How much should a Government do for its people?
It’s a simple sounding question with extremely complex answer but it’s the most important question facing America today.
How much should a country invest in its people? Not in terms of monetary investments, but in terms of social programs.
Republicans and Tea Partiers will tell you that Medicaid, Medicare, TANF/Welfare, Food Stamps and maybe even unemployment insurance are nothing but government entitlement programs that should be discontinued and dismantled immediately. Their dream “limited government” society would leave people to fend for themselves.
This, the Republicans/Tea Partiers say, would encourage people to work their butts off and do whatever is necessary to make ends meet and look after themselves and their families rather than being apparently lazy slobs who just want to suck off the government teat.
The problem though is this: America would be much WORSE off if all those programs are scrapped. Let’s face it, Glenn Beck’s pipe dream would be a nightmare for millions of middle and lower income individuals reliant on government aid.
Ending all the social programs would immediately suck BILLIONS of dollars out of the economy, plunge the country into a second recession and in all likelihood lead to civil unrest if not outright revolt amongst certain groups.
Do you know there are some people who work two jobs and still get government aid in the form of food stamps? Would Beck and Limbaugh think these people are lazy or not working hard enough?
Better still, if that person working two jobs and collecting food stamps has only limited health insurance (or none at all), they’ll be stuck with high medical bills if an emergency comes up. The point is that if people were left to “Fend for themselves”, many would not make it. This is not simply because the government help would be gone, but because free enterprise would not do an adequate job of filling the gap. No matter how much the Fox talking heads tell you so, it’s simply not true.
Free enterprise and capitalism are PROFIT driven. Corporations care only about how much money than can make and nothing else. Major banking institutions complain about the new regulations enacted by the Obama administration while apparently failing to realize that if they had acted ethically, morally and legally in the first place than the additional regulations would never have been needed.
Then there’s the question of health care. The whole reason the public option was left out of Obamacare was because there was so much public resistance to it. The truth is much of this resistance was driven by Republicans and Tea Partiers.
There are some who believe all citizens of a nation have the right to affordable health care and that the government should help provide it. I tend to agree but only if the costs are looked after. Universal health care may limit out of pocket costs, but it’s certainly NOT free. Be prepared to pay higher taxes if it ever passes.
But back to the question at hand.
What should a government provide for its people? Should they provide health care? Food stamps? Welfare payments? All of the above?
Or maybe nothing at all?