Greece is in meltdown. It’s no secret and their economic devastation is complete. Riots have replaced a once stable society and even common sense. The government has been forced to implement a draconian austerity program just to borrow enough money to keep the country functional. Those measures have led to economic ruin for many and even suicides.
Democratic societies have become addicted to the concept of government handouts which politicians have cynically used in order to get themselves elected. Initially, it starts with the idea that government is the best means for equalizing disadvantage, an idea that eventually leads to an unwarranted sense of entitlement by too many and the ridiculous belief that entitlements are free and come with no cost.
They come with a devastating cost as Greece is now learning but too many in other countries refuse to acknowledge.
In Montreal, students rioted last week over proposed increases in tuition over the next five years. The amount of the increase is $325 per year.
In the United States, students and the Occupy movement have demanded that education be considered a human right. Not content with that, Occupy has also decided that public transportation is now a right as well.
As absurd as these ideas and demands are, they are not attitudes that are unique to the tragically uninformed or the lunatic fringe.
In Canada, there is outrage that the national broadcaster (CBC) is facing a 10% cut in its $1 billion/year budget. Some are furious that this will mean that the CBC may now have to increase the amount of advertising it permits in order to make up its budget shortfall. They feel entitled to commercial-free radio and expect the government to provide it.
Others are outraged that the current government has announced an increase in the Old Age Security qualifying age from 65 to 67 beginning in 2020. The government has recognized that Canadians are living and working longer and that this small change reflects that simple reality. Those addicted to entitlement consider it an attack on what they are entitled to. The current government was so afraid of a backlash from those with an entitlement mentality, they delayed implementation of the change for ten years.In every democracy in the world, entitlements are as deadly and as addictive as crack cocaine.
The simple reality is that entitlements contribute nothing and eventually destroy the very society most seem to want. It undermines the motivation to provide for yourself, the drive to create and produce. The addiction to entitlements is its own form of greed and rivals anything found on Wall Street. It is money for nothing, money for simply being alive and it is money that belongs to others.
More than 50% of the average Canadian’s salary is taken by various levels of government in taxes just to pay for the operation of bureaucracies whose primary role now is to juggle entitlement programs. That means that the average taxpayer now works until July just to fund government who are funding all of the entitlements.University and College tuition is subsidized by Canadian tax payers to the tune of 75% but the students in Montreal are demanding more.
In the U.S. and Canada, social assistance and welfare gobbles up a disproportionate amount of tax revenue yet increasing numbers of people still live on the streets and children go to bed hungry at night while others demand more free stuff.
Regulations and bureaucratic red tape interfere with the development, operation and success of small businesses which are the economic driver for job creation. They charge for licenses and other fees to help fund government's need for more money.
Environmentalists demand support for every cause they dream up, regardless of the economic consequences. This has led, in Ontario, to the implementation of the Green Energy Program, which has seen the provincial government implement sustainable energy programs that have raised the cost of electricity to levels that threaten to bankrupt some individuals and small companies. The program is so absurd, it sees the province actually selling its surplus electricity at a loss to other provinces and states which only adds to the economic cost.
Those who are addicted to entitlement have no understanding that wealth is finite. If you take 100% of the income of all companies and individuals, that’s all there is. There is no more money to be had and once you have taken all of that, how do you pay for your entitlements?
The left thinks it’s as easy as simply taxing the rich or adding surtax on large corporations. That doesn’t work. The rich merely move to other jurisdictions and companies take their business….and their jobs….elsewhere.
Others think it is as easy as adding a tax on energy consumption or the sin products like booze, cigarettes or gambling but that only result in creating an underground economy as does increases in sales and consumption taxes.
Greece, where tax evasion had been elevated to an art form, discovered that reality too late.
When all else fails, those who feel entitled to their entitlements encourage governments to borrow the money to fund them and politicians desperate to be elected are only too happy to comply. But you can’t live on borrowed money forever. At some point the bill comes due and just as Greece has learned, that bill can be devastating.
And that is the other dichotomy of entitlements. In the end, they not only hurt those who pay taxes, they hurt everyone, including those who thought free entitlements were actually free.
The poor are not better off. We have less money for the poor. The number of food banks have increased and the working poor now frequent them as much as those who are unemployed or living in shelters.
Healthcare is not improved; too much money is funding other entitlements to properly fund the healthcare system. Wait times have increased to insane levels and almost 2 million Canadians don’t have access to a family doctor. Hospitals are being closed and some healthcare services are being delisted.
In the United States there is controversy over which healthcare services can and cannot be afforded and the original cost estimates of the President’s healthcare system are now being seriously questioned.
Because of this unwarranted expectation to entitlements, basic services are compromised, self-responsibility is undermined and a distorted view of what is and is not possible is created.Nothing is free. In the end, somebody pays and in societies with entitlement mentalities, typically those who pay are you and I. Interestingly, in Canada, unions are tax exempt on the income they earn and political parties hand out higher tax exemptions than charities for the money they rake in from donors. It is just one more example of how a sense of entitlement only undermines any real idea of equality.
The idea that government pays is absurd. Governments don't have any money. There are no magic money trees growing out behind the bureaucracy. Governments get their money by taxing the affluent, the middle class and the working poor. They tax consumer sales, environmental products, private property, gasoline and charge user fees to the public for use of the very services and facilities for which their taxes have already paid.
Government even taxes death and it is still not enough money to meet the growing greed for entitlements. Democracies around the world continue to borrow money in order to maintain the expected entitlements that keep politicians in power and the greedy out of the streets.
It isn't working.
In the end, entitlements put every society on a road….not the road to Hell…..the road to Greece and there are those living in Greece now who will tell you that Hell couldn’t be any worse.
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