The High Cost of Good Intentions (eBook, ePUB)
A History of U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs
Alle Infos zum eBook verschenken
The High Cost of Good Intentions (eBook, ePUB)
A History of U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs
- Format: ePub
- Merkliste
- Auf die Merkliste
- Bewerten Bewerten
- Teilen
- Produkt teilen
- Produkterinnerung
- Produkterinnerung
Hier können Sie sich einloggen
Bitte loggen Sie sich zunächst in Ihr Kundenkonto ein oder registrieren Sie sich bei bücher.de, um das eBook-Abo tolino select nutzen zu können.
Federal entitlement programs are strewn throughout the pages of U.S. history, springing from the noble purpose of assisting people who are destitute through no fault of their own. Yet as federal entitlement programs have grown, so too have their inefficiency and their cost. Neither tax revenues nor revenues generated by the national economy have been able to keep pace with their rising growth, bringing the national debt to a record peacetime level.
The High Cost of Good Intentions is the first comprehensive history of these federal entitlement programs. Combining economics, history,…mehr
- Geräte: eReader
- mit Kopierschutz
- eBook Hilfe
- Größe: 2.25MB
- Clifton B. LuttrellThe High Cost of Farm Welfare (eBook, ePUB)2,99 €
- Karl WiderquistUniversal Basic Income (eBook, ePUB)10,95 €
- Non-State Social Protection Actors and Services in Africa (eBook, ePUB)34,95 €
- Dale L. JuneFear, Society, and the Police (eBook, ePUB)41,95 €
- Alexandra Délano AlonsoFrom Here and There (eBook, ePUB)25,95 €
- Eric LaursenThe People's Pension (eBook, ePUB)16,95 €
- Ronald J. DanielsRethinking the Welfare State (eBook, ePUB)34,95 €
-
-
-
The High Cost of Good Intentions is the first comprehensive history of these federal entitlement programs. Combining economics, history, political science, and law, John F. Cogan reveals how the creation of entitlements brings forth a steady march of liberalizing forces that cause entitlement programs to expand. This process-as visible in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as in the present day-is repeated until benefits are extended to nearly all who could be considered eligible, and in turn establishes a new base for future expansions. His work provides a unifying explanation for the evolutionary path that nearly all federal entitlement programs have followed over the past two hundred years, tracing both their shared past and the financial risks they pose for future generations.
Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, D ausgeliefert werden.
- Produktdetails
- Verlag: Stanford University Press
- Seitenzahl: 512
- Erscheinungstermin: 26. September 2017
- Englisch
- ISBN-13: 9781503604254
- Artikelnr.: 49940679
- Verlag: Stanford University Press
- Seitenzahl: 512
- Erscheinungstermin: 26. September 2017
- Englisch
- ISBN-13: 9781503604254
- Artikelnr.: 49940679
1950 chapter abstract At the war's end, the American entitlement state stood at a crucial policy juncture. The New Deal had set the building blocks of the modern American entitlement state firmly in place, but its future remained highly uncertain. President Truman set the course that entitlements would follow for the remainder of the twentieth century. Large Social Security accounting surpluses provided President Truman and congressional Democrats with the means to ensure that Social Security, instead of state old-age programs, became the primary vehicle for delivering assistance to the elderly. In 1950, Congress took a major step toward this end by sharply increasing Social Security benefits and significantly expanding coverage in the workforce. The benefit increase, timed to coincide with the 1950 congressional elections, demonstrated that Democrats had developed the practice of using a major entitlement program to gain electoral advantage into a finely honed skill. Republicans, after showing modest resistance, acquiesced. 111951
1964: Establishing Social Insurance Dominance chapter abstract From 1950 to the Great Society, congressional Republicans and Democrats joined together to ensure that Social Security replaced state-run old-age assistance as the first line of defense against poverty among the elderly. Monthly benefits were incrementally expanded, and coverage became nearly universal. Large Social Security accounting surpluses fueled the increases in the early 1950s despite the overall federal budget's often poor condition. Congress's use of Social Security to gain electoral advantage was raised to a fine art, as election-year benefit increases were strategically timed. The only new major new entitlement of the 1950s was the Social Security Disability Insurance program. Soon after it was established, the program followed the familiar path that had been blazed by nineteenth-century veterans' pensions, as eligibility was extended to "equally worthy" groups that had been excluded from the original program. 12The Great Turn in Welfare Policy: 1951
