Serf’s up.

Catch some government spending and you’ll be sittin’ on top of the world…:)

In feudal times, the serfs all lived happy and cozy lives on the manor under the total protection of the Lord. It was a nice little arrangement. Got an issue with your neighbor taking too much land? The Lord will take care of it. Having difficulty growing wheat this season? The Lord will take care of it. All the Lord asks is that you give all the product of your labor to him, and he’ll make sure that you’ve got a roof over your head and enough food in your belly to keep you working another day.

A key component of the recently passed $787 billion stimulus package is that it blows the doors off all the welfare reform that passed in the ’90s’ (as Clinton realized he had better meet the Republicans in the middle or risk lurching into oblivion as just another demented one-term liberal nutjob President). Here’s a nice little summary:

The welfare reform of 1996 replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with a new program named Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). The key to welfare reform’s reduction in dependency was the change in the funding structure of AFDC.

Under the old AFDC program, states were given more federal funds if their welfare caseloads were increased, and funds were cut whenever the state caseload fell. This structure created a strong incentive for states to swell the welfare rolls. Prior to reform, one child in seven was receiving AFDC benefits.

When welfare reform replaced the old AFDC system with TANF, this perverse financial incentive to increase dependence was eliminated. Each state was given a flat funding level that did not vary whether the state increased or decreased its caseload. In addition, states were given the goal of reducing welfare dependence (or at least of requiring welfare recipients to prepare for employment).

The [Stimulus Act] will overturn the fiscal foundation of welfare reform and restore an AFDC-style funding system. For the first time since 1996, the federal government would begin paying states bonuses to increase their welfare caseloads. Indeed, the new welfare system created by the stimulus bills is actually worse than the old AFDC program because it rewards the states more heavily to increase their caseloads. Under the stimulus bills, the federal government will pay 80 percent of cost for each new family that a state enrolls in welfare; this matching rate is far higher than it was under AFDC.

My guess is that Americans do not wish for this to happen. Some Americans, obviously, surely do. I would suspect that the majority of the recipients of this largesse would be very grateful for this. Free money? I don’t have to work for it? Sign me up. Liberals obviously love this as well since all those people taking the free money with one hand will be pulling the lever for the Democrats in elections to come. The Americans I mean who I think oppose this sort of modern day feudalism are the people who actually foot the bill. You and me. The “producers” of this society. The people from whom the government takes so that it can give to the takers of this society.

And at this stage of the game, as evidenced at least in the recent Stimulus debate in Washington, the Republicans speak for us. Not the so called “RINO” (Republicans in Name Only) Republicans like Specter, Snowe and Collins. We’ve seen Republicans like these get wiped out of Washington in the past 2 cycles precisely because they are basically Liberals in disguise. The Republicans who speak for us will be those who embrace core Conservative/Libertarian principles which appear to be making a comeback in the aftermath of the Obama spending orgy.

I guess Rahm Emmanuel was actually right….Conservatives CANNOT waste this Crisis of Democratic Leadership. They’re running our nation into the shallow water with this spending bill and it isn’t likely to get any better at any time over the next 3+ years. In fact, it’s likely to get a whole lot worse. We can’t waste this. We have to seize the moment in 2010 and force Obama to govern as close to the center as possible.

Then we put him on his ass in 2012.