It is the conjunction of these two trends--higher spending on dependency-creating programs and an ever-shrinking number of taxpayers to pay for these programs--that worries those interested in the fate of the United States' republican form of government. Americans have always expressed concern about becoming dependent on government, even while understanding that life's challenges make most people, at one time or another, dependent on aid from someone else. This concern stems partly from deeply held views that life's blessings are more readily obtained by independent people and that growing dependency on government erodes the spirit of self-reliance and self-improvement. These views help explain the broad public support for welfare reform in the 1990s.
This ethic of self-reliance combined with a commitment to the brotherly care for those in need appears threatened in a much greater way today than when this Index first appeared in 2002: This year marks the first year that the Index contains significant retirements by baby boomers. Over the next 25 years, more than 75 million boomers will begin collecting Social Security checks, drawing down Medicare benefits, and relying on long-term care under Medicaid. No event will financially challenge these important programs over the next two decades more than this shift of the largest generation ever into retirement.
It is not only financial tests that these programs will face. Certainly, these will be great over the next several decades, given that none of these "entitlement" programs can easily meet their financial obligations even now. Doubling the number of people in retirement will constitute a massive growth of the dependent population of the United States and a potentially ruinous drain on federal government finances. Perhaps the most important aspect of the boomer retirement is its dramatic reminder to us of the rapid growth of government dependency in the United States.
The burgeoning of flagship entitlement programs and the shrinking number of taxpayers who have any financial stake in the government threaten to bankrupt the government--which has led to an increasing interest across the political spectrum in the growth of dependency-creating initiatives. Are Americans closing in on a tipping point that endangers the workings of their democracy? Have Americans, perhaps, already passed that point? Can this republican form of government withstand the political weight of a massively growing population of Americans who see themselves entitled to government benefits and who contribute little or nothing for them?