1964 chapter abstract While legislation during the years 1951 to 1964 incrementally expanded federal funding for state welfare programs, major fissures emerged in the New Deal's bedrock welfare policy principles of state autonomy and cash assistance. Federal welfare officials used the threat of withholding federal funds as a lever to limit state authority to set welfare eligibility rules. The threats were a response to state and local government actions, particularly those taken by southern state governments with a history of discriminatory treatment of African Americans, to curtail welfare eligibility. As tensions between the two levels of government mounted, Congress stepped in with legislation to strengthen federal authority. By the mid-1960s, the principle of state autonomy had been greatly eroded. At the same time, welfare officials began to question the wisdom of providing additional cash assistance to the poor and turned increasingly to providing in-kind benefits in lieu of additional cash assistance. 13The First Great Society chapter abstract The Great Society program in 1965 marks the beginning of a remarkable ten-year period in which Congress expanded entitlements at a rapid rate unprecedented in U.S. history. Under President Johnson, new health care entitlement programs, Medicare and Medicaid, were created; Social Security disability was expanded to temporarily disabled workers; two large general increases in Social Security benefits were enacted; and the Aid for Dependent Children program experienced its largest expansion in its thirty-year history. Federal revenues from a rapidly expanding economy provided the fuel for this legislative blitzkrieg. The revenue surge, as with previous surges, made the desire to expand entitlement benefits irresistible. The period, one of great social upheaval, witnessed a new entitlement phenomenon: welfare mothers, urged on by government-funded activists, organized and marched on federal, state, and local governments to demand higher welfare benefits and fewer restrictions on eligibility. 14A Legal Right to Welfare chapter abstract This legal view that welfare benefits were a gratuity and not an entitlement underwent a significant change in the mid-1960s and early 1970s. Three major Supreme Court decisions from 1969 to 1971 radically expanded the legal rights of welfare recipients and claimants. The Court (1) declared that long-standing state "suitable home" regulations violated federal law, (2) struck down state residence requirements for welfare as a violation of an individual's constitutional right to travel, and (3) ruled that welfare benefits were akin to property and were therefore protected by the Constitution's due process requirements. This last case established a legal entitlement right to welfare benefits. 15The Second Great Society chapter abstract During Richard Nixon's presidency, the food stamp program was nationalized, a permanent federal unemployment program was created, a new revenue-sharing program that entitled states and local governments to a share of federal revenue was established, and child nutrition programs were converted into an entitlement to school districts. Presidential proposals for a federally guaranteed annual income and national health insurance program failed. Fueled by pressure from large accounting surpluses in the Social Security trust fund, Congress raised Social Security benefits by 69 percent in four years and indexed Social Security benefits to inflation. But the flawed indexing formula set the program on a path to insolvency. The entitlement liberalizations from 1969 to 1975 caused federal entitlement spending to grow annually at a remarkable 10 percent inflation-adjusted rate. By 1975, entitlements accounted for nearly half of all federal spending. 16First Inklings of Fiscal Limits: 1975
1980 chapter abstract The years of Jimmy Carter's presidency, plagued by large federal budget deficits from the prior dozen years of entitlement liberalizations, witnessed a dramatically slower pace of entitlement expansions. No new entitlements were written onto the federal statute books. Expansions were mainly limited to the food stamp program in which stamps were made free of charge. The major legislative action concerned Social Security. By 1977, the flawed indexing formula that had been written into the statute books in 1972 had pushed Social Security toward imminent insolvency. Congress responded by enacting a new wage replacement formula that, for the first and only time in the program's history, significantly reduced benefits that had been promised to workers. The reductions were not limited to people who would retire decades later. They were also reduced for workers who were in their late 50s at the time the law was enacted. 17A Temporary Slowdown: 1981
1989 chapter abstract President Reagan was the first president in U.S. history to attempt to comprehensively reduce entitlement spending. His efforts were part of a larger package of economic policies designed to restore noninflationary growth to the U.S. economy. The package produced a colossal battle with Congress. The first two years of furious combat dominated the business of Congress. Congress subjected almost every major entitlement program to at least some retrenchment. Fiercely contested budget battles continued for the next six years as Congress sought to return to its long-standing practice of incrementally expanding entitlements. The administration's implacable opposition and large budget deficits severely limited entitlement liberalizations. The entitlement restraint from 1981 to 1989 reversed a thirty-year upward trend. Yet despite the Reagan administration's achievements, the entitlement state in 1989 remained largely intact. Its largest programs had defied retrenchment. 18Recognition and Denial: 1989
