Further, as Turner notes, “State agencies will be checking on individuals’ insurance status, monitoring their income to see if they qualify for subsidies, and tracking individual health habits to determine how much they should pay for their health insurance.”

Entitlement disease is also spread by the class warriors who want to punish success by taxing individual achievement. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, is holding hearings to find “solutions” to non-existent fiscal challenges affecting the so-called middle class. A February 1 Washington Post story noted, however, that median household net worth grew by 35 percent from 1989 to 2004, including increases in all income groups.

Schumer stated, “We have big plans. The party that can create a model paradigm…will not only win in 2008 but could create a long-term majority.” In other words, more entitlement spending, government mandates and class warfare rhetoric might create long-term power for liberals.

Unfortunately, Schumer is not alone. In a January 31 speech on Wall Street, President Bush stated, “The fact is that income inequality is real; it’s been rising for more than 25 years.” With all due respect, Mr. President, that statement is false. A recent study released by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee found that from 2001 to 2005 there was no statistical change in income inequality. The president is simply pandering to the entitlement addicts.

History has taught us that the constitutional protections of equal opportunity do not yield equal outcomes, nor can government legislate equal outcomes. As economist Ludwig von Mises once wrote, “Government can’t make a man rich, but it can make a man poor.”

Government will not aid us in fighting the entitlement disease, because most in government have a vested interest in perpetuating the disease. The only cure is for individuals to educate themselves and each other on the principles of free market economics.

We must elect a president and members of Congress with the will to reverse the threatening growth of entitlement disease on the American people.