Monday, June 4, 2012

From Middle Class to Welfare Class

Under the heading Threats to Safety Net Programs Must Stop, The NJ Star-Ledger published a letter-to-the-editor on 5/24/12 by Peter Mukerjee of Piscataway, NJ. Mukerjee wrote, in part:



   [T]here are bills moving through Congress for sweeping cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), the Child Tax Credit, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. These affect millions of low-income and disadvantaged children and families. Nearly 16 percent of our fellow citizens are in poverty, with nearly 16 million children facing hunger. Anti-poverty safety net programs are vital to their survival. Millions could descend into poverty with the proposed cuts in the Child Tax Credit.
   The draconian measures being considered this month in the House of Representatives will be used to give wealthy Americans and large corporations massive tax cuts. Middle-class Americans, the backbone of our society, will suffer. Our representatives in Congress should support a balanced approach to the budget that protects low-income Americans, expands the middle class and makes the American dream inclusive to all citizens.

Just where the sweeping cuts to these programs are eludes me. Republican House plans do no such thing. I' left the following comments, somewhat edited for clarity, under my S/L screen name:


Posted by zemack May 24, 2012 at 12:56PM
Peter Mukerjee’s concept of the “middle class” is more properly called the welfare class.
But in fact, the fundamental battle is not between the middle class and the rich, but between the productive and the parasitical. The productive encompasses anyone who makes money through his own thinking and work, from wealthy Americans and large corporations to the upwardly mobile poor. Their common interests are aligned behind free market policies that massively roll back taxes, spending, and regulations. Productive people don’t need government favors or to be told what to do. They need more freedom.
The parasitical encompasses any individual or corporation that seeks to thrive on government programs funded by tax money confiscated by force—i.e, theft—from the productive.
The Left has always known that they could not build a socialist state on the backs of the truly needy, because under Capitalism the truly needy are simply too small in number. The real prize has always been to turn the productive middle class into a vast welfare class. Destroy the middle class by turning them into government dependents, and the dream of totalitarian socialism becomes reality.
We are on our way. Notice how so-called middle class entitlements Social Security and Medicare are structured not as private savings vehicles but as redistribution programs. Notice how “anti-poverty” programs like Medicaid and food stamps keep expanding up the income scale, and keep multiplying like cancer cells. It is no accident that the economy is struggling just as the welfare state reaches its largest bulk ever.
That litany of “safety net programs” should be phased out and privatized, not merely "shaved"—slowing the groth of—as the House wants to do: i.e., they should be turned into private charities funded by voluntary donations, in order to lift the burden from the productive. That is the right and moral thing to do. Economic policy should be modeled on the requirements of the life-giving productive, not the greed of the parasitical or the powerlust of the welfare statists who exploit the needy to feed their own vanity.
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1 comment:

Mike Kevitt said...

You do hit'em in their intellectual power center, in terms of morality, human relations and politics. That might encourage their adversaries, but I doubt it bothers them.

They need to be hit in their physical power center. That means actually getting rid of legislation, eventually all legislation, that brings taxes, spending beyond gvt's. proper function, and regulation.

There are a few people and groups trying to do that, but, I think the ARC has the best potential, now and long-term. I think their meetings, starting this year, with congressional aids, is a good move in that direction.

A thorough rollback of the radical legislation, clear back to 1885 (then, back thru history), would destroy their physical power center. That would bother them. Being also without an intellectual power center, too, at that point, would also bother them.