Entitlements spread far, wide

Ryan Messmore’s complaint about entitlements’ corrosive effects has a morality blind spot. He overlooks some of the worst something-for-nothing offenders.

How about banks that sold toxic mortgages and brought on the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression? Certainly banks were entitled to publicly funded relief – while millions of ordinary Americans lost their jobs and their homes. Apparently, there’s morality in helping the perpetrators of fraud, but not their victims.

How about the majority of high profit Fortune 500 corporations that paid no income tax last year? Don’t we owe them their loopholes and other tax benefits? Surely, it’s morally wrong for them to pay their fair share of our nation’s expenses for security, infrastructure and national debt. They’re entitled to let others pay for that, and profit from it when they fulfill government contracts. No something-for-nothing mentality here. Just ask their lobbyists.

How about Congress, which entitles its members to stock trading on insider information – behavior that would land the rest of us in jail? Clearly no moral degradation at work here.

Entitlements’ ill effects aren’t exclusive to the poor and disenfranchised. The rich and powerful have their hands out, too – and they aren’t especially clean.

Steve McNutt

Spokane