IN A RECENT article at The American Thinker, Robert Weissberg examines the racial issues surrounding the national deficit. The Tea Party is accused of racism not simply because most of its membership is white, he notes. Blacks disproportionately rely on government spending. To be for small government then is to be anti-black and racist.

Weissberg says Americans, instead of successfully defeating racial blackmail, may have no choice but to accept big government programs that offer low-skilled jobs and welfare spending. “In the final analysis, the only practical solution may be sustaining government programs that disproportionately assist blacks, regardless of value or costs,” he writes. The alternative, Weissberg says, may be violence.

This is a statement of fatalistic resignation.

Many commenters in the ensuing discussion disagree with Weissberg’s conclusion. Says rjh:

Never in the history of the world has a country (U.S.) done so much for one small group of its people (blacks), and been repaid with so much ingratitude and demands for more. And never before has a group of people squandered what amounts to discriminatory preferential treatment and shown regression rather than progress. The gravy train is about to end, folks. We have no more to give.

                                                     — Comments —

Jeff W. writes:

People are beginning to understand that the Big Government party is over. It was fun while it lasted.

The promises it made were great: an end to poverty, an uplifted nation through universal education, healthy living through government medicine and hygiene, racial equality, everyone to become healthy, wealthy and wise.

Even better were all the goodies: millions of sweet government jobs, monthly government checks, consulting contracts for college professors, huge and exciting construction projects, military adventures around the world.

But the Federal government is effectively bankrupt now. There are now only two choices: 1) Kick millions of people off the government gravy train, or 2) Keep printing money until we descend into Weimar-style hyperinflationary chaos. Because politicians do not have the guts to make choice 1, we will probably get choice 2.

Laura writes:

As Mr. Weissberg points out, politicians will be even less courageous if they face charges of racism for reducing government spending.

Stewart W. writes:

As you note, Robert Weissberg clearly states that the alternative to permanent support of the black (and white) underclass may be violence. 

Violence is inevitable. We have developed a large surplus population in this country, and on the planet, particularly of people of African descent, because we have fed them. By shouldering the “White Man’s Burden,” we allowed their population to grow far beyond their own native capacity, and we have made them dependent on us. Many of us are weary of providing that support. When you combine this problem with the collapsing European birth rate, there will come a point where that surplus population will begin to starve. The problem doesn’t come when you feed the bears, but rather when you stop feeding the bears. 

As I read what I’ve just written, I realize how cold and merciless, how un-Christian I sound, but I honestly don’t see any way out of the situation. I believe that, as they say, the only way around this problem is through it. I can only hope that we are able to deal with it while we still have enough strength to prevail.

Laura writes:

I don’t think the analogy to feeding bears is correct. Rather than violence, it is possible to envision the gradual withdrawal of support. However, in order for this to occur  without provoking significant violence, there would have to be a reassertion of white identity and authority, and a refusal by whites to accept the blame for the failures of blacks or to assume the burden of supporting the fatherless families of both blacks and whites. 

Jesse Powell writes:

There has been a lot of talk lately about how government is going broke because of too much charitable government spending on the poor; many of the poor being black has led to things being interpreted as white people in general giving welfare to black people in general and how this support of black people is therefore bankrupting the nation and is no longer sustainable. 

I think it is worth pointing out that all federal government spending on the poor (the total spent on means-tested entitlements), including the federal portion of Medicaid, totaled $449 billion in 2009, 3.4% of the Gross Domestic Product for that year. To look at things in terms of race; just looking at blacks, whites and Hispanics, assuming all other races are at the national average; if we assume that blacks receive welfare at 3 times the rate of whites and Hispanics receive welfare at 2 times the rate of whites and the racial composition of America is 65% white, 12% black, 15% Hispanic, and 8% other; then that means that the total welfare payments to each racial group is $205 billion for whites, $114 billion to blacks, $95 billion to Hispanics, and $36 billion to all other races. If we assume that whites pay 80% of all taxes and blacks pay 6% of all taxes then in terms of welfare transfers to the poor you can say that whites as a group support blacks as a group to the tune of $79 billion a year, about 0.6% of Gross Domestic Product. 