2014 chapter abstract By the early 1990s, federal officials recognized the true magnitude of the looming fiscal storm that entitlements had created. Yet the executive and legislative branches of government ignored the warnings. Both branches of government worked in concert to expand eligibility for Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, and food stamps and to expand Medicare to prescription drugs. These liberalizations mainly extended aid to "worthy" nonpoor persons. Congress and President Obama capped off the period by extending health insurance subsidies to people with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty line. Attempts to restrain federal spending proved fruitless. In one striking departure from these legislative patterns, Congress enacted reversed decades of federal welfare policy by eliminating an individual's entitlement to AFDC benefits and transferring program policymaking authority to the states. 19A Challenge Unlike Any Other in U.S. History chapter abstract Federal entitlements now distribute government aid on a scale that is unprecedented in history. Over half of all U.S. households receive entitlement assistance. Most entitlement spending serves purposes other than reducing the degree of poverty among the poor. The soaring growth in entitlement spending creates a unique fiscal challenge. History provides a guide to meeting the challenge, but a fundamental restructuring is needed. A restructuring must keep in mind that providing assistance to individuals who are impoverished through no fault of their own is a hallmark of a compassionate society. The book optimistically concludes by noting that the main elements for a change in entitlement policy are coming into place. There is widespread public skepticism that entitlements are delivering on their promises and that the country can afford to deliver on future promises. But mounting public pressure will ultimately force a change in government policies.
1950 chapter abstract At the war's end, the American entitlement state stood at a crucial policy juncture. The New Deal had set the building blocks of the modern American entitlement state firmly in place, but its future remained highly uncertain. President Truman set the course that entitlements would follow for the remainder of the twentieth century. Large Social Security accounting surpluses provided President Truman and congressional Democrats with the means to ensure that Social Security, instead of state old-age programs, became the primary vehicle for delivering assistance to the elderly. In 1950, Congress took a major step toward this end by sharply increasing Social Security benefits and significantly expanding coverage in the workforce. The benefit increase, timed to coincide with the 1950 congressional elections, demonstrated that Democrats had developed the practice of using a major entitlement program to gain electoral advantage into a finely honed skill. Republicans, after showing modest resistance, acquiesced. 111951
1964: Establishing Social Insurance Dominance chapter abstract From 1950 to the Great Society, congressional Republicans and Democrats joined together to ensure that Social Security replaced state-run old-age assistance as the first line of defense against poverty among the elderly. Monthly benefits were incrementally expanded, and coverage became nearly universal. Large Social Security accounting surpluses fueled the increases in the early 1950s despite the overall federal budget's often poor condition. Congress's use of Social Security to gain electoral advantage was raised to a fine art, as election-year benefit increases were strategically timed. The only new major new entitlement of the 1950s was the Social Security Disability Insurance program. Soon after it was established, the program followed the familiar path that had been blazed by nineteenth-century veterans' pensions, as eligibility was extended to "equally worthy" groups that had been excluded from the original program. 12The Great Turn in Welfare Policy: 1951
1964 chapter abstract While legislation during the years 1951 to 1964 incrementally expanded federal funding for state welfare programs, major fissures emerged in the New Deal's bedrock welfare policy principles of state autonomy and cash assistance. Federal welfare officials used the threat of withholding federal funds as a lever to limit state authority to set welfare eligibility rules. The threats were a response to state and local government actions, particularly those taken by southern state governments with a history of discriminatory treatment of African Americans, to curtail welfare eligibility. As tensions between the two levels of government mounted, Congress stepped in with legislation to strengthen federal authority. By the mid-1960s, the principle of state autonomy had been greatly eroded. At the same time, welfare officials began to question the wisdom of providing additional cash assistance to the poor and turned increasingly to providing in-kind benefits in lieu of additional cash assistance. 13The First Great Society chapter abstract The Great Society program in 1965 marks the beginning of a remarkable ten-year period in which Congress expanded entitlements at a rapid rate unprecedented in U.S. history. Under President Johnson, new health care entitlement programs, Medicare and Medicaid, were created; Social Security disability was expanded to temporarily disabled workers; two large general increases in Social Security benefits were enacted; and the Aid for Dependent Children program experienced its largest expansion in its thirty-year history. Federal revenues from a rapidly expanding economy provided the fuel for this legislative blitzkrieg. The revenue surge, as with previous surges, made the desire to expand entitlement benefits irresistible. The period, one of great social upheaval, witnessed a new entitlement phenomenon: welfare mothers, urged on by government-funded activists, organized and marched on federal, state, and local governments to demand higher welfare benefits and fewer restrictions on eligibility. 