Entitlements for the Middle Class

* What a delightfully insidious argument Walter Russell Mead presents in his Feb. 11 Opinion piece (“Grinding Down the Middle Class”); entitlements, like the Homestead Act and the GI Bill, are part of what makes America great.

Mead argues that by covering catastrophic long-term medical costs for elderly patients, entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid represent a transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private sector, one that allows middle-class children of elderly people to keep their homes and continue to accumulate wealth for their own heirs.

That says almost all of it for me. I have only two questions Mead left unanswered: Where does the public sector get the money it is transferring to the private sector? Which presidential candidate will carry “Entitlements are what makes America great!” to the White House?

BILL CARRIGAN

San Dimas

* America’s history has clearly demonstrated that “libertarian politics,” which advocated “non-activist federal government,” proved a failure by the end of the 19th century; and thus are not a viable alternative for governing as proposed by today’s Republican Party’s leadership. Mead offered several important historical examples of the public benefit of an activist federal government. Mead mentions the Homestead Act of 1862 as the “great entitlement program of the 19th century.” One could also add the Morrill Act. This important entitlement legislation, signed by Lincoln in 1862, offered land grants that established much of the American state university system. Earlier extensive land grants to emerging railroads in the 1850s provided for the beginning of a vast rail transportation and telegraph system that laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution that accelerated at the end of the century.

In the 20th century, Mead mentions Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and mortgage deductions, as well as the G.I. Bill, as significant entitlement contributions. One could also add the extensive educational legislation passed in the mid-1960s which vastly expanded higher educational opportunities.

The defining issue now is: Do we expect the federal government to continue to play an active role in promoting education, opportunity and economic growth, as well as providing a safety net for the aged, the poor and the needy? If not, then what consequences can we expect for ourselves, our families, our communities and the nation? Are we willing to return to a social Darwinist ethic of survival of the fittest? Is that the future we envision for our children and for America?

MICHAEL J. POPOVICH

Hacienda Heights

* Mead conveniently left out one very important factor in the budget debate: the interest on the national debt, which comes to $250 billion to $300 billion per year. This money is taken from the middle class in the form of taxes and paid to those who can afford to invest in government bonds. It doesn’t go back to the middle class in the form of services, increased assets or lower costs of goods and services.

If we could relieve the middle class of this financial burden, it would more than make up for the reduction in “entitlements” that are being proposed in the efforts to balance the federal budget. Mead acts as though Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are to be reduced to zero, rather than reducing the rate of increase over the next seven years.

It is this kind of wrongheaded, sloppy writing and thinking that have created the budgetary problems we are confronted with today.

MORTON I. BERNSTEIN

Los Angeles

* Mead employs a false analogy when he compares the Homestead Act of 1862 with the government wealth transfers of more recent years. In the Homestead Act, the federal government allowed citizens to claim and settle unclaimed “public” land in the West. Medicare and Social Security, on the other hand, are examples of our government coercing money from people who earn it and transferring to others.

This is not to say that government has no role in our social welfare. The Chilean government’s private social security system could provide a model for us. In Chile, a worker’s mandated payroll deductions go into a private fund that the government cannot touch. The worker earns interest on his savings and can leave any unused funds to his heirs. Of course if the underlying goal is to grow government while providing benefits, such a system is to be avoided.

DAVID C. BLOXHAM

Huntington Beach