More than 100 million Americans now receive means-tested assistance from the federal government, according to data released this week by the Census. Scores of millions more receive old-age entitlements, targeted tax exemptions, and straight-up corporatist handouts. With a recovery still limping along, is this any way to run an economy?
That's the topic of tonight's episode of The Independents (Fox Business Network, 9 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. PT, with re-airs three and five hours later), titled "The United States of Welfare."
The show kicks off with Heritage Foundation Chief Economist Stephen Moore providing an overview of the history behind, successes of, and challenges to the Clinton/Gingrich 1990s welfare reform. The Wall Street Journal's Jason Riley, author of Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed, will then come on to talk about the ballyhooed "culture of dependency." Beloved Reason Senior Editor Peter Suderman arrives to talk about Medicaid and Obamacare, followed by Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner, who will break down the recent unsustainable spike in disability claims.
Anti-corporatist crusader Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner will declaim corporate welfare of the type dished out by the Export-Import Bank; Tom Palmer of Cato and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation will discuss the differences between (and interrelationship of) private and public charity, and the co-hosts will present their own ideas for welfare reform going forward. It's a richly informative program that will give you knowledge and intellectual ammunition no matter where you come out on the question of transfers to the poor and non-poor alike.
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