14A Legal Right to Welfare chapter abstract This legal view that welfare benefits were a gratuity and not an entitlement underwent a significant change in the mid-1960s and early 1970s. Three major Supreme Court decisions from 1969 to 1971 radically expanded the legal rights of welfare recipients and claimants. The Court (1) declared that long-standing state "suitable home" regulations violated federal law, (2) struck down state residence requirements for welfare as a violation of an individual's constitutional right to travel, and (3) ruled that welfare benefits were akin to property and were therefore protected by the Constitution's due process requirements. This last case established a legal entitlement right to welfare benefits. 15The Second Great Society chapter abstract During Richard Nixon's presidency, the food stamp program was nationalized, a permanent federal unemployment program was created, a new revenue-sharing program that entitled states and local governments to a share of federal revenue was established, and child nutrition programs were converted into an entitlement to school districts. Presidential proposals for a federally guaranteed annual income and national health insurance program failed. Fueled by pressure from large accounting surpluses in the Social Security trust fund, Congress raised Social Security benefits by 69 percent in four years and indexed Social Security benefits to inflation. But the flawed indexing formula set the program on a path to insolvency. The entitlement liberalizations from 1969 to 1975 caused federal entitlement spending to grow annually at a remarkable 10 percent inflation-adjusted rate. By 1975, entitlements accounted for nearly half of all federal spending. 16First Inklings of Fiscal Limits: 1975
1980 chapter abstract The years of Jimmy Carter's presidency, plagued by large federal budget deficits from the prior dozen years of entitlement liberalizations, witnessed a dramatically slower pace of entitlement expansions. No new entitlements were written onto the federal statute books. Expansions were mainly limited to the food stamp program in which stamps were made free of charge. The major legislative action concerned Social Security. By 1977, the flawed indexing formula that had been written into the statute books in 1972 had pushed Social Security toward imminent insolvency. Congress responded by enacting a new wage replacement formula that, for the first and only time in the program's history, significantly reduced benefits that had been promised to workers. The reductions were not limited to people who would retire decades later. They were also reduced for workers who were in their late 50s at the time the law was enacted. 17A Temporary Slowdown: 1981
1989 chapter abstract President Reagan was the first president in U.S. history to attempt to comprehensively reduce entitlement spending. His efforts were part of a larger package of economic policies designed to restore noninflationary growth to the U.S. economy. The package produced a colossal battle with Congress. The first two years of furious combat dominated the business of Congress. Congress subjected almost every major entitlement program to at least some retrenchment. Fiercely contested budget battles continued for the next six years as Congress sought to return to its long-standing practice of incrementally expanding entitlements. The administration's implacable opposition and large budget deficits severely limited entitlement liberalizations. The entitlement restraint from 1981 to 1989 reversed a thirty-year upward trend. Yet despite the Reagan administration's achievements, the entitlement state in 1989 remained largely intact. Its largest programs had defied retrenchment. 18Recognition and Denial: 1989
2014 chapter abstract By the early 1990s, federal officials recognized the true magnitude of the looming fiscal storm that entitlements had created. Yet the executive and legislative branches of government ignored the warnings. Both branches of government worked in concert to expand eligibility for Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, and food stamps and to expand Medicare to prescription drugs. These liberalizations mainly extended aid to "worthy" nonpoor persons. Congress and President Obama capped off the period by extending health insurance subsidies to people with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty line. Attempts to restrain federal spending proved fruitless. In one striking departure from these legislative patterns, Congress enacted reversed decades of federal welfare policy by eliminating an individual's entitlement to AFDC benefits and transferring program policymaking authority to the states. 19A Challenge Unlike Any Other in U.S. History chapter abstract Federal entitlements now distribute government aid on a scale that is unprecedented in history. Over half of all U.S. households receive entitlement assistance. Most entitlement spending serves purposes other than reducing the degree of poverty among the poor. The soaring growth in entitlement spending creates a unique fiscal challenge. History provides a guide to meeting the challenge, but a fundamental restructuring is needed. A restructuring must keep in mind that providing assistance to individuals who are impoverished through no fault of their own is a hallmark of a compassionate society. The book optimistically concludes by noting that the main elements for a change in entitlement policy are coming into place. There is widespread public skepticism that entitlements are delivering on their promises and that the country can afford to deliver on future promises. But mounting public pressure will ultimately force a change in government policies.