Unemployment insurance beneficiaries believe that they paid for their benefits, and they are right. Social Security beneficiaries believe that they paid for their benefits, and they are more than three-quarters right. Medicare beneficiaries believe that they paid for their Medicare, and they are more than half right. Farm subsidy recipients believe that the market is stacked against them, that what they do is a special and noble profession deserving greater rewards than a rapacious world market would offer, and that their farm subsidies are only raising their incomes back to what would be fair--and they have a case. Recipients of the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits see themselves as working very hard for very little money, and performing a truly important service for America's next generation by bringing their children up right--and they are correct. None of these groups ever imagines that they might be Moochers. And since they do not imagine that they might be Moochers, how can the fact that they regard themselves as Moochers harm their self-esteem and poison their work ethic?
What about the moochers of the financial sector which receives massive subsidies and is in effect an arm of the Federal government? Or the healthcare industry which is managed in such a way to provide rents to corporations?
And most of all, the demand management policies (a combination of trade, monetary and fiscal policies) which maintain high unemployment and a loose labor market. This keeps wage inflation down and profits up for corporations.
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