David McElroy

When people are outraged at over-the-top lifestyles of corporate executives, I couldn’t care less unless I happen to own stock in the company in question. But when the lavish spending for a jet-setting exec is being paid for out of tax revenues, then I start caring. It’s bad enough that there’s such an institution as the International Monetary Fund, but it’s worse when the French socialist who heads the IMF lives a champagne lifestyle paid for by money that ultimately came from taxpayers of the nations who fund the organization.

I have no idea whether Dominique Strauss-Kahn is guilty of the rape he’s been arrested for, but I’m glad the case is shining a light on the free-spending ways of international bureaucrats who aren’t really accountable to anyone. Slate has a story this week outlining the kind of money Strauss-Kahn spends and the lifestyle he leads. It’s worth a read.

In the absence of a market, there’s no accountability. Even if it turns out that he’s innocent of the rape allegations, taxpayers have been raped by people like this for long enough. The state is a parasite, and the “super-state” made up of international organizations is a parasite that’s answerable to pretty much nobody. Why do we allow this to go on?

Here’s another piece of evidence about the sense of entitlement that our modern state welfare culture breeds. In Michigan, a man won $2 million in the state lottery, but he still gets food stamps, which are legally issued according to federal guidelines.

The man isn’t doing anything illegal, because food stamps are issued according to income — and he has no income. Even though more than half of his $2 million lottery winnings went to income taxes, Leroy Fick still had a tidy sum left. He drives around in an nice Audi convertible and presumably lives off the rest.

“If you’re going to … try to make me feel bad, you aren’t going to do it,” Fick told Detroit TV station WNEM.

We’ve created a society where people feel so entitled that “aid” that need isn’t even the standard. He’s “entitled” to free food from taxpayers — and taking money that you haven’t earned is no longer considered anything to be ashamed of. Considering the values that we’re teaching through the monster system we’ve created, is it any wonder that more and more people (and companies) are willing to demand that governments support them?