A Nation of Moochers (37 page)

for cell phones

for childcare

competency assumptions tied to

converter boxes, television, and

corporate

for disaster relief

educational/school-related

for ethanol

food stamps and

GI Bill and

health service–related

home/housing-related

incentive to work and

lobbying for/favoritism in

meal programs, school, and

for moviemaking

national debt impacted by

pork spending and

public employees and

reform of

Social Security and

tax credits and

unemployment and

for upper-class/wealthy

welfare and

worker’s compensation and

Sufi, Amir

Summers, Lawrence

TARP.
See
Troubled Asset Relief Program

tax(es)

deficit’s relation to

exemptions from

fraud related to

income

tax credits

corporate

Earned Income

for homes

Making Work Pay

middle-class penalization in

for moviemaking

refundable

transferable

Tax Foundation

Tea Party

Thatcher, Margaret

Time Warner Cable

The Town
(movie)

TracFone

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (House)

Travel Promotion Act

Treasury Department, U.S.

corporate bailout by

homeowner bailout by

Treasury for Economic Policy

Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
See also
bailout of 2008-09

Turner, Ted

Tyrell, Patrick

“Underwater and Not Walking Away” (White)

unemployment insurance

cost of

dependency fostered by

user statistics for

United Auto Workers

Universal Service Administrative Company

Universal Service Fee

University of Arizona

University of Chicago

USA Today

on disaster relief programs

on personal income

on public employees

on school meal programs

on welfare use

USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Livestock Compensation Program by

Vanity Fair

Voegeli, William

on redistribution of wealth

Wahlberg, Mark

Walker, Scott

Wall Street

bailout of

mortgage securities and

The Wall Street Journal

on corporate initiatives

on mortgage defaults

on public employees

Ward Micky

The Washington Post

on agricultural subsidies

on corporate lobbying

on disaster relief

on real estate bubble

Washington State University, Washington

Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri

welfare.
See also
subsidy/entitlement programs, government

cell phones and

incentive to work and

reform

spending on

stigma of

user statistics for

WHEDA.
See
Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority

White, Brent

WiFi, theft of

The Wire
(TV show)

Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA)

Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

Wisconsin, public employees in

worker’s compensation insurance

work incentive.
See
incentive, work

World War I

World War II

Yarborough, Pete

Yonkers, New York, public employees in

Young, Whitney

ZBB Energy Corporation

Zingales, Luigi

Zoi, Cathy

Zuckerberg, Mark

ALSO BY CHARLES J. SYKES

50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School

The End of Privacy

Dumbing Down Our Kids

A Nation of Victims

The Hollow Men

ProfScam

About the Author

CHARLES J. SYKES is senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and a talk-show host at WTMJ radio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has written for
The New York Times
,
The Wall Street Journal
, and
USA Today
, and is the author of six previous books:
A Nation of Victims
,
Dumbing Down Our Kids
,
ProfScam, The Hollow Men, The End of Privacy
, and
50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School
.

A NATION OF MOOCHERS.
Copyright © 2011 by Charles J. Sykes. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print version as follows:

Sykes, Charles J., 1954–

         A nation of moochers : America’s addiction to getting something for nothing / Charles J. Sykes. — 1st ed.

             p.   cm.

     ISBN 978-0-312-54770-7 (hardcover)

     ISBN 978-1-4299-5107-4 (e-book)

     1.  Public welfare—United States.   2.  Subsidies—United States.   3.  United States—Social policy—1993–   4.  United States—Economic policy—2009–   I.  Title.

         HV95.S95 2012

         361.6'50973—dc23

2011036244

e-ISBN 9781429951074

First Edition: January 2012

*
More than 50 million were on Medicaid (another 16 million will be added under Obamacare); more than 40 million on food stamps; 10 million on unemployment; and 4.4 million on welfare. Reported
USA Today
: “The federal price tag for Medicaid has jumped 36% in two years, to $273 billion. Jobless benefits have soared from $43 billion to $160 billion. The food stamps program has risen 80%, to $70 billion. Welfare is up 24%, to $22 billion.” Even so, these numbers greatly understate the extent or cost of the dependency culture.

*
The Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance lists 2,025 federal subsidy programs, including 383 Health and Human Service programs, 230 in Agriculture, and 168 in Education, each with active, organized, and well-connected interest groups braying for increased funding. The result has been an explosion in the proportion of the national income paid by government rather than earned in the private sector.

*
Although defeated by the Board of Supervisors, the so-called sit/lie ordinance, which banned sitting or lying on public sidewalks citywide between 7
A.M.
and 11
P.M.
, was approved by voters in November 2010.

*
The subtitle of his book is
The Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism.
Davies writes from a generally liberal position that largely defends FDR liberalism against the postmodern version that arose in the late 1960s.

*
Here’s how it works: The Daveys receive £439 in “income support,” an £87 housing benefit, £53 for “carer’s allowance,” £119 for “disability living allowance,” £99 in child benefit, and £18 for “council tax benefit,” for a total of £815 a week.

*
Some readers think he is merely describing graduate school. I will leave it to readers to decide if the writer was being satirical or was in earnest; in either case, his advice seems to be widely embraced.

*
Notes Sowell: 80 percent of individuals 65 and older are either homeowners or home buyers, and those individuals report median monthly housing costs of just $339. In addition, households headed by people aged 70–74 “have the highest average wealth of any age bracket in American society” even though their income is lower. The average income of households headed by someone over the age of 65, he notes, “is nearly 3 times the wealth of households headed by people in the 35 to 44 year old bracket—and more than 15 times the wealth of households headed by people under 35 years of age.” (Sowell,
Economic Facts and Fallacies,
p. 13.)

*
The cell phone freebies are subsidized by the Universal Service Fee, essentially a tax on phone service that was originally used to subsidize rural phone bills. The program was expanded in the Reagan years with the creation of the Lifeline program, which provided modest subsidies for the phone bills of poor people. In 1996, Congress further expanded the subsidy program by creating the Universal Service Administrative Company with the express mission of ensuring “all Americans, including low-income consumers and those who live in rural, insular, high cost areas, shall have affordable service and [to] help to connect eligible schools, libraries, and rural health care providers to the global telecommunications network.” While this subsidy was largely still limited to landline phones, in 2008, under the Bush administration, it spawned a further subsidy known as Safelink, which began providing free cell phones.