The Nanny State of the Union

""Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." --Thomas Jefferson

Ever wonder how dependent the American people have become on the federal government compared to, say, a generation ago? Now, thanks to The Heritage Foundation's new study, "The 2005 Index of Dependency," we can answer that question -- but be forewarned; the data doesn't paint a pretty picture.

This informative study explores the degree, nature and effects of our dependence on government, examining five broad categories of socio-economic federal intervention: housing assistance, healthcare and welfare assistance, retirement income, post-secondary education subsidies and rural and agricultural services. With a benchmark dependence score of 100 for the year 1980, American citizens' dependence on federal government assistance has mushroomed to a score of 212 on the Heritage index, more than twice that of a generation ago.

The fact that such burgeoning government interventionism in state, community and private affairs is beyond the constitutional pale goes without saying. For the Founders, dependence on government in private and public life was to be avoided at all costs -- such dependence, as they rightly saw it, being the root of bondage. "Dependence," said Thomas Jefferson, no doubt reminiscent of the abuses of the British Crown, "begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." Independence, then, was the key to private liberty and public virtue.

By the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, however, "independence" was redefined to mean economic security -- and government was its guarantor. "Necessitous men are not free," Roosevelt told Congress, so their freedom must be guaranteed by the all-encompassing state. Eventually, the New Deal would give way to the Great Society, with Lyndon Johnson declaring that the purpose of government was no longer merely to guarantee rights -- government was to provide "not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and equality as a result."

So much for Jefferson's admonition.

All the same, perhaps that admonition is worth reconsidering. The real question emerging from Jefferson's warning is, does the growth of dependency fundamentally change the nature of our democracy? That's the question the Index of Dependency answers with such lucidity. (The answer, in case you're wondering, is a resounding yes.)

How, exactly, does our democracy change?"

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Mark M. Alexander Executive Editor and Publisher of The Patriot Post (PatriotPost.US)

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