The democtic dilemma

THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC DILEMMA It starts with FDR and The New Deal and in particular social security. During the depression days of the 30’s people suffered from various economic difficulties including not having enough money to live on after retirement. Families took care of each other but some people were alone and needed help. The government responded by starting social security and over the years it has become the most effective and most expensive of all government programs. While the economic benefits to seniors were significant the political benefits to Democrats were spectacular. They became known as the party of the poor and they were rewarded with control of the congress that lasted sixty years. This reputation for helping the poor was reinforced when LBJ introduced The Great Society and government health insurance for seniors called Medicare. While participants paid in to these programs the cost eventually exceeded the fees and the difference was picked up by the government. As time passed more programs were introduced and many of these were paid for in total by the government. Some common programs are public assistance, food stamps, Women’s and Infants Children’s benefits, low income housing, senior housing and health care called Medicaid. Politicians who promoted these types of programs did so under the idea of helping those in need which over time morphed into the concept of fairness. Unspoken in this way of thinking was the basic premise that some people are unable or unwilling to care for themselves. From this it was concluded that it is the government’s responsibility to take money from those who have more and give it to those who have less. The interpretation of more and less would be determined by government officials. In a capitalistic free market economy it is always easy to point out inequities and politicians quickly jumped on those to reinforce their concept of fairness. Of course there is a limit to their idea of fairness. Since the average family income in the United States is $50,000 what could be fairer than having all families earn $50,000. Politicians begin to have second thoughts when any change might adversely affect them. So we have now arrived at a point where millions of people are dependent on the government for their very survival and thus dependent on those politicians who purport to help them and here is where the dilemma comes to the surface. Elected liberals must continue to help those in need but they cannot ever admit that people cannot care for themselves as this would be viewed as condescending. This puts them in the position of living a lie. One of the reasons that liberal talk shows are not popular is that it is impossible for a liberal to talk for an hour without revealing his belief that the poor cannot take care of themselves. It slips out in between the words and since people don’t want to hear that they turn to another station. G