To look at the other side of the ledger it is true that black people have a lower life expectancy than white people; this means that they receive less years of Social Security benefits since they live fewer years beyond the age of 65; furthermore their end of life medical care, which is largely paid for by the government in the form of Medicare, is probably less expense since on average they die younger and more suddenly. The shorter life expectancy of blacks might well function as a subsidy from working age blacks to elderly and retired whites. 

My point is that the argument that government support for poor people is bankrupting the nation is weak and the claim that white wealth transfers to blacks is bankrupting the nation is especially weak. 

In reference to the supposed “surplus population” that is said to exist “because we have fed them”; if you look at measures such as the amount of charitable aid given by government and by private donors to people in poor countries you will find that it is not very much compared to the wealth of the donor populations; such charitable support can not be said to be bankrupting the rich nations by any stretch of the imagination.

 Laura writes:

Robert Weissberg wasn’t referring to simply means-tested entitlements, but government jobs, especially in large cities.

Stewart W. writes:

I think we are probably both saying the same thing as to what it will take to avoid significant violence. While I proposed that we will be unable to feed the surplus population (in both Europe and in the U.S.) while we have a declining white birth rate, you point out that we must have a reassertion of white identity and authority. They are two halves of the same coin. We have a low birth rate because we have lost confidence in our own culture and history, and without such confidence, and the population size to sustain both ourselves and our “dependents”, there will be violence. Given that, I think my “bear” analogy is still apt. If you stop feeding the bears, and the bears are not afraid of you, they will attack you to get more food, because they have become dependent. If we are to survive, we need to make sure the bears are afraid of us. 

As to Jesse Powell’s comment, there are two points. First, I wasn’t talking about just charity in the narrow sense, but in the larger sense (as you pointed out, government jobs, etc.). The majority of federal expenditures now go to charity, in the form of transfer payments. Virtually all of that money goes to support the “surplus population” within the United States. As our social, economic, and political power declines, so does our ability to continue to feed (pay) those people, whether they are welfare recipients, pensioners, or government employees. When the food source dries up, all those bears are going to come looking for food in some other way, and that’s when it’s going to get ugly. 

Second, when looking at how we feed the poor countries, particularly Africa, again, it is not the cost to our economies that is at issue. It takes very little of my money to feed many hungry mouths in the Third World. However, that means that they survive when they otherwise would not. When they grow up, that just compounds the problem. When we (inevitably) lose the ability to continue to send them food that they can’t produce on their own, the surplus populations in those countries aren’t just going to dry up and blow away. They are going to stream north to Europe (and to a lesser extent, to North America). We’re already seeing it happen now, since Quad-Daffy has been in trouble in Libya. If those hordes are not a recipe for violence, I don’t know what is.

Laura writes:

The bear analogy doesn’t work because human beings are different from bears and even the low-skilled do possess some ability to reason and to see the purposelessness or bad consequences of violence and to react to other incentives or punishment. For instance, if goverment jobs were to become less plentiful, it might be possible to seriously reduce the minimum wage to create more jobs. This would create hardship, but not starvation and I think it is unrealistic to envision starvation in America. Would the serious shrinkage of government lead to violent revolution?  We don’t know what might be the outcome, but it is possible to say that minorities would be disproportionately affected and would mount every possible political effort against it. That is unquestionable. Furthermore, regardless of the cost, it is morally wrong for government to fund dysfunctional families and the able-bodied poor. But, let’s take it one step at a time, and first grapple with the idea that slavery is not to blame for the failures of the dysfunctional poor before we rush to the idea of violent revolution.

I don’t accept the idea of “surplus populations.” There is no such thing. Just as a side point, we don’t know how many people might not have been born without foreign aid. It is entirely conjectural, because we cannot know how cultures or individuals would have acted under other circumstances. I’m not sure why Jesse Powell brought up the issue of foreign aid because, for the purposes of this discussion, it is irrelevant. Weissberg’s article was about the deficit in the United States and the concern that attempts to shrink government lead to charges of racism, which they do, as Weissberg documented.

Jesse Powell writes:

I brought up the issue of foreign aid because Stewart W. said: 

We have developed a large surplus population in this country, and on the planet, particularly of people of African descent, because we have fed them. 

