Yesterday, before a group of Republicans at the Reagan Library in California, Florida Senator Marco Rubio gave a speech on the failure of the welfare state, and the danger it poses to civil society. Here is the crux of his argument, which should sound familiar to anyone who pays attention to the Tea Party:
These programs weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities.
A cursory glance at the United States prior to the development of the welfare state clearly shows the extent to which sick people didn’t receive care, working people couldn’t make a decent life for themselves, and poor people weren’t helped at all. In all, this is a typical Republican account of the past, which accordingly manages to obscure history with false nostalgia.
It’s also worth pointing out that this is a profoundly strange view of human activity. Along with many other conservatives, Rubio seems to believe in a world where civil society stands in direct opposition to government. In this world, for example, the decision to empower government with the ability to provide medical care necessarily excludes any private actors from doing the same. Moreover, under this view, people lose the incentive to do good if the government takes on a responsibility to help people. “I would have donated to the homeless shelter”, says Rubio’s imagined person, “but why would I do that if the government gives out food stamps?”
Of course, almost no one acts like this. Even with food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid, neighborhoods still have clothing drives, churches still have soup kitchens, and people try to help each other in hard times. In fact, Rubio’s church — Christ Fellowship in Palm Beach Springs, Florida — offers an array of “local opportunities” for any Christian (member or otherwise) who is interested in helping the less fortunate. Through Christ Fellowship, individuals can mentor disadvantaged youth, serve meals to the homeless, help distribute toys during Christmas, and work to stop human trafficking.
Either Rubio doubts the sincerity of those efforts (because no one helps people when there’s government around), or his narrative is really just a high-minded excuse for the usual conservative obsession with slashing spending and reducing taxes on the most fortunate.
