Elizabeth Warren and the Social Contract

Back in my college days I would often get caught in traffic while driving my economy car on Southern California' s freeways. During one of these traffic snarls a driver in an expensive new luxury car crept by in the left lane. It struck me as ironic that even though he was certainly traveling in style, he was stuck on the same congested roads that I was.

Upon further reflection it occurred to me that I also enjoyed many the same of the great benefits of our society as he did. Same roads. Same public schools and colleges. Same law enforcement. Same national defense. Same national parks. And yet I, like everyone else in my income bracket, had never paid a dime in income taxes. What a great country this is.

And yet, for some it is never enough. The politics of redistribution has a highly addictive quality to both the recipients and the political middle-men. The recipient of direct subsidies and material giveaways comes to expect an ever increasing level of benefits and security. The political middle-man gains a sense of self-gratification and self-importance as the ever-widening circle of recipients becomes more deeply dependent and loyal to their perceived benefactors. But it cannot go on forever. Eventually the demands outstrip the resources and promises must be broken.

But it was immoral to make the promises in the first place. The promises cannot be kept and they create false expectations in others.

And even without any direct subsidies and giveaways, it is important to remember that every U.S. resident receives a steady stream of benefits every day by just residing in this country.

Elizabeth Warren and liberalism, twisting the ‘social contract’ - George F. Will

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. . . . You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

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Everyone knows that all striving occurs in a social context, so all attainments are conditioned by their context. This does not, however, entail a collectivist political agenda.

Such an agenda’s premise is that individualism is a chimera, that any individual’s achievements should be considered entirely derivative from society, so the achievements need not be treated as belonging to the individual. Society is entitled to socialize — i.e., conscript — whatever portion it considers its share. It may, as an optional act of political grace, allow the individual the remainder of what is misleadingly called the individual’s possession.

The collectivist agenda is antithetical to America’s premise, which is: Government — including such public goods as roads, schools and police — is instituted to facilitate individual striving, a.k.a. the pursuit of happiness. The fact that collective choices facilitate this striving does not compel the conclusion that the collectivity (Warren’s “the rest of us”) is entitled to take as much as it pleases of the results of the striving.

Should People be Forced to Share Their Money?

My money: I deserve to keep it all - J.E. Dyer

Of course we all deserve to keep our own money. If it is ill-gotten – stolen, swindled – then it’s the crime that deprives us of it, not any inherent function of the armed authorities to prowl the land in search of “undeserved” bank balances.

The question of what we “deserve” boils down to which came first, the individual human with rights, or the state. America was founded on the principle that the individual human with rights comes first. Any idea that violates that principle is counter to our founding idea. It is not possible to reconcile with our founding principle the idea of collective schemes in which we make some modification to “what we deserve.” We either deserve to keep all our own earnings – money – wealth – goods – or we do not have unalienable rights.

Now, what we decide to do with our own money will inevitably involve government functions of some kind. People have to have a government in some form. A certain minimum set of public services is essential to corporate human life. The American founding idea is that we the people decide what government will do, and we decide how much money government will have to do it with. Then we contribute out of what is inalienably ours.

Government Spending

Inevitability of a Default in Greece - Floyd Norris

A Greek debt restructuring — a polite term for default — is unthinkable, according to the Greek finance minister.

“It would have a tremendous cost, with no benefit,” the minister, George Papaconstantinou, said in an interview on Greek television. “Greece would be out of markets for 10, 15 years.”

To financial markets, and to many other observers, it is more than thinkable. It is very close to a sure thing. When, how, and how messy it will be are open to question.

Thoughts on a Surreal Depression - Victor Davis Hanson

The combination of 2 billion Indians and Chinese in the world marketplace, exporting cheap goods, has meant fewer jobs for Americans and far more material playthings now accessible to every stratum of society. Again, easy credit, combined with little shame or penalty in defaulting on what one owes, has allowed a superficial parity with the upper-middle class. Massive government transfers and relaxed eligibility have ensured households thousands of dollars in entitlements and subsidies. We have printed $5 trillion since 2009, and borrowed $1.6 trillion just this year. And the huge influx of easy government cash shows here.

Cash wages have meant augmented entitlement money and are competitive with those who are formally employed and who pay 30% of their money in payroll, health care, and federal, state, and local income tax deductions. The result is an odd sort of poverty, in which superficially the unemployed and poor to the naked eyed are almost identical to the upper middle classes.

The CAP Act - Bob Corker

The only real way to place America back on a path to solvency is by imposing what amounts to a fiscal straitjacket. To that end, colleagues from both sides of the aisle and both houses of Congress have joined me in offering the CAP Act, legislation that, for the very first time, would establish an across-the-board, binding cap on all federal spending. A real cap on spending tied to a percentage of gross domestic product is a responsible way to impose fiscal discipline and achieve smaller government while incentivizing lawmakers to pass policies that promote economic growth. The CAP Act would result in $7.6 trillion less spending over ten years, fundamentally change the way Washington does business, and finally put America on a trajectory toward fiscal sanity.

Government Handouts

Government Cash Handouts Now Top Tax Revenues - Elizabeth MacDonald

U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression.

Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.

But that’s more than the $2.2 trillion households paid in taxes, an amount that has slumped largely due to the recession, according to an analysis by the Fiscal Times.

Also, an estimated 59% of the 308.7 million Americans in this country get at least one federal benefit, according to the Census Bureau, based on 2009 data. An estimated 46.5 million get Social Security; 42.6 million get Medicare; 42.4 million get Medicaid; 36.1 million get food stamps; 12.4 million get housing subsidies; and 3.2 million get Veterans' benefits.

And the handouts from the government have been growing. Government cash handouts account for a whopping 79% of household growth since 2007, even as household tax payments--for things like the income and payroll tax, among other taxes--have fallen by $312 billion.