I always thought that the description of federal programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Unemployment Insurance as forming a social “safety net” was both an appropriate term to describe the public’s original intent for supporting these programs, but also a greatly misunderstood term by those who have advocated for the growth and extension of coverage of these programs over the last 45 years. Putting the budgetary strains caused by the explosive growth of these programs to the side for a moment, the hard fact we must face is that any net that catches 47{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of our citizens is no longer a safety net.
The metaphor of a “safety net” comes from the practice in the circus of using large nets to protect acrobats from falling during their risky work on the high-wire acts of the trapeze or the tightrope. The use of this metaphor was appropriate because life in a free society is a daily, risky struggle for each of us—like a daily walk across a tightrope. No matter how hard we prepare for and struggle with those risks, something may happen to any of us at any moment, through no fault of our own, to cause one of us to fall from our tightrope.
At one time, the only help we needed in our struggle across the tightrope of life was the hand of a family member, a friend or neighbor, or a member from our congregations or civic organizations. But, just as circuses realized that ever greater risks required the addition of safety nets, as our life struggles became more complex, we decided as a society that we should provide a safety net. So, the modern safety net was meant to protect us from a momentary fall that our efforts alone, or with the help of family and neighbors, could not avoid. It was there to protect us from having a momentary fall from which we could bounce back unto tightrope, turn into a destructive catastrophe from which we could never recover.
But just as the safety net in the circus was never meant to replace the struggle of acrobats on the high-wire acts, our public safety net was never meant to replace the risks of our daily struggles, which are a natural consequence of living in a free society; nor was it meant to replace the supporting role of our families, neighbors and congregations. Instead, public programs were to provide an ultimate net below this intricate web of private, local relationships, which was our first level of protection.
However, when advocates for expansive federal programs use the term “safety net,” they no longer are describing the protective net below the life of free men and women, but rather they are advocating replacing the risk of the tightrope with a floor for us to walk across, and advocating a system that no longer needs the web of relationships of family, neighbors and congregations to help us across the tightrope. If these advocates successfully implement their plan, those walking on the floor will soon lose the life skills to accept the risks of a free life, just as an acrobat would lose the skill to walk the tightrope if he or she was told to practice only by walking across a concrete floor. Eventually, we will become dependent on the floor provided by government, rather than on our own skills and on the support of our local relationships. And that dependency will rot and destroy our capability to live together in a free society.
We can’t afford this creeping dependency—either economically, politically or spiritually—and we have reached a tipping point when as many as 47{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of us no longer try to struggle across the tightrope of freedom with the help of family and friends, but instead walk across the floor of government programs. I believe that was the core of what Romney was trying to say that night in Florida.
We need to restore governments’ limited role of providing a true “safety net,” while we restore our own commitment to the struggle of a free life—the struggle of the “pursuit of happiness”—with all its necessary relationships, and all its risks and rewards. That may be the greatest issue at stake in this election.
As one of the 47 percent (I receive a military pension and have TRICARE military health insurance. I also expect to receive Social Security and Medicare in a few years), I think a whole lot of people are missing the point of the so-called feeling of entitlement. I feel entitled to my military pension and TRICARE because I earned them with 21 years of commissioned service. The pension was part of the deal and the reason I stayed in more than 20 years. Anyone could have earned the same benefits by spending 20 years in a green suit.
Social Security is a form of enforced annuity purchase by virtually all workers. It provides a secure minimal retirement income based on our contributions. Maybe the contributions are too low or maybe the system should be tweeked with age eligibility changes or some other changes. But it is there to guarantee a minimally sufficient retirement. As anyone whose 401K or IRA was slaughtered in 2008 or whose employer got out of a pension plan in bankruptcy court, I am darn glad that there is a guaranteed old age benefit.
I’m not saying that these benefits and programs do not need close looks. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and the Democrats, especially Tip O’Neill, saved Social Security with relatively minor tweeks like rasing the age to collect full benefits and raising the maximum amount of contributions.
