Looting the Future

Steyn on the Oakley Show
March 28, 2018

https://www.steynonline.com/8541/looting-the-future

On Wednesday afternoon Mark checked in with John Oakley at Toronto's Global News Radio 640. In light of Ontario's new "free" government daycare plan, they discussed the western world's cradle-to-grave welfare programs, where they're headed, and how they corrode the character of a people. But they also found time for some cheap Justin Trudeau cracks, and contrasted his falling numbers with Trump's rising ones. Click below to listen:

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31 Reader Comments

Midwestern Tim • Mar 29, 2018 at 15:22

325 billion in debt?!?!? That number makes an American Midwesterner like me pretty darn jealous. That's peanuts! Wanna trade for our "debt"?

Owen Morgan

Midwestern Tim • Mar 29, 2018 at 18:04

Bear in mind that that's only Ontario.

Chris Hall

Midwestern Tim • Mar 30, 2018 at 16:53

When comparing the US to Canada, it's a good rule of thumb to multiply any Canadian cost by a factor of 10 to get the roughly equivalent cost in the US. Given that this is just one province (equivalent in a way to a US state), but one with about a third of the population of the country, you should multiply by about 30 to get the US equivalent. So the per capita debt for Ontario alone would be the equivalent of about 10 trillion for the US, which is about half the debt level of the entire country. This is a pretty heavy debt load for a province, which can't print any money to monetize the debt. Ontario used to have an excellent credit rating. Those days are long gone.

George Pazin • Mar 29, 2018 at 14:03

There are few things as costly as free government programs.

Marcus Everett • Mar 29, 2018 at 12:52

On the payment of the National Debt by our children, from my blog post:

https://wvhilltop.blogspot.com/2018/03/who-pays-national-debt.html

"the Federal Reserve portion of the National Debt is not paid by our children in years to come, but in reality is paid now by those of us who are foolish enough to have our savings in dollar denominated investments. The dilution of the currency (monetary inflation) that is effected by the Fed 'loaning' money to the U.S. Government by buying its bonds is paid by savers immediately by devaluing their savings."

Alex Peck

Marcus Everett • Mar 29, 2018 at 14:26

For years I've been yelling this back at the politicians on TV!

Fran Lavery • Mar 29, 2018 at 10:43

A lot of ground covered here in the exchange between both gentlemen and in your unique marriage of the amusing and serious. It was worth a couple playbacks. Look forward to these spots each week! Thanks!

PK33 • Mar 29, 2018 at 08:50

Regarding universal free (or "worthless", as Sol put it) daycare, I recall reading something in an older non-fiction book. I can't remember who wrote it or what book it was but the line has always stuck with me.

"My wife wanted to get a job so now she works at the daycare where our cleaning lady takes her children."

Before you get your back up over the seemingly chauvinistic view of wife wanting "to get a job", remember that this is an old quote. The book was written in the 70's if I remember correctly. If anyone cares to give it some thought I'd be interested to read your opinion on that quote and the broader context it represents. I have my own thoughts. As I said, that quote has stuck with me and came to mind during Mark's time on the Oakley show today. I don't wonder why.

Fran Lavery

PK33 • Mar 29, 2018 at 12:05

It sounds at first take as if the wife needs money to cover the costs of the cleaning person's wages (although maybe she just wants to get free of the crochety old man smoking his stinking pipe while listening to conservative talk radio and baseball announcers all day for a few hours a week), and the job she was able to get happens to be where the children of that cleaning lady, let's switch to "person," goes probably "free" of charge. So, then cleaning "person" works cleaning snobby white rich couple's home and gets plenty fair wages and probably under the table, so that could be used to pay for her own daycare but the husband is paying taxes on time with all the i's dotted and t's crossed so he doesn't get audited and in his check to the Feds and State agencies he realizes he's contributing to the free daycare.

You know the labels that would be hurled at you, right, for assuming that the cleaning woman, er "person," gets free daycare so she can get other money to feed the children when they are home on the weekends? But there's likely food stamps and free health care for the ER visits when Sally or Danny get wheezing. Heh heh, here's how the game is played. Don't assume that the financial divide is ever going to be so close between these two families that the couple have any authority to speak up. This nanny state is another can of worms the Left will never never address and they don't want to. They want an equitable and fair state. You know the rest. It starts with a "C" and ends with an "m," and it ain't "Cardamom"! We sleep in the bed we make, cleaning "person" or no cleaning "person."

