Largesse
By Mitch Berg
It may be the world’s greatest apocryphal quote:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
Apropos nothing, nearly half of US households get some form of federal money or another:
Nearly half, 48.5%, of the population lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010, according to Census data. Those numbers have risen since the middle of the recession when 44.4% lived households receiving benefits in the third quarter of 2008.
Click for full-size image
The share of people relying on government benefits has reached a historic high, in large part from the deep recession and meager recovery, but also because of the expansion of government programs over the years. (See a timeline on the history of government benefits programs here.)
Obama may or may not win this next election – but the left has done one of the crucial bits of homework needed to ensure their power forever.
October 6th, 2011 at 8:04 am
Thanks Mitch. Always enjoy starting the day with a good laugh.
October 6th, 2011 at 10:23 am
Those damned lefties and their Medicare, Part D. What will they think of next?
October 6th, 2011 at 11:24 am
It’s almost like W wasn’t a conservative, isn’t it, PeterH?
October 6th, 2011 at 11:53 am
Peter…we have a $100,000,000,000,000.00 unfunded liability due to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. I forgot, what is the liberals (including liberal Republicans) plan to deal with it? Something taking money from others?
October 6th, 2011 at 11:55 am
Okay, I am smarter than average. I recall saying, when Bush signed his perscription bill: “If a Democrat congress would have passed this bill, President Bush would have veto’d it as it is a huge, wasteful, open ended new entitlement we can’t afford”.
October 6th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Bush never saw a huge, wasteful spending program that he didn’t like.
October 6th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
You got your talking points wrong, PeterH. The problem is the Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and two unnecessary wars (if you think it was one unnecessary war your copy of the talking points is old).
October 6th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Kind makes him look like a libturd DemocRAT, heh Petey!
October 6th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
In the end, it turns out it did do a lot of good (just ask Bono). But I still resent President Bush spending $40,000,000,000 on Aids in Africa when that money could be spent building high speed rail in California. Well, it could have built 1/10 of Califorina HSR.
October 6th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Frist says it was 15 billion, not 40 billion.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-15/politics/frist.bush_1_antiretrovirals-hiv-george-bush?_s=PM:POLITICS
October 6th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
I don’t resent spending $15 billion to save tens of millions of Africans. I do resent spending half a million to send the Obama family on an African safari.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/nearly-half-million-send-michelle-africa
Show me the vital national interest in spending taxpayer money to send two elementary school children to South Africa and Botswana. I dare you.
October 6th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Kermit, how is that connected to anything else in this thread?
Mitch wrote: “the left has done one of the crucial bits of homework needed to ensure their power forever.”
I raised Medicare Part D because it’s a clear example of how politicians on the right blew a big hole in the budget in an effort to keep themselves in power.
How does my objecting to Medicare Part D — or my interest in correcting a number thrown out by another commenter — obligate me to defend the White House travel expenses?
October 6th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
The “big hole” Medicare Part D blew in the budget is a pinprick compared to the gaping, yawning chasm created by the America-hating assnozzle in the White House today. He pontificates about eeevil Republicans, and brain-dead sycophants nod sagely. How is that connected to anything else in this thread? Half of America is dependent on government. The Obamas of the world want the other half to be too. That way they can sit in their halls of power, eat Wagyu beef, make us pay for their million dollar vacations and lecture us about how we are not doing our “fair share”.
It wasn’t “White House travel expenses”, you poor sod. It was abuse of power. To take another free vacation. You guys on the Left used to hate that. Now you can’t recognize it.
October 7th, 2011 at 11:46 am
Kermit, I can’t recall anyone on the left getting worked up about Laura Bush’s travel expenses, but I don’t listen to Air America or read Kos. Somehow, I don’t think Judicial Watch kept tabs on Laura Bush’s travel expenses.
There are substantial criticisms to be made about Obama and his administration. This trip to Africa isn’t one of them.
It’s like the lefties being focused on how many days Bush spent at his ranch.
October 7th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Ah yes, the classic “But Bush” argument. It works every time one comments on the wonder of Hope and Change. Well done, Peter. No one can accuse you of having an imagination.
October 8th, 2011 at 12:54 am
Just a memory.
October 8th, 2011 at 8:29 am
And a refusal to come to grips with the reality of today.