Growing US culture of dependency, Dems deadly denial on Hispanic voters shift and other commentary

“An old saying has it that he who takes the king’s coin becomes the king’s man,” and “a growing share of Americans are becoming the king’s men,” warns Reason’s J.D.Tuccille. Per a new report: “Americans received $3.8 trillion in government transfers in 2022, accounting for 18% of all personal income,” a share that’s “more than doubled since 1970.” Partly, it’s our aging population: “The largest category of transfer payments is Social Security, followed by Medicare.” But “economic downturns continue to fuel growth in government payments” as well.

Now “both major parties increasingly compete on visions of government that does things for people.” The fix? In the end, for “Americans to reassert independence, they’ll have to want to cut reliance on government.”Democrats miss “the seriousness” of the party “steadily losing ground with Hispanic voters,” thunders The Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira. Dems think “the course of social and demographic change should deliver an ever-growing Democratic coalition,” but “if Hispanic voting trends continue to move steadily against the Democrats, the pro-Democratic effect of nonwhite population growth will be blunted, if not cancelled out entirely.” In 2020, “Hispanics, after four years of Trump, gave him substantially more support than they did in 2016,” and “the latest data indicate that the Democratic margin among Hispanics is continuing to fall this cycle.” “We are still far away from Democrats losing majority support among Hispanics,” but “the signs of a continuing rightward shift among these voters are unmistakable.” “America and the world left the ugly 1970s behind when Margaret Thatcher was elected British prime minister in 1979 and Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980,” notes the Issues & Insights Editorial Board.In the ’70s, America was wracked “by an energy crisis” plus “stagflation, political upheaval, [and] soci...