A Frankenstein’s Monster has been created by the federal government. It has been gestating for a long time and has had a slow and irregular birth. Today, however, it is complete and is wreaking havoc on the republic. Its name is Entitlement.*
An entitlement is a toxin. It is a slow-working one that gradually intoxicates its victim, removing the victim’s humanity in small, hardly perceptible stages until the poor victim finally, in its last stage, gives up that last of its self-respect. It starts with a sensation of pleasure in the victim, the kind of elation one has when he finds a nice, crisp twenty dollar bill that he was not looking for. Over time it evolves into a need as the victim loses its confidence in his ability to meet its own needs. Finally it assumes the cognition of a right, that is a right in the sense of something which it is a wrong to deprive someone of. At this point the victim is desperate for it; it has become an established practice and has acquired the kind of permanency that temporary government behaviors are famous for.
Entitlements should be expressly prohibited as a function of the federal government. Actually, they are prohibited by the constitution. There is no enumerated power that permits handing out money, either taxed money, borrowed money or printed money, to relieve personal needs.
Entitlements are, among other things, a demon that makes possible the buying of votes with other people’s money. Worse than that, it’s open ended and the evil in it will never end as long as the politician wants a vote, and the federal government has the power to tax, borrow or print more money. It grows like an organism that has no biological limit. It is doing that now and has put the federal finances on a dead end road to ruin.
If the idea is that succor should be given to the less fortunate after being forcibly taken from the more fortunate, it should certainly be within the domain of each state rather than the federal government to manage it. States have fixed resources, they cannot print money, they must balance their budget or experience a failure of their sovereignty. This is a control on political profligacy. Certainly a state government should be allowed to go bankrupt, completely clear its debts and employees and a new one be erected with a new state constitution. It’s looking more and more like it’s high time for this to happen.
Letting the same sovereignty mint the money and pass out entitlements without limit is the kiss of death to a democracy. The founders of the nation intended to prevent that by enumerating the federal government powers and depriving the federal government of the power to hand out entitlements, but they did not state it clearly and rigidly enough. And it probably would not matter if they had; the prevaricating politicians would have overridden it in any case. The only defense is the awareness of the problem by the electorate and that is tragically lacking. As always, the root of the problem is education.
We are going to see the consequences of failing to deal with this problem in the near future. Federal debt, at $39,000,000,000,000 is now beyond what can be managed by taxation and payment. The federal government is borrowing money to pay interest on existing borrowed. That’s a debt spiral with a grim conclusion coming at a breakneck pace. The probable, indeed almost inescapable, end will be hyperinflation and the destruction of the national, fiat currency. Will the politicians learn anything from that?
*This article is about the finance of entitlements; if you want to read about the politics of entitlements go to:
https://michaelsmith.substack.com/p/the-entitlement-machine?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=318137&post_id=181335352&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1tjbgl&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
© 2026 Thomas A. Nelson Sr
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