Never Enough: Americas Limitless Welfare State

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Since the beginning of the New Deal, American liberals have insisted that the government must do moremuch moreto help the poor, to increase economic security, to promote social justice and solidarity, to reduce inequality, and to mitigate the harshness of capitalism. Nonetheless, liberals have never answered, or even acknowledged, the corresponding question: What would be the size and nature of a welfare state that was not contemptibly austere, that did not urgently need new programs, bigger budgets, and a broader mandate Even though the federal governments outlays have doubled every eighteen years since 1940, liberal rhetoric is always addressed to a nation trapped in Groundhog Day, where every year is 1932, and none of the existing welfare state programs that spend tens of billions of dollars matter, or even exist.
Never Enough explores the roots and consequences of liberals aphasia about the welfare states ultimate size. It assesses what liberalisms lack of a limiting principle says about the long-running argument between liberals and conservatives, and about the policy choices confronting America in a new century. Never Enough argues that the failure to speak clearly and candidly about the welfare states limits has grave policy consequences. The worst result, however, is the way it has jeopardized the experiment in self-government by encouraging Americans to regard their government as a vehicle for exploiting their fellow-citizens, rather than as a compact for respecting one anothers rights and safeguarding the opportunities of future generations.

Author Bio

William Voegeli is a visiting scholar at the Henry Salvatori Center at Claremont McKenna College, and a contributing editor to The Claremont Review of Books. His reviews and articles have also appeared in City Journal, First Things, In Character, the Los Angeles Times, National Review, and The New Criterion. From 1988 to 2003 he was a program officer at the John M. Olin Foundation. He lives in Claremont, CA.