The Immorality of a Government Imposed Safety Net
One of the areas of so called “agreement” between the Left and Right, as articulated by our own Paul Ryan and Senator Ron Johnson, involves a “strong safety net.” Unfortunately, what comprises a “strong safety net,” how it is delivered and by whom is not discussed but assumed. These two particular political representatives, like almost all others, devolve the discussion into one of government programs aimed at addressing social problems.
What fails to be articulated or advocated, the complete elimination of this futile effort, equates to the ideological third rail of politics - there must be a strong government-imposed safety net. No greater political fantasy exists nor one more immoral.
Most of you reading this essay, despite being aligned with me voting-wise, will blurt out the question, “What is immoral about helping people?” My answer: “Nothing, as long as helping people requires a voluntary individual act.”
Factually, by definition, any government-imposed system requires compulsion. Compulsion, by definition, requires the use of force. Force, by logical extension (since this individual is not violating someone else’s God-given rights), requires extortion or theft, depending on the degree of coercion required. And according to Webster, he defines theft as “the act of stealing” and stealing as “to take the property of another” or more elaborately “to take away by force or unjust means.”
But, you will argue from the last definition, because the government mandates the program and all it involves, it can’t be unjust.
After thinking about that for a moment, do you truly believe that? Of course not. You know of countless historical and current examples of unjust government mandates. You also most likely embrace Judeo-Christian values, the principles on which America was founded and from which it’s laws are derived. Which leads us directly to the subject of morality.
Judeo-Christian morality originates from the Ten Commandments issued to Moses by God himself on Mount Sinai as the Bible tells us. Jesus Christ summarized these Ten into the two Great Commandments: Love God with all your heart and all your being, and Love thy Neighbor as Thyself. Simple.
So lets apply these simple Judeo- Christian values and principles to the government-imposed safety net and see where it leads us.
What is the goal of the governmentimposed safety net? Does anyone really know? Does it mean different things to different people?
Most people would agree with Senator Johnson’s definition that the governmentimposed safety net is there for the Truly Needy of society. Fair enough. But who are the Truly Needy? And how exactly do we help the Truly Needy through this government-imposed safety net? What programs comprise the universe of the government-imposed safety net?
The record of the government-imposed safety net provides the best data and information to answer all of the previous questions. For the purposes of this essay, all monetary transfers from the government to individuals will be considered part of the government imposed safety net, including social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, unemployment insurance, any type of living assistance, child care, and all other government imposed “social” programs. Farm subsidies, price supports, tax exclusions, grants and other subsidies that are business related are not the purview of this discussion and will be dealt with morally in a subsequent essay.
So what is the record of the governmentimposed safety net? How good are bureaucrats at identifying the Truly Needy and what assistance are they delivering to them through this safety net? According to the US Census Bureau, the poverty rate in 1967 was 14.2% when poverty relief payments began (welfare). Today it is 15.1%. More people are on foodstamps today than ever before, over 50 million recipients (about one-sixth of the population). Recipients easily convert foodstamps into cash, alcohol and drugs through underground markets. Only 53% of the entire US population is employed today, the lowest figure ever, and that includes all government workers and public employees.
Social security, according to the latest personal statement they sent me, “will be able to pay only about 75 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits” in 2033. Medicaid and Medicare continue to shift the costs of treatment for recipients onto direct paying patients or people with private insurance coverage, causing medical costs and insurance premiums to explode. The Wisconsin child care program, as the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel uncovered, paid more out in fraudulent claims than legitimate ones. The out-of-wedlock birthrate is over 70% in the inner cities of America. The rise in divorce rates and the number of single parent households continues unabated.
If the moral case for the creation and preservation of the government-imposed safety net rests on “helping” people, it clearly is not meeting this goal. In fact, like any government program, it exacerbates the problem as shown by all the data cited above.
And what about the Truly Needy? Does anybody believe 50 million Americans are so needy that the government needs to provide food for them? Really? What about all the fraudsters abusing foodstamps and child care services? They are not the Truly Needy.
In fact, the government has no ability to properly identify the Truly Needy. Why? Because it has no interest in doing so. You see, the government-imposed safety net never has been interested in helping anyone. What it is interested in is creating voting blocs that it can manipulate for pursuing political power, in imposing a modern system of slavery on the population.
So the government-imposed safety net fails the moral test on both counts - it helps no one and has no ability to identify the Truly Needy. Instead, the system steals from the producers of society to destroy families and the institution of marriage, reward lying and envy, advocate sexual promiscuity and adulterous behavior, denigrate our elderly and promote the killing of babies. I believe these moral violations cover everything from Commandments 4 through 10.
The government-imposed safety net sets up economic barriers to self-reliance by creating situations where increasing ones gross income results in a catastrophic loss of real income. In other words, work hard up to a point, but if you go any further, you will be punished severely. Most people never cross this barrier. They’re not stupid. Sounds like a plantation to me.
So they remain in the system. And the bureaucrats love this, for the can add more serfs into their fiefdom, which justifies the expansion of their budgets and even the creation of new social programs. They have the perfected the recipe: Create problems, then create new programs to “solve” them. Repeat.
What about the people outside the government imposed safety net? How are the producers affected by this disfunctional creation? Every dollar extorted or stolen from the producers have profound effects for the future. This stolen capital would be used by producers to make more, better and cheaper products and services, making all these items more accessible to larger segments of the population, all while creating jobs and thus more producers and hence LESS NEED OF A GOVERNMENT IMPOSED SAFETY NET!
Having just turned 50, if social security tax did not exist in my working lifetime, I would have been able to invest, save, spend or give to charity an additional $300,000+. Needless to say, my personal financial situation today would be quite different. If the $150,000 or so of medicare tax were added into my HSA, I think I would be in real good shape for being able to pay for my health insurance to a ripe old age. If income tax rates were not progressive and punitive, all producers would have more money, more capital and more wealth. In fact, most could become completely self-reliant and have NO NEED FOR A GOVERNMENT IMPOSED SAFETY NET!
So we see the answer. The government imposed safety net aims to ensnare as many participants as possible with promises of safety and security, to the point where they can’t conceive of living without it. It simultaneously systematically weakens the ability of anyone outside its grip, the producers, to be self-reliant and independent of this government web of slavery. In fact, they eventually MANDATE participation by everyone either by outlawing private options or requiring application.
The Moral Value of the governmentimposed safety net is clear - the Moral Value of slavery.
So Steve, since you’re so smart, what IS the answer to these social problems?
Social problems are simply a composite measure of individual problems. They can ONLY be solved with individuals by individual commitment. Jesus taught us this. Look to page 22 for the answer and I promise to continually expand on this reasonable question in every future edition of Reality News. Only we as individual people, working through voluntary organizations like our churches or other charitable groups, have the ability to identify the Truly Needy and determine what can be done to actually help them.
By installing government as the all knowing, benevolent solver of all of our problems, and provider for our wants and needs, we violate the FIRST COMMANDMENT with the government-imposed safety net. We have replaced our faith in God, the true God of Israel, with the false god of government. I fear America must pay dearly for this transgression.
If we Americans don’t completely dismantle this horrifically immoral and evil creation - the government-imposed safety net - we are doomed.