A Nation of Moochers (30 page)

Like the overuse of the “victim card,” Moocherism has also exacted a heavy tax on our compassion. Americans remain an extraordinarily compassionate people, but it is difficult to escape the sense that we are suffering from compassion fatigue. Despite the rhetoric deployed to rationalize giveaways, we have not become a kinder, gentler, or more compassionate society. Rather, the flight from personal responsibility and the culture of infinite entitlement have generated skepticism about the very idea that we have moral obligations to the less fortunate. The gridlock of national politics, the growing polarization between right and left, and the refusal of interest groups to give up any of their demands for the public good—all are symptoms of the “What’s in it for me?” mentality that fuels Moocher Nation. Recall Mancur Olson’s observation that the “gang fight is fully as rough as the individual duel, and the struggle of special interest groups generates no magnanimity or altruism.… Competition about the division of income is not any nicer than competition to produce or to please customers.”
⁴

Needs and Wants

There are, of course, people with real needs: The elderly and the disabled have special needs and society has an ongoing obligation to lend them a hand. But here is the rub: There has been a purposeful muddling of genuine need and things that we merely want. They are not at all the same thing, and the first thing we have to do is separate the social safety net from the squishy pillow of, for example, taxpayer-provided electric cars.

A revolution against Moocherism requires hard-headed distinctions between actual needs and things we want. For decades now, as George Lightbourn, president of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, notes, “Our leaders surmised that if they did not swaddle every ugly problem in the comforting blanket of government, they had failed.”
⁵

Instead, politicians will have to learn to say no—even to ideas that might seem attractive. Equally as important, so will the rest of us, even if the public trough seems both convenient and desirable.

The assault on the moocher culture is not a rejection of compassion, but it does require a redefinition of what we mean by a compassionate society.

A Compassionate Society

A compassionate society makes sure that people do not starve. It does not buy free lunch for everyone.

A compassionate society makes provisions so that the homeless or the otherwise destitute are not exposed to the elements. It does not provide no-down-payment, no-income loans so that people can buy unaffordable houses at inflated prices.

A compassionate society provides opportunities; it does not treat free cell phones or wireless Internet as an entitlement. It does not punish work or make it easier to be dependent than it is to get a job and improve yourself.

A compassionate society provides the opportunity and the freedom to travel. It does not compel you to buy your neighbor a new car.

A compassionate society provides a temporary safety net for the unlucky. It does not provide a soft mattress for a lifetime of dependency.

A compassionate society may cushion the worst effect of the business cycles. It does not provide billion-dollar bailouts to the business whose reckless bets go south.

A compassionate society takes care of those in need. It does not assume that we are all incapable of making it on our own.

A compassionate society does not infantilize its citizens or corrupt them by making them a nation of moochers.

Notes

Preface

1
. P. J. O’Rourke, “A Nation of Moochers: Happy April 15,”
The Weekly Standard,
April 13, 2009.

2
. William Baldwin, “What’s Your State’s Moocher Ratio?”
Forbes
magazine, November 30, 2009.

Scenes from Moocher Nation

1
. Joe Hagan, “Tenacious G, Inside Goldman Sachs, America’s Most Successful, Cynical, Envied, Despised, and (in Its View, Anyway) Misunderstood Engine of Capitalism,”
New York
magazine, July 26, 2009.

2
. Craig Schneider and Tammy Joyner, “Housing Crisis Reaches Full Boil in East Point; 62 Injured,”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
August 11, 2010.

3
.
The Foundry,
“Morning Bell: End Crony Capitalism,” the Heritage Foundation, August 18, 2010.

4
.
Los Angeles Times,
“Millions in California Welfare Money Spent at Vacation Playgrounds,” October 3, 2010.

5
. Thomas Frank, “Huge Losses Put Federal Flood Insurance Plan in the Red,”
USA Today,
August 26, 2010.

6
. Associated Press, “Feds Wasted Millions in Utilities Program for Poor,” July 1, 2010.

7
. Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul, and Sarah Cohen, “Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm,”
Washington Post,
July 2, 2006.

Chapter 1. A Nation of Moochers

1
. Scott A. Hodge, “Once Self-Reliant, Now a Nation of Takers,”
Investor’s Business Daily,
April 7, 2010.

2
. David Schmidtz,
Elements of Justice
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 11.

3
. Jeanne Sahadi, “47% Will Pay No Federal Income Tax: An Increasing Number of Households End Up Owing Nothing in Major Federal Taxes, but the Situation May Not Be Sustainable over the Long Run,”
CNNMoney.com
,
October 3, 2009,
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/30/pf/taxes/who_pays_taxes/index.htm
.

4
. Stephen Ohlemacher, “Nearly Half of U.S. Households Escape Fed Income Tax,” Associated Press, April 7, 2010.

5
. Hodge, “Once Self-Reliant.”

6
. Stephen Moore, “We’ve Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers,”
Wall Street Journal,
April 1, 2011.

7
. Richard Wolf, “Record Number in Government Anti-poverty Programs,”
USA Today,
August 30, 2010.

