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The Comfort of Welfare

buster33 Wrote: Feb 01, 2013 7:58 AM
Every semester I put the following up on the board for my Econ students: Pay people for doing nothing and more people will ______ ________________, They get it. What they also eventually get is that politicians of both major party stripes are factually guilty of perpetuating the handout mentality. (What was the party of the president who signed Medicare Part D into law?!) There is an epidemic of NYC firemen filing for disability in their 19th year of employment. It's not just the welfare queens who respond to perverse incentives.
This week Japan announced its intention to cut welfare payments by a billion dollars over the next three years because people live too comfortably.

Imagine that, a government would actually tell its citizens you are getting fat and lazy and have no incentive to work because someone else pays your bills. We just found out you can't get government work by telling citizens they're takers. But after its economy derailed, Japan slipped into a two-decade slumber marked by people giving up on old beliefs and traditions like Japan's legendary work ethic. When we thought Japan would conquer the world, including the...
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