{"id":262,"date":"2012-10-02T13:31:57","date_gmt":"2012-10-02T18:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/?p=262"},"modified":"2012-10-02T13:31:57","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T18:31:57","slug":"cohn-romneys-47-percent-comments-and-the-social-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/cohn-romneys-47-percent-comments-and-the-social-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Cohn: Romney’s “47 Percent” Comments and the Social Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Cohn at TNR is a valuable resource. \u00a0I really like\u00a0what he had to say the other day<\/a>\u00a0about Mitt’s “47 percent” comments. \u00a0Here’s my favorite part (emphasis added<\/strong>):<\/p>\n

\"\"…<\/p>\n

Are the people who benefit from [ “entitlement state” programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security ] today takers rather than makers? Hardly. Most of these people contributed what they could towards he cost of these programs, via payroll taxes, during their working years. If they don\u2019t contribute now\u2014and, remember, the majority of them still contribute something, since Medicare has both cost-sharing and premiums\u2014it\u2019s because they are no longer capable of doing so. …<\/p>\n

The growth of these programs has placed significant new demands on the federal budget. That\u2019s why there should be, and has been, a vibrant debate about how to make the programs sustainable…<\/p>\n

But the fact that the entitlement state has grown shouldn\u2019t, by itself, alarm us. It\u2019s actually a sign of progress, because\u00a0it\u2019s a reminder that the government has stepped in to do what the market would not<\/strong>. We saw, in the years before Social Security, what the world looks like when seniors don\u2019t have adequate pensions. And we saw, in the years before Medicare and Medicaid and (now) the Affordable Care Act, what the world looks like when people can\u2019t afford to pay their medical bills. It was not pretty.<\/strong>\u00a0But the price for addressing those failures was the creation of some massive government programs. They cost a lot of money, yes, but we all benefit from them at some point, as\u00a0Schmitt<\/a>\u00a0noted in his essay:\u00a0\u201cMost of us, other than the permanently disabled, are givers\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0takers to government, because that\u2019s what it is to be part of a community or a nation.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n