Don’t let Democrats turn America into a European welfare state

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The ideas they use to justify their agenda are more destructive than any specific political point modern Democrats put forward this year.

The $ 3.5 trillion bill that President Joe Biden and the Democrats are now trying to push through Congress through reconciliation is aimed at creating a European-style, cradle-to-grave welfare state here in the United States. Senator Bernie Sanders, the mover of the Senate bill, has for years praised systems across the Atlantic. Like many other Democrats.

There are numerous specific arguments against the agenda that further expands an already onerous bureaucratic state, but it is the idea that mainstream American life needs to be reimagined that should be rejected first. For the most virulent champions of European governance are invariably the most passionate critics of the dynamism and glorious disorder of American life. The factors that propel our economic superiority – unplanned and lightly regulated, individualistic and seemingly messy free markets – irritate the technocratic sensibilities of Democrats. For them, even American exceptionalism, the idea that the United States occupies a unique position in the history of the world, is ugly and totally wrong.

Thus, they are now perpetuating a corrosive culture of victimization and addiction that already often permeates many European countries. And one of the Europhile’s most destructive untruths is his claim that meritocracy doesn’t even exist. To convince people of this, he will scare about growing poverty, shrinking “middle class”, rising inequality, and Americans’ inability to achieve their dreams without the paternalistic help of technocrats. (I debunk many of these claims in my new book, “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.”)

Americans have long touted the value of personal responsibility, although they have often been ridiculed by elites as hopelessly simplistic when they do. Yet, according to the World Values ​​Survey, 70 percent of Americans still believe that the poor can escape poverty if they work hard enough – even if you wouldn’t know it from listening to Democrats today. Only 35% of Europeans share this point of view. Europeans also believe that the rich do not deserve their wealth, which they often are due to a lack of entrepreneurship, numerous regulations and rent seeking.

Senator Bernie Sanders has often praised European social protection systems.
Photo by Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

Wealthy Americans are much more likely to have earned their money. In a long-term study titled “Family, Education, and Sources of Wealth Among Richest Americans, 1982-2012,” economists Steven N. Kaplan and Joshua D. Rauh investigated the behaviors and backgrounds of the top 400 people. wealthiest in the United States. over 30 years, as Forbes reports. They found that the share of the wealthy self-taught had increased from 40% in 1982 to 69% in 2011. Similarly, an analysis by finance researchers for the libertarian Cato Journal determined that half of the wealth in the Forbes 400 was been ‘newly created in a generation.

What Democrats refuse to recognize are the compromises that come with their utopia. They ignore or reject the economic drawbacks of dependency, and they reject the many fundamental freedoms, both individual and community, that are lost when living under the bureaucratic rule of a monolithic, centralized, soul-hungry enterprise like the European Union.

The progressives’ champion of the all-encompassing welfare system relies on transfer programs that present moral risks to society. As the money and benefits of redistribution become more generous, an increasing number of citizens are prompted to put aside their traditionally strong work ethic and rely on the state. We see it today, as the largest number of people who left the workforce during COVID-19 and did not return – despite the availability of jobs – are the ones who make more money on the benefits. unemployment than their old job.

No one should dismiss the inherent injustice that sometimes exists in any system, but a society that values ​​and encourages personal self-determination also creates a strong work ethic, a strong sense of fairness, and more opportunity. If we follow Europe, we risk losing these attributes.

Twitter: @DavidHarsanyi


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