In the 20th century, especially during the past seventy years, Americans have placed their faith in government — increasingly the federal government. Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1933, voluntary relief has taken a back seat to government assistance. Eventually, hardly any source of distress remained unattended by a government program. Old age, unemployment, illness, poverty, physical disability, loss of spousal support, childrearing need, workplace injury, consumer misfortune, foolish investment, borrowing blunder, traffic accident, environmental hazard, and loss from flood, fire, or hurricane all became subject to government succor.
Our ancestors relied on themselves; we rely on the welfare state. But the "safety net" that governments have stretched beneath us seems more and more to be a spider's web in which we are entangled and from which we must extricate ourselves if we are to preserve a prosperous and free society.
Robert Higgs on how we became dependent on the federal government.
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