![\"Working](\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/Welfare_State_01_190px.jpg\" "\\"Welfare_State_01_190px\\"")
by Anthony W. Hager –<\/p>\n by Anthony W. Hager –<\/p>\n
Leftists promote entitlement programs as necessary to meeting essential human needs, and there’s an element of truth in their position, for there are essential human needs. However, leftists omit a key fact. There exists no right to receive life’s essentials at another person’s expense.<\/strong><\/p>\n Fifty years’ worth of war on poverty has produced little benefit, save for a few valuable lessons.\u00a0 For instance, we’ve learned about the valiant struggle the disadvantaged wage against capitalist oppression.\u00a0 The homeless, the hungry, and the downtrodden are victims of free-market greed.\u00a0 But there’s one participant in Washington’s war on poverty who’s routinely ignored, one whose plight the pointy-headed elites never champion: the working chump. <\/p>\n Lest anyone get the wrong idea, working chumps are identified not by their intellectual prowess but by their productivity.\u00a0 Their status ranges from the professional to the tradesman, the rich to the poor.\u00a0 Such people are driven to meet their own needs and become agitated when others shun that responsibility.\u00a0 While such productive people represent a declining<\/a> socioeconomic class, they are indispensable.\u00a0 The entitlement wagon is overloaded with passengers who favor the free ride.\u00a0 Did someone not pull that wagon, it would stall.\u00a0 No one would get what they need, much less what they want.\u00a0 Working chumps are the mules who pull the wagon. <\/p>\n Leftists promote entitlement programs as necessary to meeting essential human needs, and there’s an element of truth in their position, for there are essential human needs.\u00a0 However, leftists omit a key fact.\u00a0 There exists no right to receive life’s essentials at another person’s expense.<\/p>\n Voluntarily contributing to a neighbor’s well-being is charitable. Being forced to provide for another’s needs is a form of servitude.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Voluntarily contributing to a neighbor’s well-being is charitable.\u00a0 Being forced to provide for another’s needs is a form of servitude.\u00a0 How else can we describe people who are forced to relinquish their property — expressed as the return on their labor — for their neighbors’ personal benefit? \u00a0Just as charity isn’t a vice, forced contribution isn’t charity, even when the needs of the “entitled” are life’s necessities.\u00a0 How much more when entitlement extends from essentials to convenience?<\/p>\n Perhaps you’ve heard of Assurance Wireless?\u00a0 If not, it’s a program that provides clients with 250 minutes of free cellular service each month.\u00a0 More talkative Assurance customers can receive 500 minutes for $5 a month, and 1,000 voice minutes plus 1,000 text messages for $20 a month.\u00a0 But there’s a flaw: Assurance isn’t free.\u00a0 Someone must subsidize the free or reduced rates.\u00a0 That someone is the working chump.<\/p>\n Assurance is funded through the federal Universal Service Fund (USF).\u00a0 Basically, the USF<\/a> is a tax that appears on phone and wireless bills.\u00a0 In theory, this tax is collected from communications companies to ensure affordable telecommunications services in remote or high-cost areas.\u00a0 In reality, customers pay the USF.\u00a0 Therefore, the working chump who pays the USF tax is subsidizing yet another welfare program.<\/p>\n Now, labeling Assurance Wireless a welfare program is a stern accusation, one in need of substantiation.\u00a0 Fortunately, confirming evidence<\/a> is readily available.\u00a0 Qualifying for Assurance is as simple as participating in an approved entitlement program: Medicaid, food stamps, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, public housing, free school lunch, or low-income energy assistance programs. \u00a0If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.\u00a0 Likewise, when a program’s qualifying criterion is participation in a welfare program, and the program’s cost is covered or subsidized through government imposed taxes or fees, it’s a welfare program.<\/p>\n Successful cultures aren’t built upon the premise that unproductive people have the right to necessity or convenience at others’ expense.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The economy isn’t technically in recession, but it’s far from robust, causing many productive families to trim their budgets.\u00a0 One way to stretch their dollars is through no-contract, or prepaid, cellular plans.\u00a0 While prepaid cellular options sometimes are limited, they are affordable.\u00a0 However, prepaid cellular customers work not only to maintain their limited services, but also to provide the entitlement class with better cellular plans than they themselves can afford.\u00a0 Productive people are being played for chumps — working chumps.\u00a0 Count me in their number.<\/p>\n Successful cultures aren’t built upon the premise that unproductive people have the right to necessity or convenience at others’ expense. \u00a0But more and more Americans perceive themselves entitled. \u00a0Whether it’s necessities like food and shelter or luxuries like cellular phones, working chumps continue to meet the demands of an ungrateful entitlement class.<\/p>\n The government, media, and intelligentsia are quick to defend those who ride in the entitlement wagon.\u00a0 Yet no one defends the working chump, whose productivity keeps that wagon rolling.\u00a0 The chumps can’t pull the load forever.\u00a0 Someday the weight will become too great, and both the wagon and its riders will be left sitting by the side of the road.<\/p>\n HT: American Thinker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Anthony W. Hager – Leftists promote entitlement programs as necessary to meeting essential human needs, and there’s an element of truth in their position, for there are essential human needs. However, leftists omit a key fact. There exists no right to receive life’s essentials at another person’s expense. Fifty years’ worth of war on … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,79,72,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communism","category-freedom","category-leftism","category-leftist-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}