PK33

Fran Lavery • Mar 29, 2018 at 12:15

Interesting take Fran, certainly not what comes to my mind when I think of that quote. I'll wait and see if anyone else has a view before I post mine.

Fran Lavery

PK33 • Mar 29, 2018 at 13:52

It seems like your challenge is a kind of verbal Rorschach test, better taken in the privacy of a psychologist's office. I'm sure my response is drawing from close to home experiences except the part about a pipe smoker in the house. This topic of nanny state really gets my goat (could you tell?) I'm still working it all out, where this is taking us, I mean. Half of the people know there has to be adjustments, however small, that we must as societies take but the changes, while seemingly happening overnight have been happening incrementally. The other half is happy to get free everything. The situation as it stands is completely unsustainable. The environmentalists are all about sustainability, but ignore it in the area of economics.

PK33

Fran Lavery • Mar 30, 2018 at 10:22

Well to be fair Fran, I gave you one line when I had read the whole book and you came back with some interesting points. Although the book was not about feminism, to me the man was complaining about feminism setting expectations for women, as they do even more strongly today. He seemed to think that women would no longer be permitted to be housewives and mothers, but were being shamed by feminists into taking a job, any job, in order to "better" their life when in reality it is a trade-off that is not always for the betterment of the woman, the family or society.

As I said, that line resonated with me in a few ways then and many times since. It came to my mind during the Oakley show when "free day care" was discussed. In the 1970's (when that line was written) it wasn't rare for women to have a job but it wasn't rare for them to stay at home either. Most women are now expected to work. Whether they want to or not, feminism tells them that they should be "empowered" to get out of the house. A lot of women with young children also feel the need to work because ever-increasing taxation takes an ever-larger share of earnings at source and with every purchase, and children are expensive. If people want more entitlements like "free day care" the taxes will only continue to increase and those working minimum-wage jobs may have to take a second job to make ends meet, as many often do. But at least they will be getting a "living wage", right? The government mandates that they are paid more because they have to pay more taxes and deductions, whether at source or on purchases, in order to pay for ever-increasing entitlements that increase the cost of everything, including the goods and services supplied by people earning minimum wage. Subsidized or "free" daycare, is an entitlement program that becomes extremely difficult to repeal or even scale down because people working at the daycare are now paid at least the minimum wage, making the true cost of childcare very expensive, especially if you consider the bureaucrats and civil servants who are needed to administer the "free" program. More government workers who will vote to keep their jobs at the expense of the taxpayer. The entitlement bills keep piling up, no matter how unsustainable. Yet governments promise to pour more fuel on the fire and voters fall for it.

There was a commercial for drug addiction a few years back where a man was walking around in a circle in a small room saying, "I do more coke so I can work more. I work more so I can do more coke." As the camera panned out the man kept walking and repeating the same lines faster and faster until it was all a blur. So like the wife working at the daycare where the cleaning lady takes her children, it seems an apt metaphor as the electorate votes to entitle themselves into ever higher taxes, costs and debt oblivion.

People often think they are better off with certain changes, when in reality they are not, or at the very best they maintain the status quo. But it sounds good. To some. It's a trade-off, but not a trade-up.

I could take the line and expand it into another area, but I'm sure you get my point and this is a comment section, not a column section.

PK33

Fran Lavery • Mar 30, 2018 at 10:51

BTW Fran, nowhere in the original comment did I suggest that the "cleaning person" was getting free daycare. You made that assumption and I'm not sure why.

PK33

Fran Lavery • Mar 30, 2018 at 10:52

OK, looking at my original comment I can see why you thought I made the assumption of "free" daycare but my point was that the *discussion* of free daycare led me to remember that line. I should have been more clear. My apologies.

Fran Lavery

PK33 • Mar 30, 2018 at 13:51

PK, at first I had started with asking if you had more info, but to keep it short I erased that. Sure, I guess I thought it was a fun game and reacted probably the way I normally do, emotions fired up, thoughts later. I imagine this is how a lot of misinformation gets spread by news stories, just enough to get people worked up. I think this subject is serious though so it captured my interest. I thought others would pitch their ideas.

