The parade of dependence slogs through the state Capitol

By Chris Powell

Hearings of General Assembly committees long have been largely matters of special pleading, but increasingly they are the setting for an endless parade of people, most of them able-bodied, who say they are unable to take care of themselves and their families and need more subsidies from state government — for medical insurance, housing, electricity, home heating, food, school lunches, higher education, and such. 

On top of that Connecticut now is said to have 119,000 “disconnected” young people, most of whom nevertheless have mobile telephones that must be connecting them to something, if not to their schooling, especially since many are chronically absent. Of course in turn these young people and others are said to need more teachers, counselors, and even psychiatrists, what with the epidemic of mental illness supposedly sweeping Connecticut’s schools.

These needs may be genuine. But as they compete for public funds, legislators are obliged to try to figure out where this tidal wave of dependence is coming from. Why can’t so many more people take care of themselves and their children these days?

Of course one reason is inflation, which arises in large part from the federal government’s profligacy. Another is state government’s failure to facilitate housing construction, in part because few middle-class people want the underclass living nearby.

The unprecedented illegal immigration of recent years is not enriching the country. It has worsened the housing shortage, increased welfare expenses and crime, and driven down wages for unskilled labor. It looks like part of a broader government policy of proletarianizing the country, diminishing self-sufficiency, increasing dependence on government, and strengthening the political machine of the government class.

But child neglect may be the biggest part of the problem. How do government subsidies for childbearing outside marriage, depriving millions of children of fathers and a two-parent upbringing, help children become self-sufficient? How does Connecticut’s policy of social promotion in school prepare anyone for a life beyond menial work — or crime?

Such questions should be asked, but state Comptroller Sean Scanlon isn’t asking them. Instead he is advocating legislation to require medical insurance policies to cover fertility treatments not just for same-sex couples but also for single women. This would be another subsidy for fatherlessness, which correlates heavily with educational failure, physical and mental illness, crime, and unhappiness in life. 

As an elected official Scanlon may be delighted with the prospect of hiding still more of the cost of government — another subsidy for childbearing outside marriage — in the cost of living, as the subsidy will be financed by increases in medical insurance premiums, just as the welfare cost of continuing electricity service to people who don’t pay is covered by higher charges to people who do pay, not by state government.

But Connecticut needs no more fatherless children.

Connecticut could use some elected officials who, as the parade of people with their hands out slogs through the state Capitol, remember the wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt, who once was liberal authority. 

The first duty of a citizen, Roosevelt often said, is to pull his own weight.

In an address in Paris just after he left the presidency he added: “In the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way the average man, the average woman, does his or her duty — first in the ordinary, everyday affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries that call for heroic virtues. 

“The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source, and the main source of national power and greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high, and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher.”

Yet now the Democrats again offer the country Joe Biden and the Republicans again offer it Donald Trump.

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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)

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