Are we immoral if we don't support entitlements?

The arguments for entitlements are usually moral arguments, never economic arguments. No one thinks that it’s good for our economy, even the most reality-phobic Keynesian. It is never “this will work and we’ll all prosper,” but always presented to us in moral guise: “Don’t throw Grammaw off the cliff!”

And because this is a moral argument, Democrats and their Republican enablers are simply not interested in economic issues, like the cost of the transfers, the bureaucracy necessary or the drag on the economy from taxing productive citizens. They don’t care how many trillions we owe to the Chinese; they care about “fairness,” that magic word.

So we must consider this argument in moral, rather than economic terms.

What is their case? Well, they say, we have to take care of our own. They might also say, as fewer and fewer in our society do, that the Lord commands us to care for the weak, and that whatsoever we do to the least of our brethren will be read to us on Judgment Day by the Lord.

Well, unless I am mistaken, there is nothing in the Bible about rendering unto Caesar that Caesar might render unto Lazarus. The rich man who ignores Lazarus goes to hell not because he had a slick tax lawyer to find loopholes for him, but because there was a poor man on his doorstep whom he ignored.

In other words, this is an enthymeme, an argument with a hidden premise, and that premise is that it’s the government’s job, not yours, to care for the poor. Does that sound moral to anyone?

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