First you made a disingeneous argument about dependency, asserting that the public services are the same as private goods delivered by the government.

Now, you discard that argument and conflate insurance with welfare and I suppose sensing the logical insupportability of that argument, just make an ipso facto declaration of “entitlement”.

The reason you need insurance isn’t because other people are “entitled”-it’s because you might kill or maim people with your four-wheel missile. But your argument fails on two fronts, because your insurance ensures that people YOU HARM are indemnified and you rely on other people to make a similar arrangements in the event you are harmed. In short, there’s reciprocity.

Are there some people who”need” welfare isn’t the question. For some, who are injured, have defects or deformities, in a time when private relief is displaced by the government, yes.

However that’s not the question. The question is, should there be welfare that is unending, without condition or even expectaction, creates a moral hazard and allows leftist parties politicians and the Marxist weevils that infest them to defile and debase politics. The left has all kinds of bloviate to support it’s kleptocraptic mindset, but it is still be theft-and theft with the purpose of reducing people to malleable chattel and denying them the dignity God intended. Then again, I know where I stand and where you stand.

@VDD

Amen!

@Howard

Who denies the existence of corporate welfare? Worse, people hear phrases like “agricultural subsidies” and they imagine farmer Smith working his 40 acres-not Archer Daniels Midland or Conagra. Now if you could just imagine how much corporate welfare is wrapped in nice labels like “social service”. Here’s a question for you-ever wonder why so many credit card statements have payment addresses in Wilmington, DE?

@VDD:

“But to compete one has to have a lower cost”.

Only if you can’t provide better value. There are plenty of examples of people and companies that compete on value-one you might even have taken a bite out of.

Globalization opened markets for weaker countries – one can argue the merits or demerits of it. But to compete one has to have a lower cost. That means for the US to compete against low wages in China it has to have more productivity, more competitive wages, and a lower tax environment (to reduce cost of business). Instead, we have had more regulations which has stifled the productivity we saw in the past decades and higher business costs. Most countries with big “progressive” (I hate this hypocritical word) burdens are the ones suffering now because they choose to expand these programs in a globalized environment.

I think it is the progressive movement and the Democrat Party that does not see their errors. You are right that globalization is the reality but handing out money to people without a corresponding increase in productivity is just kicking the can down the road and will eventually hurt the people you want to help.

To equate this to Marxism is a real low comment. This is macroeconomics based on Capitalism. Sure they both deal with materialism but that is the scope of the topic and to suggest that it is its entirety is being misleading on your part.

The ‘dole’ is now called ‘job seekers allowence’. Those not taking appropriate measures to actually ‘seek’ employment will loose this ‘entitlement’. The same types of checks and ballences apply as to the performances street sweepers etc. (10 to one weighting, of course, as above. Genuine cases take precedence.)

In a compassionate society the genuinely unemployed, the disabled etc are ‘entitled’… The hand-out concept is unfair. Milton Freedman’s idea that abolishing welfare would create full employment is suspect. We would all end up in penury – the famous ‘race to the bottom’. Or are some of us immune to this? So privileged as to be above this possibility?

My wife is Catholic. Her ‘problem’, not ‘objection’, with welfare is that it can make Christians believe that their obligation to, not just give alms, but to corporal acts of mercy is taken care of.

My philosophical studies mentioned the distinction between the ‘Good Samaritan’ and the ‘minimally decent Samaritan’. Tax directed to genuine welfare is a basic minimum. People are ‘entitled’. I am obliged to insure my car. Given the dangers of motor travel there is no reasonable case for ‘opt out’ here. To pay into a welfare system with my tax monies is enlightened self interest at the very least.

Can it really ever be the case that nobody needs welfare?