dependency ratio is derived by dividing the population under 18 by the 18-to-64 population and multiplying by 100.

Looked at another way: 20.7% are under 19. 12.6% are over 65. That makes 33.3% in the dependency age groups.

What do you expect? Are helpless little babies supposed to file a tax return? How about old ladies in the nursing home?

Willie

October 21st, 2010
10:31 am

The natural extension of a culture of dependence is a culture of taking. Envy, anger and judgmentalism are just window dressing to justify taking from the productive to give to the unproductive. As the dependence grows, the taking must grow too.

JKL2

October 21st, 2010
10:31 am

John-

“provide for the common defence” IE border security. We pay the state, the state pays the fed. The 16th Amendment is were the Fed started taking over and circumventing the rights given to them by the States.

Government works best at the lowest level. We need to get away from the socialist/big brother direction we are heading in and go back to operating the way our country was founded to work. Freedom = Responsibility. We now have alot of irresponsible people in this country, but that’s no reason to scrap the entire system.

John

October 21st, 2010
10:33 am

@TINSTAAFL

You have the right to sue the Federal Government to eliminate all welfare programs. Take it all the way to the supreme court.

Dr. Pangloss

October 21st, 2010
10:34 am

PS: I saw the part about “not claimed as dependents by anyone who did” but very few elderly people are claimed as dependents by their adult children. They’re not supposed to be.

left wing

October 21st, 2010
10:36 am

One in five Americans — 64.3 million people — relies on government handouts to fulfill basic needs for housing, food and/or health care. – Of course, this number is much higher now after the great recession, which was caused by Republican policies removing regulation on markets, corporate greed and excesses, and a dramatic shift of personal wealth to the top 1% in this country.

Of course, it’s never a good idea to look too closely at the numbers, is it Kyle?

Finn McCool

October 21st, 2010
10:43 am

two in five Americans in 2008…did not pay federal income taxes and were not claimed as dependents by anyone who did. The percentage of nontaxpayers has nearly tripled since 1984.

If you are wealthy and you ARE paying taxes then you should fire your accountant. The tax avoidance industry is a multi-million dollar industry. Software, financial planners, accountants, lawyers, consultants – all make a living by helping people avoid paying taxes.

Is it any wonder we can’t scrape enough tax revenue together to fix our infrastructure?

Finn McCool

October 21st, 2010
10:50 am

Maybe Kyle should look at the numbers of dependent people before the Great Depression and Roosevelt. That’s about the time when the middle class began taking off.

During the 80’s we started dismantling the middle class and look where we are now.

Kyle, where do you think elderly people lived after their working years were over? They moved in with their kids! Social Security and wider use of pensions and retirement plans made it possible for them to live on their own. (So you have a need for two houses instead of one – boom, now you have a housing industry!)

Even pat Buchanan understands the need for a thriving middle class. We can’t continue pushing all our money up to the wealthy people.

Kyle Wingfield

October 21st, 2010
10:52 am

left wing @ 10:36: I asked the authors about the effect of recessions (not just this one), and they said statistically the association is weak. If you look at the index (link is in the OP), you’ll see that any declines after recessions end have historically been short-lived.

joe

October 21st, 2010
10:54 am

@J-The tea party movement started once BO started passing quazi-socialist policies on healhcare, bailouts, etc. These policies weren’t born of ANY other administration in the past, republican nor democrat. Once we saw where BO was trying to take the country (in the direction of France and/or Canada) people woke up. Thats why after the elections next month, the GOP will be back in charge, followed by the white house in 2012.

DawgDad

October 21st, 2010
10:54 am

“First, this notion of the tea party as a “grass roots” movement is hogwash.”

Certainly there is an organizational backbone component of some (not all) of the Tea Party operations. If you don’t believe this is a grass roots movement I advise you to seek shelter on Nov. 2 or be swept away by the storm.

So what if the Koch Brothers are funding these things. Free speech. Far less insidious than a George Soros funded propaganda operation, or much of the other stuff that goes on from all political fronts. I can assure you I’ve taken no funding from anyone for any political cause (the dollars go the other way).

paleo-neo-Carlinist

October 21st, 2010
10:54 am

KW, once you establish (as Citizens United case confirmed) there is no difference between corporate citizens (special interests) and individual citizens (we the People), this all makes sense. as has been noted by yours truly, and others; corporations and other special interests (unions, religious organizations, non-profits, etc.) are all very needy and DEPEND on the federal government in order to survive. as I have said many times, is there a difference between wealth redistribution when it flows through the DoD into the private sector cofferd of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or Blackwater/XE, and the wealth that flows through the poor and the unemployed, but eventually ends up as revenue on the balance sheets of ADM, Bank of America, Kroger, Coca Cola or Miller Coors; or wealth that flows through the sick, elderly, indigent (and those pesky anchor babies), but eventually comes to rest at Pfizer, Merck, or Kaiser-Permanente? I find it interesting that Christine O’Connell is both venerated by the Tea Party, and villified by everyone else as an icon of the movement. She is a short-sighted, soundbite-driven, shallow and ignorant, intellectual infant, who extrapolates facts/information to form hybrid fact/fiction myths, fairy tales and fabels, which she then presents as truth. even more bizarre his her (and most of the tea party) penchant for stating the obvious (’no separation of church and state in the first amendment”) as if she is a Constitutional scholar or authority (which is really ironic, because much of the tea party movement are flat earth zealots who eschew the observations of “academics” and “intellectuals”.). the tea party’s greatest liability (as evidenced by O’Connell and her fellow dimwitted floosie, Sarah Palin), is its habit of parsing words and issues; and sellectively interpreting the Constitution (or claiming to know the intentions/motives of the Founding Fathers, which interesting enough, was devoid of “Mama Grizzlies”). and this is no more evident in the tea party movements refusal to acknowledge corporate welfare or out of control DoD spending as complicent in this current mess.

Kevin

October 21st, 2010
10:55 am

I love it that some people on here are talking about compassion, and how greedy rich people don’t have it.

With one in five getting Federal help, I’d say we’re doling out quite a bit of compassion.

And coming from one of those evil rich people that actually pays Federal income tax, I’m just about compassioned out.