The Welfare State

Hillary Clinton famously stated that "it takes a village to raise a child."

I called that statement into question recently citing how our schools and churches seem to not be giving us the support we need to instill the right morals, character and values in our children today.

What is absolutely true is that it takes the village's taxes to raise a child. I am not just talking about property taxes for your local public schools.

More than half of all children (52%) under the age of 18 today are living in a household that is receiving "means-tested assistance" from the federal government, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

In households with single mothers, 78% are receiving some form of government assistance. That compares to 41% in married couple family households.

There are 73.6 million children under the age of 18 in the United States. 38.4 million of them live in households in which someone in the home is receiving mean-tested government aid.

What type of assistance are we talking about?

These include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), Medicaid, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the National School Lunch Program.

36% of all Americans live in a household in which someone is receiving means-tested government assistance.

None of these programs include Social Security or Medicare or other payments to individuals that the federal government makes.

If you consider the federal budget as a whole, 71% all expenditures are in the form of "Payments of Individuals." Welfare payments, social security benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, government pensions student loans and the like.

Therefore, "Payments for Individuals" effectively represents what amounts to the redistribution of income from one person to another with the federal government serving as the middle man.

These are not outlays for the common defense, common good, public works, public safety or public interest. These are government payments that are intended to benefit select individuals based on their age, their income, their health or any one of a number of other distinctions.

This totals $3 trillion per year out of total spending of $4.2 trillion!

The remaining 30% goes for what we traditionally think of as spending for government services. Those things that benefit the public interest and the common good. Defense, Law Enforcement, Public Health, Prisons, Parks, Transportation and interest on the federal debt.

If Defense spending is excluded (arguably the one function of the federal government that is probably most essential), as well as interest on the federal debt, direct payments to individuals account for 93% of all federal spending.

To put that in context, in 1945 only 3% of the federal budget were "Payments to Individuals."

Even as late as 1986, only 46% of the budget were "Payments to Individuals."

I am not suggesting that all of these programs that involve "Payments to Individuals" are ill-considered or bad. After all, Social Security and Medicare are there for everyone. Workers pay into these programs and deserve a return of their investment without someone drastically changing the rules on them just as they near retirement.

However, we all need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves how we have allowed what began as well-meaning social safety net programs to reach the point that they now account for 70% of federal spending and the majority of our children are living in households that are dependent on federal handouts.

How did everyone survive in 1875, 1945 or 1985 without all of this?

We keep hearing how bad everything is today.

We hear that we need a universal guaranteed income. We need universal health care. We need universal child care.

Where does it end? When Payments to Individuals are 100% of the federal budget? Is that what the primary function of government is supposed to be? To take money from one group, run it through the federal bureaucracy, and hand it out to another group?

Is this really the primary role of government? Do we really think we are solving problems effectively in this way?

It might be wise to consider the words of Ronald Reagan in relying too much on government to solve the ills of the world.

"Government does solve problems, it subsidizes them."