Posted on 03/28/2006 2:45:41 PM PST by untenured
Max Borders: Joining us today we have Charles Murray, author of the new book, "In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State." Welcome, Charles.
Charles Murray: Good morning.
Borders: You've studied social safety nets for most of your career. What has the welfare entitlement state done to this country?
Murray: Well you have effects on two levels. One involves the effects of social programs intended to help the poor and the disadvantaged. And that was the topic of a book I wrote 20 odd years ago called Losing Ground, which said essentially we made things worse for the very people we were trying to help.
There is, however, another whole set of effects of the welfare state in the form of Social Security and Medicaid and other kinds of programs which take money from one American and give it to another American (whom the government has decided needs the money more). Whether it's taking it from a young person to give to a retiree, or whether it's taking it from a secretary in Alabama to give to a corporation that is getting a special favor from the government, all of these transfers -- and that's what they are: money from individual Americans to other individuals or to corporations -- seem to me to be a classic example of shipping money to Washington, seeing large amounts of it be wasted and go down the drain, and then it gets shipped out of Washington in much reduced form for dubious purposes.
And what "In Our Hands" is all about, ultimately, is saying: stop that. Just, if you're going to collect all this money, give it back to people as money and let them run their lives as they see fit.
(Excerpt) Read more at tcsdaily.com ...
Under discussion here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1604631/posts
Thank you SO much for posting this interview. His ideas and goal for where "we" need to move towards is exactly right, IMHO. How we get there will no doubts be akin to a tacking exercise in sailing....
ping
The American Enterprise Institute has a video of the discussion on this topic.
http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1278,filter.all/event_detail.asp
There is another thread on this topic at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1603315/posts
[not being the posting police, just linking FYI]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.