8
. William W. Beach and Patrick D. Tyrell, “The 2010 Index of Dependence on Government,” Center for Data Analysis, The Heritage Foundation, October 14, 2010.

9
. Ibid.

10
. Janet Novack and Stephanie Fitch, “When Work Doesn’t Pay for the Middle Class,”
Forbes,
October 5, 2009.

11
. Brent T. White, “Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis,”
Arizona Legal Studies,
Discussion Paper No. 09-35, October 2009.

12
. James R. Hagerty and Nick Timiraos, “Debtor’s Dilemma: Pay the Mortgage or Walk Away,”
Wall Street Journal,
December 17, 2009.

13
. Dennis Cauchon, “Federal Workers Earning Double Their Private Counterparts,”
USA Today,
August 13, 2010.

14
. Jason DeParle and Robert Gebeloff, “Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades,”
New York Times,
November 28, 2009.

15
.
Wall Street Journal,
“In U.S., 14% Rely on Food Stamps,” November 4, 2010.

16
. Lindsey Tanner, “Food Stamps Will Feed Half of US Kids, Study Says,” Associated Press, November 2, 2009.

17
. Dennis Cauchon, “Private Pay Shrinks to Historic Lows as Gov’t Payouts Rise,”
USA Today,
May 26, 2010.

18
. Beach and Tyrell, “The 2010 Index.”

19
. Brian Riedl, “Federal Spending by the Numbers 2010,” The Heritage Foundation, Special Report #78, June 1, 2010.

20
. Ibid.

21
. Projections were calculated by the Heritage Foundation using Congressional Budget Office, “The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update,” August 2010,
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/117xx/doc11705/08-18-Update.pdf
.

22
. William Voegeli,
Never Enough, America’s Limitless Welfare State
(New York: Encounter Books, 2010), 7.

Chapter 2. Have We Reached the Tipping Point?

1
. Rep. Paul Ryan, “Should America Bid Farewell to Exceptional Freedom?”
Real Clear Politics,
April 2, 2010. Congressman Paul Ryan delivered this speech to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in Oklahoma City on March 31, 2010.

2
. Mancur Olson,
The Rise and Decline of Nations
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 72.

3
. Frederic Bastiat,
The Law,
trans. Dean Russell (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1998), 6–8.

4
. Thomas Byrne Edsall, “The Obama Coalition,”
The Atlantic,
April 2010.

Chapter 3. The Rise of Moocher Nation

1
. Heather Mac Donald, “The Sidewalks of San Francisco: Can the City by the Bay Reclaim Public Space from Aggressive Vagrants?”
The City Journal,
Autumn 2010.

2
. Fred Siegel,
The Future Once Happened Here
(New York: The Free Press, 1997), 61.

3
. Ibid.

4
. MacDonald, “The Sidewalks.”

5
. Ibid.

6
. Ibid.

7
. Myron Magnet,
The Dream and the Nightmare
(New York: Encounter Books, 1993), 1.

8
. Siegel,
The
Future,
10

9
. Gareth Davies,
From Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism
(Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 1996), 3.

10
. James Coleman, “Self-Suppression of Academic Freedom,” Address to the National Association of Scholars, New York, June 19, 1990.

11
. Davies,
From Opportunity,
9.

12
. Ibid., 6.

13
. Siegel,
The Future,
57.

14
. Ibid., 59.

15
. Ibid.

16
. Ibid.

17
. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, 1965.

18
. William Ryan,
Blaming the Victim
(New York: Vintage Books, 1971), 122.

19
. Lawrence Medd, “From Here to Intolerance,”
The Economist,
July 20, 1991.

20
. Ryan,
Blaming the Victim,
25

21
. Charles J. Sykes,
A Nation of Victims
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 109.

22
. Quoted in Siegel,
The Future,
50–51.

23
. Ibid., 51.

24
. Ibid., 60.

25
. Ibid.

26
. Davies,
From Opportunity,
229.

27
. Siegel,
The Future,
52.

28
. Quoted in Davies,
From Opportunity,
118; Nick Kotz and Mary Ann Kotz,
A Passion for Equality
(New York: Norton, 1970), 183.

29
. Quoted in Siegel,
The Future,
53.

30
. Davies,
From Opportunity,
235.

Chapter 4. The Joys of Dependency

1
. Roy Mark, “Feds Tapped Out of DTV Coupons,”
Eweek.com
,
January 6, 2009,
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government-IT/Feds-Tapped-Out-of-DTV-Coupons
.

2
. Paul Sims, “Why Work When I Can Get £42,000 in Benefits a Year AND Drive a Mercedes?”
Daily Mail,
April 13, 2010.

3
. Anis Shivani, “New Rules for Writers: Ignore Publicity, Shun Crowds, Refuse Recognition and More,”
Huffington Post,
January 16, 2011,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/new-rules-for-writers_b_808558.html
.

4
. Vivian Ho, “Obama’s Aunt Says ‘System’ Was at Fault,”
Boston Globe,
September 21, 2010.

5
. Robert Rector, “How Poor Are America’s Poor? Examining the ‘Plague’ of Poverty in America,” The Heritage Foundation, August 27, 2007.