Huey Long once said to a crowd of Louisianans, so the story goes, “If you aren’t getting something for nothing, you aren’t getting your fair share.”
More and more Americans seem to be buying into that logic. According to this piece in the New York Times (with accompanying interactive map), the share of government benefits in personal income has doubled over the past four decades and now constitutes close to 18 percent of all personal income in America.
Via Meadia can’t help but notice that something else has also grown during these decades of the Great Redistribution: inequality in income. So doubling the federal dole hasn’t stopped America from becoming more unequal. One wonders what blue model partisans will do now? Double it again?
Successful social policy would have the government’s role in income support declining over time—unless, that is, the goal is to create a permanent client class that depends on Uncle Sam for its daily bread.
Via Meadia would like to see plans to reverse the ratchet of income transfers and pave the way toward a more sustainable safety net.
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