Mitt Is Right

Mark Perry had a post up on this the other day.  Here it is.  Two facts:
1) Nearly half of Americans pay no income tax at all;
2) Nearly 70% of all government spending is just writing checks to people

Perry tells you why it matters.

Our long-term fiscal problems won’t be fixed until we address what might be our nation’s most serious fiscal-related problem: we’re increasingly becoming a European-style “entitlement nation,” with “payments to individuals” increasing both in absolute dollar amounts and as a share of total federal spending, while at the same time the share of Americans who face a zero or negative federal income tax liability is above 40 percent and rising.  In other words, a declining share of American taxpayers is being forced to finance the rising cost of the federal government, which is increasingly being spent on payments to individuals.

Yes, that's how you ring up $16 trillion in debt but it is also how you destroy society.  Go back all the way to Aristotle, to know how long we've understood this basic political reality.

"If the majority distributes among itself the things of a minority, it is evident that it will destroy the city."

Modern Greece is living this scenario out right now, the state runs economy for the benefit of state workers and favored constituencies...and the state has essentially been destroyed.  Greece is broken.

Finally, remember Peggy Joseph?  What happens when we have too many Peggy Josephs?  We are building a society where nearly half the people have no skin in the game and are placing ever larger demands on those who pay for the system.  This is wrong morally, but simply unsustainable as a practical measure.  The system will break eventually and the break down will be about as UNcompassionate as the compassion-mongers, who egg this on, could ever contemplate.