A Weak and Dependent People by Jacob G. Hornberger

Subscribe to FFF Email Update Subscribe to Freedom Daily DONATE TO FFF <!–put article title between tags below–> Hornberger’s Blog <!– put date below, before tag –> Friday, July 25, 2008 Hornberger’s Blog Index Information about RSS A Weak and Dependent People by Jacob G. Hornberger With its coming bailout of homeowners and mortgage lenders, the federal government refortifies its role as daddy for the American people and the people’s role as child-adults who are dependent on their daddy to take care of them. The bailout, while strengthening the federal government, makes the American people weaker than ever. A people who look to the government for their sustenance and to protect them from their own mistakes and from the adverse vicissitudes of life will inevitably be a weak people. The economic question is: How long can these paternalistic programs continue? Is the final day of reckoning just being delayed? After all, don’t forget that these programs of unfunded liabilities stretch all the way back to the New Deal in the 1930s. Every few years, a new crisis materializes, only to be jerry-rigged by the feds. Most everyone assumes that the process can go on forever. The government gets its money in one of three ways — taxation, borrowing, or printing it (i.e., inflation). Regardless of which method is used, it all comes from the pockets of the American people. It’s fairly easy for public officials to issue these types of bailout plans. They just have to pass a law that doles out the goodies. But consider all the potential liabilities the federal government has incurred as part of being the people’s daddy. People’s retirement (Social Security). People’s healthcare bills (Medicare and Medicaid). FDIC insurance for people’s bank accounts. The savings and loan bailout. The home mortgage bailout. And countless more. Most everyone assumes that while there might be a crisis here or there, the federal government will easily be able to deal with it. But what happens if there is a perfect storm of several industry-wide collapses? For example, instead of a few banks failing what happens if there are bank runs on 90 percent of the banks? How is the government going to cover everyone’s losses? By taxing everyone? So, let’s see: Someone loses $50,000 because his bank (and everyone else’s) fails. To get the money to pay him off (and everyone else), the government taxes him $50,000. How does he come out ahead with that kind of “insurance”? But hope springs eternal and faith in the power of Caesar never fails. People honestly believe that despite the fact that the federal government has had a system in place ever since the New Deal that sustains and protects weakness, it will go on forever. All that’s needed is a new paternalistic program every few years. Oh, don’t forget that the national debt, which continues to grow each day, is now at 9.5 trillion or about $31,000 per person. Five years ago, it was at about $26,000 per person. What if the day came when that debt had to be paid off? Could your family handle the tax to pay off its share of the debt? What if it came on the day that banks were failing on an industry-wide basis? What if it came when the Baby Boomers were all retiring and demanding their Social Security payments? But why think about such unpleasantries? Heck, maybe if we’re lucky we’ll all be dead when the day of reckoning finally arrives, leaving our children’s generation to deal with the problems. No one can say though that federal officials are dumb. People who are bailed out are likely to be very grateful to their federal daddy for having helped them out. How likely is it that bailout recipients will ever challenge the government at a core level? Who’s going to bite the hand that feeds him? Oh sure, people will carp about governmental inefficiency or call for reform of this or that government program, but when it comes to questioning such things as torture, wars of aggression, occupations, warrantless searches, and socialist bailouts, the lips of weak and dependent child-adults are likely to be silent or kissing the boots of their federal providers. That’s why Roman officials used “bread and circuses” as they extended the reach of their Empire around the world. Our American ancestors understood that the more powerful the government is, the weaker the people will be. Thus, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that for more than a century Americans lived without such socialist programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, income taxation, welfare, mortgage bailouts, and the like. Americans also believed it was morally wrong to use government to take money from one person in order to give it to another person. As federal officials prepare to enlarge their socialist feeding trough once again, alas, the principles of economic liberty and limited government are lost on the weak and dependent child-adult Americans of today who are preparing to do the feeding. Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Hornberger’s Blog Archives Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email. <!– YOU MAY USE ONE OF THESE INSTEAD Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog “Free Association” at www.sheldonrichman.com. Send him email. Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, and editor of The Freeman magazine and author of “‘Ancient History’: U.S. Conduct in the Middle East since World War II and the Folly of Intervention.”. Send him email. Anthony Gregory is a research analyst at the Independent Institute, a policy adviser for the Future of Freedom Foundation, and a columnist at LewRockwell.com. Anthony’s website is AnthonyGregory.com. Send him email. James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy [2006] as well as The Bush Betrayal [2004], Lost Rights [1994] and Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave-Macmillan, September 2003) and serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email. Richard Ebeling is the Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College in Michigan and serves as vice president of academic affairs at The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email. Scott McPherson is a policy advisor at The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email. Bart Frazier is program director at The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email. Benjamin Powell is an assistant professor of economics at San Jose State University and serves as academic advisor to The Future of Freedom Foundation. He conducted research on the Irish economy as a fellow with the Mercatus Center’s Global Prosperity Initiative. Send him email. George C. Leef is the director of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh, North Carolina, and book review editor of The Freeman. Send him email Wendy McElroy is the author of The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival (Prometheus Books, 1998). For additional articles on current events by Ms. McElroy, please visit the Commentary section of our website. Ken Sturzenacker is a financial advisor and long-time libertarian activist residing in Pennsylvania. Send him email. Benedict LaRosa is a historian and writer with undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from the U.S. Air Force Academy and Duke University, respectively. Send him email. Karen De Coster is a freelance writer and CPA residing in Michigan. Send her email Laurence M. Vance teaches at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, Florida. Send him email. William L. Anderson teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland. Send him email. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. Copyright 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc. (www.creators.com). Reprinted by permission. Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Send him email. Gregory Bresiger is a business writer living in Kew Gardens, New York. Send him email. Jarret Wollstein is a director at The International Society for Individual Liberty and co-founder of the original Society for Individual Liberty in 1969. He is the author of 28 books and special reports, including Surviving Terrorism and Shadow Over the Land: The Government’s War On Your Liberty. Sam Bostaph is head of the professor of economics and chairman, Department of Economics, University of Dallas.. Send him email. END AUTHOR IDENTIFICATION SAMPLES –>

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