Maggie's Farm

From Chantrill in American Thinker, one of the best short essays of the year: The Politics of the Social Safety Net. One quote:

But the real problem is that the expansion of the safety net has led to increase in government power and the rise of the beauracracy. This combined to diminish individual responsibility which diminishes ones productivity and accumulation of wealth. With less wealth, it's easier to be dependent. With more people jumping in the net, taxes go up to maintain benefits, which cuts savings, which increases the demand for the safety net as more people retire destitute from taxation in furtherance of its support.

Let's be real - we are never going to see a change in the safety net for too much political power is invested in, and generated by it. Also, its very existence has enabled our population to grow as those who would have otherwise died from disease, exposure or starvation due to lack of wealth have been spared by it (sorry for the cruelty).

It's not going away. Any safety net, no matter how modest, who provides it, or what name you give it will mature into a welfare state.

Read the whole thing.