The government regularly changes the military retirement system to save money. Soldiers get a lousier pension system but the changes haven’t been retroactive so they get what they agreed to accept.
Many of these entitlements came from Republican presidents,such as food stamps and the earned income tax credits. They serve an important social function.
It is, however, interesting that when both halfs of Social Security and Medicare taxes are considered, working poor who pay no federal income taxes pay a higher percentage of their incomes to the federal government than does Gov. Romney.
Tom, thanks for your comment.
Notice that I never used the word “entitlement” in my post. Your use of the word is instructive.
These programs were intended to provide a safety net for those who needed help—food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid for those out of work or unable to work; the Earned Income Tax Credit for those trying to work themselves out of poverty; social security and Medicare to augment savings to keep retirees out of poverty; and military health care and pensions to augment the meager pay for our military, to honor their service, and to protect them from economic harm that may result from the inability to work because of injuries or wounds received in the line of duty. In fact, virtually every benefit transferred from present taxpayers has a present beneficiary who can argue that they need, earned, or helped pay for the benefit they now claim .
The problem isn’t the idea of the safety net, the problem is that when 47{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the country now receives these benefits (and this doesn’t even count the state and local pensions and benefits paid by present taxpayers at the local level), these programs no longer are providing a safety net to fellow citizens momentarily in need, but are providing entitled claims by some citizens against the taxes paid by other citizens. This fundamentally changes the nature of the programs, the nature of our relationship with our neighbors, and the nature of society’s relationship with its government.
As for your claim that you paid into Social Security and Medicare, and that the former is a forced annuity, the argument is just simply wrong. Both programs were established as transfer payments from workers to retirees—the taxes you and I have paid in were not saved and guaranteed to us, they were guaranteed and used for the benefits paid to past and current retirees. We may feel entitled to our future benefits because we paid taxes into the programs, and politicians may have marketed these programs as continuing “promises” to us, but the only guaranteed benefit is to present recipients—these programs are simply transfer programs with a specific tax source. If they are to continue, they will need to be reformed to make them financially viable, and the idea of annuitizing Social Security is a great idea whose time has come—but it is not an annuity now.
Finally, I don’t begrudge a man like Romney for the tax rate he pays, because taxes on the money he now invests was taxed at a higher rate when it was first earned, and a lower capital gains rate on investment income has been shown time and again, under administrations of both parties, to create and maintain economic growth by promoting investment in capital. Most importantly, I can’t begrudge a man who, between his state, local and federal tax payments and his private charitable contributions, contributed over 54{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of his income last year to the public.
spot on and well stated.
The 47{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} is largely "immigrants" who are being supplemented from Third World status to provide a bountiful labor supply to the business community here in the USA. If all illegals were deported and requirements for "legal status or residency" were tightened this would lower your figure considerably.A wide open border and the partnership with Mexico begun in 2004 under Bush cannot be ignored."U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Nutrition Assistance initiative, which educates Mexican immigrants about food stamps and other assistance."
The "safety net" was abused by those in power as a stealth hidden cost to unwitting taxpayers. The black community suffers high double-digit unemployment yet they are now passed over in favor of foreign workers.American working classes are also passed over because they do not speak Spanish, ditto in the black community.It's not a wonder then that AMERICAN CITIZENS are forced into food stamps.So what is the Republican party doing? Ignoring and pushing "Hispanic Outreach & "guest-worker programs".
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/01/vilvilsack-reacts-to-republican-concerns-about-mexican-nutrition-awareness/#ixzz289lPifEd.
Notice how this type of thing is ignored. EXCERPT: "However, his letter indicates the number of legal, noncitizens participating in the program — now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — has increased from 425,000 to 1.23 million between 2001 and 2010. And a Republican Budget Committee staffer told The Daily Caller, which first reported the Vilsack letter, the estimated number of legal, noncitizens in the food stamp program is now roughly 1.63 million — more than double the number who participated in 2008."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/01/vilvilsack-reacts-to-republican-concerns-about-mexican-nutrition-awareness/#ixzz289xzamUQ