Safety net isn’t for the long term

Kyle Wolfson, Las Vegas

Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.

In his op-ed, Fred Andrle makes a sympathetic argument for this country’s entitlement safety net. Unfortunately for Mr. Andrle, the facts on the ground are much different from how he envisions the system.

Seemingly from Mr. Andrle’s viewpoint, increasing spending on this safety net is the most effective way the government can battle a recession.

That type of thinking is why instead of pursuing pro-growth polices, President Barack Obama focused on passing the massive entitlement program Obama-care at the beginning of his presidency.

Instead of getting people back to work, people like Mr. Andrle have focused on increasing entitlements, which is not the good economics they wish you to believe.

By paying more attention to feel-good policies, they have managed to make the past few years the worst recovery on record. The times called for bold decisions for the long term; instead, we got self-serving shortsightedness.

Mr. Andrle is at least brave enough to acknowledge that fraud must be chased out of the system; the New York Post highlighted the issue this week when it exposed the smuggling of SNAP food for resale in the Dominican Republic.

Mr. Andrle closes by making an appeal to our conscience, that we, as the wealthiest nation, should transfer more of our wealth to those who use the entitlements of this country.

I would remind Mr. Andrle that we did not achieve this feat by diverting money from the over-productive to the under-productive.

The safety net should be just that, not a way of life.