Forty-two million Americans are on food stamps. That is 12 percent of the population, an obscene number for a country as great as the United States is supposed to be. And, of course, that government welfare doesn't include Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and other handout programs. Some of these programs are (theoretically) "pay-as-you-go" programs, but they've all taken in and paid out a whole lot more than they were intended to by those who established them. And, of course, these payouts don't include how much is being given to illegal aliens, many of whom came to America for the express purpose of receiving them.
As a result, the federal government is over $38 trillion in debt (that's over $111,000 for every American), and it's getting worse. Bankruptcy and implosion will come someday; we just can't predict exactly when.
The fault, of course, lies entirely with politicians, who are the scourge of the earth, the most destructive force the world knows, or has ever allowed to live. We give them power, and that means power over us, and if they do not have the wisdom and virtue to wisely use that power, which almost none of them do, then annihilation is foreordained. Politicians rarely use their power for the good of the people, but to maintain their own power. And, in a democracy, they do it by buying the votes of the people with money, often with the money of future generations. Current politicians, fortunately for them, probably won't be around when the final bill ends in disaster.
We've been warned in history about such despots and the devastation a welfare state will bring to a nation. Let me provide four quotes that illustrate this point.
The first is a familiar one to many of us, from 18th-century Scottish historian Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."
That's a pretty good explanation of exactly what has happened in most democracies through time, and could hardly be more accurate in describing current America. Politicians buy votes with the people's own money, and the people are too blind to realize what is happening. Both of America's political parties do it, but the Democrats are masters at it. It is the ONLY reason they win elections. They could never win one without it.
Benjamin Franklin concurred with Sir Tytler in our second quote, which is more succinct but makes the same observation:
"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
Note that old Ben said it was just a "herald" of the end of the Republic; it doesn't cause immediate collapse. But this trumpet has been blaring in America for several decades now, and it is warning us, ever more clearly, that we cannot go on like this forever. People voting themselves money will eventually destroy the Republic.
Alexis de Tocqueville, in a brilliant quote, explains why:
"Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class."
Note that "legal charity" (the welfare state) "creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class." How long can a nation survive laziness among huge numbers of people, a class that produces nothing, only parasites off those who do? Well, we don't know the answer to that question, but obviously, the longer the parasites suck the lifeblood of an economy from the productive sectors of society, they will continue to drain the wealth of that society, and create more dependents like themselves. Giving away money, de Tocqueville said, encourages the lazy, idle, and indigent. That money has to come from somewhere, and it's obvious from where it must come. Politicians know that the lazy and idle vote, especially if other people's money is transferred to them. It is what has happened in America and has put us countless trillions of dollars in debt.
Our Founding Fathers tried to prevent this from happening. James Madison, the man given most credit for writing our Constitution, wrote the following:
"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government...I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
I challenge anyone to search the American Constitution and find where giving food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc., are anywhere in that document. If you think you find it, argue with the man who wrote the document who says it ISN'T there. It wasn't that our Founding Fathers and early Americans were callous and hard-hearted toward the "needy poor." Those truly in need should be helped. But Madison and our Founders simply did not believe that government action was the best way to do it. They knew exactly what it would lead to—read quotes one through three again. And $38 trillion in debt, and rising, is a pretty good argument in their favor.
The welfare state isn't the only reason the federal government is in huge debt. But it's the main reason. And, frankly, there is nothing we can do about it. Nobody is talking about ending it and never will. It is an integral, unconstitutional component of our national budget, and it will be until it destroys the Republic. Politicians. The scum of the earth. We never listen to the wisdom of history.
My substacks are a little unique. Not just current events, but history, our Founding Fathers, what America was meant to be, and Biblical exegesis. Check them out. "Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com), and "Mark It Down! Bible Substack" (mklbibless.substack.com). Both free. Follow me on "X": @thailandmkl. Read my western novels, "Whitewater," "River Bend," "Return to River Bend," and "Allie's Dilemma," all available on Amazon.
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