The Left will always need an underclass to keep them in business. How are we going to minimize the damage their policies are doing to us? Where we do need to first look is the "free" stuff. As a few others mentioned here "free" is either worthless, or "free" comes with a huge price tag. First, we have to beat them at the ballot box all the time. Two) we have to have better ideas and we have to articulate. Everyone here already knows that.

I'm along the border, about thirty minutes to the crossing into Mexico, and we may have a slice of culture that up north or on the coasts or in the heartlands folks don't see, or maybe the creep has begun. I see very few service people other than those representing national franchises wanting to get paid with a check. Almost everyone who works here at my property wants to be paid in cash with a few exceptions. They want much more than minimum wage or they walk; $20 per hour is normal, maybe low. Is it that much of a leap that these people don't pay taxes? Then, i'm making another leap by saying that I suspect most of these then are making themselves available to free services. Why do you think that according to the Kaiser Foundation that in 2015 72% of all babies were born under Medicaid here in New Mexico? There were about five or seven other states mentioned with slightly lower percentages and New Hampshire came in with about 28%.

Does it mean in all cases this is a good number representation of our poor in New Mexico, or a representation of who has figured out how to work the system? I suspect a little of both. Of 2 million here, 900,000 ate on Medicaid. The 72% means that we moved beyond the cradle-to-grave state, too. These expectant mothers get pre-natal care paid for as well. I believe in the article (first thing that pops up under search on this topic) some health official for the state was boasting that see: (paraphrasing) Obama's Affordable plan works! We will reduce future costs because now we have healthy babies to start with." How do you combat that level of compassion? We have some serious problems in this state and country and we are not solving them. Whether we talk about free day care or free birthing care, free daycare, free education or free meals, we have a small percent of the population paying for the rest. Fabio stated last night on Tucker: about 5,600 people in California pay for the rest! That can't continue. Why the Left can't see it, and help solve it, I don't know. They have to live here, too.

I saw that the Hearland Institute has started (after years of work), a plan that I believe is in place, to attach work requirements to Medicaid recipients. That is he only state in the USA that has this. Tim, the spokesperson said that now in Kentucky it would be mandatory that each recipient work 80 hours a month. I think this is a start. He added that the work does not even have to be real work. It could be hours punched in as a community volunteer, getting training coursework, and there was another example of what "not" real work meant. But it offers something that the health official in New Mexico couldn't. It offered a possibility that we would move towards these unemployed or poor recipients one day being able to earn something and be able to get different health insurance. Trump is looking at the plan. We'll see. Also, there needs to be a change in tax codes. Probably doing away with income taxes and just have a consumer tax would give every single person skin in the game. It will probably never happen. It would make good sense but good sense is not something politicians pay much mind to.

Steven Payne • Mar 29, 2018 at 00:18

Okay, too much Canada, too much Europe, too much Muslim immigration. Here in Murica, we're talking about guns and "kids" protesting them, the disastrous spending bill, and, perhaps most importantly, the reboot of the Roseanne show.
Get with the program, Steyn.
PS. I bet Trump's approval rating takes a big hit when the next polls come in.

PK33

Steven Payne • Mar 29, 2018 at 08:53

Who is talking about the disastrous spending bill? I have seen very little coverage.

Virginia Clinton

Steven Payne • Mar 29, 2018 at 09:16

Too much blonde and not enough coffee here in Utah. I almost started to look up Mure-ee-ka, until my second cup of coffee when I figured out it was 'merica. To the Roseanne reboot - my gut feeling is that the approval rating is not going to be Conservatives who think 'ah finally a pro-Tump show', but the progressives who understand that the writers/producers intend it as in insult to Trump supporters and probably have a plot twist up their progressive little sleeves.

BallBounces in Phoenix

Steven Payne • Mar 29, 2018 at 10:58

Yeah, how come all of a sudden high school students are children -- where did that come from?

Steven Payne

PK33 • Mar 29, 2018 at 21:04

I saw quite a bit. Ann Coulter went ballistic. But, you're right. This is a huge deal and there should be more coverage.

