Our growing Culture Of Dependency: “The government will pay my bills” scam hits paydirt—UPDATE!!!
by Don on Sep. 18, 2012, under UncategorizedGee, where would Republicans like Mitt Romney get the notion that about 47 percent of the electorate “believe that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing”?
Jim Geraghty of National Review answers his own question with several examples of where LOTS of people—not just Mitt Romney—might get that idea
He links to a YouTube of a woman who’s looking for the federal government to help pay her gas and mortgage bills.
Is she an isolated example. Sadly, no.
A multistate identity theft scam that claims President Barack Obama will pay your utility bills appears to have widened.
According to MSNBC.com, more than 2,000 customers in Tampa, Fla., fell for the fake offer last week.
The scheme was first reported in May, when Dallas-based Atmos Energy warned its 3 million customers in 12 states that scammers had been asking for Social Security numbers to enroll in the faux federal program. According to the pitch—distributed via email, Facebook, text message, phone and, in some cases, door-to-door sales—the government would pay a month of energy costs through credits offered by the Obama administration.
PSE&G, the New Jersey gas and electric delivery utility, issued a similar warning the same month. According to MSNBC, there were 10,000 reported victims in New Jersey in recent weeks, and thousands more in North Carolina, Indiana and Pennsylvania.
(Emphasis added).
Can you blame these people? Our government is handing out our children’s and grandchildren’s money, in the form of deficit spending, hand-over-fist. Why not get your “fair share?”
No doubt that people are struggling nowadays. No dispute from me that it’s hard to make ends meet in this economy.
But, isn’t it a bit unsettling to see evidence of such a widespread expectation, amongst Americans, for crying out loud, that the government will take care of them?
TOO MANY WORKING-AGE people are putting way too much effort into figuring out ways for the government to take care of them, and not enough effort into taking care of themselves.
TOO MANY Americans have been conditioned, when times are tough, to put out their hands and expect someone else to fill them.
ONE party is catering to that group of people this November, and I don’t need to tell you which one.
Unfortunately, there’s more evidence out there. Geraghty writes about a similar incident in Detroit in 2009, where “[r]umors that $3,000 stimulus checks from the Obama administration spurred heavy turnouts” — some put the number at 35,000.”
Much has been, and will be, made (or demagouged) about Romney’s surreptitiously-taped remarks to a group of GOP donors. In the tape, Romney says that he doesn’t expect to get the votes of those Americans who are dependent on the government and think of themselves as victims. Romney estimated the percentage of American voters who feel that way as 47% or higher.
Given the readiness amongst so many people to fall for scams that promise the federal government will take care of them, I wonder if Romney underestimated.
Geraghty closes his indispensable article by contrasting MSM/Left reaction to the videotape with Right reaction:
Folks in the media are asking, “how could he say this?” Folks on the Right, who see a growing dependency mentality sucking away the nation’s drive, work ethic and independence, are asking, “how could he say this only behind closed doors? “
(Emphasis added)
Look for Democrats and their supporters to label Romney’s comments as racist. What a surprise! What those statements are, though, are an affirmation of Republican beliefs that all Americans, of any background, can succeed in this country, and therefore should be expected to try.
(How is Romney’s statement an “affirmation” of those beliefs? That speech, and the conduct of his whole campaign, makes clear that Romney plans to win by targeting the other part of the American electorate…the part that still expects to make its own way and pull its own weight in our society. Now, if Romney felt there wasn’t an electoral majority amongst THAT group of voters, why would he not only target them, but also risk alienating our growing Dependent Class?)
It’s time to stop growing, and start shrinking, the Culture of Dependency. If you agree, vote GOP in November.
UPDATE: And y’all thought I was exaggerating, about the seriousness of the situation we face. Well…
College Voters for Obama Agree: Free Stuff is Awesome (Video)
Caleb Bonham hit the Charlotte streets during the DNC and questioned voters about how President Obama can make their lives better. What did Caleb discover?
Well, expectations are high should Obama be elected to his “fourth” term in November. The President’s supporters eagerly await forgiveness of their student loans, immediate jobs to college graduates and free checks to voters for unknown reasons.
Link to the article, plus Caleb’s video, is at the Revealing Politics website. Credit for the bolded title, plus a hat-tip for the article, goes to Ben Howe at Redstate