I agree with Laura when she says that there is no such thing as a “surplus population;” “surplus” to whom, I would ask. Surplus to the people themselves, surplus to their friends and family? To say “surplus population” implies that those people are not needed in the world or that they have no purpose in life, that they might as well not exist.

Now, it is reasonable to say that government welfare to the able-bodied poor is immoral or that it leads to unintended negative consequences but it seems to me hyperbole to say that welfare to the poor must end because we as a nation can’t afford it. There is such a thing as budgeting and setting ones priorities in terms of what spending is a high priority and what spending needs to be ended. If, as seems to be the case, total charitable spending is about 3 percent of the national income at the Federal government level that to me does not seem unreasonably high or burdensome. 

Stewart W. says “The majority of federal expenditures now go to charity, in the form of transfer payments.” I would agree that the majority of federal expenditures goes to social welfare today but I would not say the majority goes to “charity”; I count “charity” as being specifically means-tested entitlements, not all government transfer payments and expenditures on health care. Stewart W. then says “Virtually all of that money goes to support the ‘surplus population’ within the United States.” It needs to be remembered, Stewart W. is presumably referring to all government transfer payments and expenditures on health care as that is what in reality makes up more than half of the federal budget. 

Stewart W. talks about the low white birth rate leading to the problem of whites in the future not being able to support themselves and their “dependents”; meaning, I presume, the people in America and in foreign countries who rely on government handouts and international charity for their survival and well-being. Internationally, economic growth and well being is actually rising faster in poor countries than it is in rich countries; the burden of feeding the poor in the impoverished world is actually lessening over time as their home countries economically develop. In terms of the poor within our own borders, America is a rich country that shouldn’t have much problem meeting people’s basic survival needs in an economic crisis. In terms of providing people with food, in 2010 $65 billion was spent on food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), helping to feed 40 million people.

Stewart writes: 

I want to make sure, in this conversation, that we are talking apples to apples here, and are not getting hung up on semantics. I’ll stipulate that my use of the term “surplus population” is probably too harsh, in that it implies that such people are entirely useless, which is not my intent. Rather, I mean to talk about those able-bodied people who, from a purely economic point of view and over the long term, take from society more than they can give, to the extreme case where some people never really contribute anything of value. When such people have been fed, clothed, and housed their entire lives (in many cases, over several generations), and you remove their support, they might peaceably become productive citizens on their own, but history suggests (bread and circuses, anyone?) that violence and mayhem will ensue. 

Second, I also recognize that my use of the term “charity” may be too broad. By “charity,” I mean any money taken from me, without my consent, and given to someone else who did not earn it. Not really charity in the traditional sense, let’s call it a “transfer payment,” or just “wealth redistribution”. Just to make it clear, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all transfer payments, right alongside AFDC, WIC, and the other means-tested entitlements. Given that currently, almost 50% of U.S. households do not pay any taxes, and with the deficit and debt forecasts we are all seeing for the U.S. government, even most Democrats agree that we can’t continue to provide as much wealth redistribution as we do currently. So, when I say that our society, and Western governments in general, can’t continue to provide the level of unearned support to as many people as we currently do, it seems that such a statement should be without controversy. When you further consider that the productive percentage of the population is decreasing, and the non-productive is increasing, combined with the relentless effects of compounded interest, it seems obvious that the money available to give to the non-productive will shrink, probably dramatically. 

How likely is it that we can cut back the support to those segments of the population, without strife? What do you think will happen in the cities if even one welfare check is missed?

Laura writes:

Regardless of what Americans can afford, it seems large numbers of middle class Americans no longer wish to subsidize to the degree they do now urban populations which produce crime and disorder. The argument that slavery caused this disorder has worn thin. The truth is, it has gotten worse since the civil rights era. Stewart envisions a sudden cessation of government payments that would result in violence. Weissberg predicts no real lasting end to welfare payments because of this possibility of violence. I would like to think that dependency could be reduced over time with advanced warning, a gradual scaling back of the welfare state. That’s an optimistic view. The political realities, unfortunately, are not conducive to forethought and long-term planning of cutbacks.  

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