Steven Payne

Virginia Clinton • Mar 29, 2018 at 21:11

Coffee can be helpful, eh Virginia? Yes, my comment was meant to be partly joking, the viewpoint of that type of American who calls it Murica and has no interest in other countries.
As to Roseanne, I have been surprise at just how much conservative commentary has been made about the show. I thought I was a lone voice until I saw that Ben Shapiro agreed with me -- it's a leftist show with one character who voted for Trump. That some conservatives seem to think it's the second coming of sliced bread shows just how much they'll grasp at any straws when it comes to Hollywood.

Steven Payne

BallBounces in Phoenix • Mar 29, 2018 at 21:15

Indeed. I know when I was 17- 18, I wanted to be thought of as a man. Maybe a young man, but a man, not a kid or a child. I think these "kids" claiming this should be highly embarrassed, but they won't be.

Delibero • Mar 29, 2018 at 00:06

Oakley and Steyn are always worth listening to because they can smoothly mix serious subjects and humor together. It is also evident that they like each other.

But an even better comedy team that could tour North America to sold out crowds would be the "The Mark and Justin Show." It might be beneath a PM of Canada to go on a comedy tour during his term as PM but if there isn't a federal law against it, why not give it a try. Justin must be willing to be the "butt of most jokes" but he can deliver the occasional gut buster joke about Steyn as well. Mark would be dressed impeccably in a flashy suit and deliver most punchlines and Justin could over time wear the clothing and costumes of every ethnicity in the world as well as his latest pair of group identity socks. Nobody can get more laughs from those socks than Mark.

Rather than look ridiculous and embarrass his home country of Canada like he did with his ill-advised cultural appropriations in India, I am certain Justin's changing wardrobes would result in raucous laughter from the audience like Johnny Carson's Carnac or Carol Burnett's multi costumed stage routines.

It might be going too far but a song duo and a dance routine at the end of the Comedy Act might be worth trying.

BallBounces in Phoenix

Delibero • Mar 29, 2018 at 10:57

No, no, no. This cannot stand. I resent the idea you think there would be something beneath our awesome PM.

Actually, it's a great idea. All you need is a Justin Trudeau look-alike.... For the climax, I see Justin stepping out in his Indian Sgt. Pepper outfit, the band strikes up "All You Need Is Love", as Arabs dance with Israelis, gays with Muslims, women and men exchange clothing and cross-dress -- on with the show, this is it!

Tom Korte • Mar 28, 2018 at 23:04

I was wondering just what was in the 'overnight bag' that Khan gave to Fidel. But perhaps 'sweater' and 'overnight bag' are actually a verbs...

BallBounces in Phoenix • Mar 28, 2018 at 22:41

"Hollows out the character" = destroys the soul. Liberals view every welfare cheque as a win. Conservatives understand that each cheque cut diminishes the soul.

George Pazin

BallBounces in Phoenix • Mar 29, 2018 at 14:13

My younger sister is unfortunately is one of these liberal souls who thinks we have a responsibility to take care of everyone, cradle to grave. The funny thing is, she lives the most conservative life of anyone I know, with her husband and their life, their children, etc, etc. I always want to say to her, you're not helping those people... but I'm soft and she's my baby sister, so I don't.

That's to my own detriment.

Sol Cranfill • Mar 28, 2018 at 19:51

Like an automobile, "universal", "free" social programs eventually depreciate to zero, so with the long view in mind, I substitute "free" with "worthless" when I hear these terms in this order.

Holly Birtwistle

Sol Cranfill • Mar 28, 2018 at 23:38

+100 Sol.

BallBounces in Phoenix

Sol Cranfill • Mar 29, 2018 at 10:47

Except they are not free. The great Ontario socialist Bob Rae corrected an interviewer who was talking about "free healthcare" and said "it's not free" -- someone is paying for it. The key questions are: 1) Is this welfare a good thing (constructive vs. destructive), and 2) is it being efficiently run.

George Pazin

BallBounces in Phoenix • Mar 29, 2018 at 14:17

With the obvious answers being, 1) no and 2) of course not, it never is. Yet for the true believers, the Kool Aid drinkers, you can't even ask these questions.