The 47% solution

Mitt Romney got hammered in the press when he said – in a secretly recorded speech – that 47% of the public wouldn’t vote for him because they were dependent on government benefits.

Democrats went wild.  They accused him of being a heartless monster.  How dare he attack people who – through no fault of their own – needed government benefits to simply survive? 

Democrats kept saying how callous and uncaring he must be to think that the 47% wanted to be dependent on government assistance.

Why, everybody knew the 47% would much rather be working full-time jobs and earning their own way.  But for one reason of another – age, infirmity, bad luck, whatever – they just can’t.  They needed government assistance.  To deny it would be cruel. 

To support this, the media trotted out a carefully selected portrait of the 47%.  They showed veterans. The homeless.  Grandma and Grandpa.  Children in single-parent households.  The unemployed.  And of course the disabled and their caretakers.    

Oh the humanity … And oh, what bullshit. 

Mitt was correct.  His only error was getting caught speaking the absolute truth. 

Certainly there are people getting government benefits who truly need them, or have honestly earned them.  Certainly there are also people using those benefits as a temporary measure until they get back on their feet.  And certainly there are some who would rather be working.

But it’s also apparent that a significant portion of able-bodied, working age adults getting those benefits simply don’t want to work.  Or work harder to get ahead.  And they don’t have to. 

They are perfectly content to use government money instead of their own to fund their lifestyle, feed their kids, pay their smartphone bills, and subsidize their trips to the grocery store.  Why wouldn’t they?  If they work it right, they can get the equivalent of a $40k to $60k annual income without ever leaving their couch.    

And now, free or heavily subsidized healthcare.   Why work at all? 

They’ve done the math.  The government’s pushed them in that direction as well.  It’s promoted the idea of Uncle Sam helping pay for all kinds of things.  So you can’t blame them for taking free money when it’s being pushed at them. 

The CBO just released a report that the way the Affordable Care Act is written it actually will encourage some workers to quit their full-time jobs and take lower-paying part-time gigs to get more generous subsidies.  We might lose the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time jobs over time as a result.     

Some seem surprised at this.  I’m not.  Democrats aren’t either.  In fact, some of them have been promoting this as another example of the ACA’s “liberating” effect on the working public.  They have gone as far as to state that this is a very good thing because it opens new “options” for workers to have more free time to spend with their families.   

The truth about the ACA, or ObamaCare, is that Democrats created it by design as a Trojan Horse.  The purpose of the ACA was really never solely to insure the uninsured as claimed. 

It was to fulfill a number of liberal Democrat ideals. 

One of those – never stated, but clearly implied by various policies – is apparently to diminish the importance of a work ethic. 

I guess that’s to improve the self-image of all those people who could work but don’t want to.  We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, do we?   That’s why we created the EBT card system, isn’t it?  The EBT card looks and functions just like a credit or debit card. Isn’t that thoughtful? 

There used to be a certain dignity to having a paying job of any kind and earning your own way.  Kids cut lawns, delivered papers, shoveled snow, babysat or ran a lemonade stand because the money they earned was their own.  And kids were proud of that.  Most young adults were thrilled when they got their first “real” full-time job, despite the lousy pay and often crappy hours. 

Work wasn’t always fun, but working was always a good thing. Most everyone agreed.   

Somewhere along the way, liberal Democrats changed their perspective on work.  They flipped the concept, for some unknown reason, to say that while there’s nothing wrong with working, there’s also nothing wrong with not working. 

Not working became acceptable in their view.  This went hand in hand with rewarding people for doing nothing.  Or working less.  Only now, the rewards get better and better all the time. 

Some months ago I reported the tale of the guy who turned down a promotion and raise because earning more would mean a cut in the childcare subsidies he was getting.  The tsk-tsk of the article I was quoting from was how unfair it was that he couldn’t keep the extra pay AND the generous subsidies at the same time. He had to give up one to keep the other.  He chose the subsidies. 

A lot of people have figured this out.  The message the government is sending out is if you really don’t feel like working, you don’t have to.  If you don’t feel like working that hard, we’ll support you in that, too.  Want to lope along in a part-time job so you have more time to hang out with your pals, that’s cool.  We’ll make sure you don’t starve.  And if you get sick, we’ll take care of you. 

What a country.  What a future. 

So is anyone really surprised that the CBO found that the ACA will help slackers everywhere to have more “freedom” and “options” about how much they want to work?  The less they work, the less they make, the higher the subsidy they get.  If they don’t work at all it’s essentially free. 

If we keep going this way the 47% will soon be in the majority.

Maybe that’s the goal:  to get people to vote for a living instead of working for a living.