Quote Originally Posted by Gregg View Post
I kind of mentioned it in another post today, but my feeling is that our society is so heavily subsidized that we are all "entitled". Even those who rail against welfare mommas and section 8 deadbeats and whatever other misinterpreted stereotype you care to conjure up. We expect cheap gas and cheap food and cheap power and cheap healthcare and free roads and free schools and on and on. It is extremely difficult to find things in our lives that have not been subsidized by a government program at some point.
Exactly right. The New York Times ran an article some months ago on an outstate-Minnesota town where they examined where U.S. government tax dollars were spent and then asked the residents what they thought of "safety net" benefit programs. It was surprising to find out just how many people were receiving government benefits -- but didn't think they were: aid to learning-disabled kids, farm subsidies, mortgage-interest deductions, ...:

He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. [snip]

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.
Many of the benefits and tax breaks created over the years are there to encourage particular behaviors. Unraveling them will take a long time and may lead to consequences many did not anticipate. I wonder if we, as a population, really are up to it.