That would be Mike Kitch of the Laconia Daily Sun who took great exception to a Notable Quote I put up some time ago:
"A democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority (who vote) will vote for those candidates promising the greatest benefits from the public purse, with the result that a democracy will always collapse from loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship."
-Lord Thomas MacCauley
At the time, we "had words", because of his absolute assumption that because it had never happened in the past, it was impossible to see that happen in the future. Well, dude, start reaching for your salt, because unless something drastic happens, you will be eating your words. With Obama doubling the level of where poverty benefits kick in (from 100% to 200% of the poverty level, more and more will come to be more dependent upon government – and that will turn into entitlement. As I have said before, Kitch is fine with the taking of money from the prudent and giving it to the profligate – after all, they NEED it more than we do (shades of Atlas Shrugs!).
But it is not just those in poverty that can vote and vote for more and more benefits (and with the US at the tipping point of almost 50% of the population receiving some sort of public dole) – there is another growing constituency that is aligned with that group.
It seems that others have recognized that special interests, in a coordinated fashion, of plundering the public treasuries (city, state, and national), as this article from the Washington Examiner points out:
Obama’s ascendance was no anomaly, but testament to the rise of a powerful political coalition in America made up of those who benefit from expanding government, including public-sector employees and their unions; activists at organizations that survive on government money; and recipients of government benefits.
Obama’s election in 2008 was merely the clearest indicator of the extent to which this coalition has successfully amassed power in the last 50 years.
Indeed. And I watched that here in Belknap County when the Commissioners, trying to be frugal, cut the budgets of these "outside agencies" – and holy hell descended upon those Commissioners at a meeting where the "gimme groups" all gnashed and wailed. Result: the feckless Republicans who controlled the "County Delegation" made sure that the money was put back in. Way to go for the brand, duds!
And that kept going, as the article points out:
The federal funds, eventually supplemented by state and local tax dollars, helped conjure a universe of government-funded community groups that ran everything from job-training programs to voter-registration drives to subsidized housing programs to mortgage counseling efforts.
Leaders of these social-services groups became advocates, unsurprisingly, for government-funded solutions to social problems. To defend and expand their turf, organizers began heading into the political arena, wielding the influence they had accumulated in neighborhoods to build bases of political support.
Doug dubbed this movement the "social services industrial complex" – and given that their jobs lie in the area of justifying their existence, more and more "needs" and more and more expansion into OTHER areas of society happened. Charities used so be in this space here in America (as de Tocqueville wrote) – now, lesser and lesser numbers of them exist in that "pure" form held up exclusively by actual community support (as defined by working solely on the donations.
After all, who CAN compete against the almighty Government Dollar? Charities became full time leaches off the public teat of taxpayer money. And as Dr. Arthur Brooks has pointed out, citizens start to do less and less in their communities individually the advance of this "we’ll take that responsibility from you"; the outsourcing of responsibility advances yet another notch.
This is especially evident, as politicians, mindful that their re-election may well hinge on not angering these groups that are so good at, well, community organizing. Make no mistake, however, it is never THEIR money they are trying to organize – it is YOURS.
But again, Kitch is down with that. In true Progressive fashion, our money is someone else’s money; he made that ABSOLUTELY clear.
"The nonprofit service sector has never been richer, more powerful," former welfare recipient Theresa Funiciello wrote in her 1993 book "Tyranny of Kindness". "Except to the poor, poverty is a mega-business."
Steven Malanga continues to walk through how the rise of these "extra governmental organizations" hooked up with each other and with the public sector unions which created a united front in a "line our pockets, we give you votes" political machine.
And as I am wont to say "the Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizen". Certainly, these special interests have led to bigger government. In MY town’s budgetary sessions, they keep on insisting that they actually ARE part of government under the rubric of "we’re all in this together", further blurring the line between Government and Society-at-Large) hooked up with the public sector. Or, until I demand to see their books – it seems they are part of Government ONLY when the signed check arrives – there is NO accountability by citizens of what happens later.
Fortunately for the rest of us, November is coming and with the public looking like it is rejecting the Progressive ideals that Kitch (and Obama) in whole, there may well be big differences coming. It does assume, now moderated by the uprising of TEA Party and 9-12 supporters calling for "fiscal sanity now!" / "smaller, limited government", IF the Republicans have listened. It ALSO assumes IF they will act accordingly (which has not happened in the immediate past).
Indeed, some States may get out trouble (like my own state of NH, where the Democrats has exploded overall spending by 23% and have up to an $800 million deficit for next year due to bringing Federal money into last year) if the assumptions hold up.
Democracy does not have to fail simply at the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun – it can fail at the tip of the bankruptcy pen. Look at the most recent example of this is Greece, having spent itself into a nose-plant. Among those states identified as next to fail, American States like California and Illinois (having been controlled by the unholy alliances of Progressive Democrats / public unions / and the new social services industrial complex) are also on that list.
Margaret Thatcher is now widely quoted on her concerning Socialism and other peoples money. What happens to a political unit, be it a state, city, or a nation, that runs out of money?
It can no longer last – and this is as true as if tanks come rolling over the border.
