Opinion: Onward Toward an Entitlement Society

(July 22) -- The most recent debate in Congress and among commentators over the extension of unemployment benefits caused a lot of nasty back-and-forth about the merits of doing so. Would it discourage people from looking for work, extending the jobless problem? Should the extension be paid for with cuts elsewhere? Will it help boost economic growth? Have there been enough extensions already to get us to 99 weeks of benefits?

But while one can rationally argue pro or con on these issues, there's a deeper question that we need to try to answer: Are we, by having the government doing so much to help everyone, encouraging an entitlement mentality in this country that is making problems worse?

In my view, we are already well along this troubling road. Consider:

There are herds of people of all ages who want lavish lifestyles, but are unwilling to devote themselves to education, financial discipline, careers or family to the extent necessary, and end up either heavily indebted or relying on "someone else" (often other taxpayers) to support their dreams.
There are the public employees who resist any call for improved performance or accountability, while they demand ever-richer wage and benefit packages, causing huge state and local debts amid the worst economy in generations.
There's the crazed Wall Street crowd that never met a risk it didn't like ... so long as someone else took the downside.

There are the millions of parents who abuse and sue teachers and drag their kids from therapist to therapist in a vain attempt to fix blame on someone other than themselves or their children for why the kids aren't doing well in school.
There are the millions of distressed homeowners who point the finger at everyone else for their mortgage-related predicaments and demand government action of some sort, when some basic arithmetic would have told them that they were taking a huge risk or simply taking on unaffordable debt. (Lest we forget, the tea party started with a rant by CNBC's Rick Santelli against bailouts of irresponsible borrowers.)

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan aptly encapsulated the situation in a recent piece in which she described the growing rift between those "pulling the cart" and those "in the cart" to describe the problems presented by the entitlement mentality. "We're a country that increasingly feels there are people in the cart and people pulling the cart, and the latter are increasingly overwhelmed and fearful," she wrote.

Sure, extending unemployment benefits at a time of high and persistent unemployment might make sense. But it should come with a meaningful admonition that there are limits to what government can or should do for people, and our deficit indicates we're running up against such limits. If people don't take more responsibility upon themselves, we're going to see a reprise of the events of the last few years.

It's time for some straight talk -- with apologies to John McCain -- as to what people need to do for themselves.