Ending Federal Entitlements Is Moral Imperative, GOP Women’s Club Told

Republicans need to seize the moral high ground in the federal entitlements debate—and abolish programs such as Social Security and Medicare, members of the Navajo Canyon Republican Women Federated club were told Tuesday.

“The Founding Fathers did not create entitlements,” said Don Watkins of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

Speaking to about 70 members and guests at a luncheon meeting at the Brigantine Seafood restaurant on Fuerte Drive in La Mesa, Watkins pointed to the ideas in Atlas Shrugged, the objectivist novel by Rand, who died in 1982.

Her ideas of personal responsibility and unfettered pursuit of happiness are relevant to today’s Washington politics, Watkins said.

“Why is there a view that Republicans are mean-spirited—[that] if you use your wealth, it’s mean-spirited?” he asked during a half-hour talk and Q&A session.

Watkins, 29, said a collectivist philosophy took hold in America after Social Security was launched in the mid-1930s under President Franklin Roosevelt.

In fact, the author and radio commentator asserted, America would be better off without the $100 trillion in programs he called the Entitlement State.

Before Social Security, he said, people saved more, helped each other out through mutual aid societies—and turned to friends and family.

“Even if all things failed,” he said, there were “an embarrassing” and “abundant amount” of available charities at the time.

“Vast majorities of people flourished under such a system,” he said—letting people spend their wealth as they saw fit.

But a collectivist mentality—meaning others have a claim on your wealth and resources—set in, and the result is an income tax 25 percent high than it should be, said Watkins, a Laguna Niguel resident who also has Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Watkins said that if the Entitlement State were ended, everyone in America would make an extra $16,000 a year—“the difference between living in a high-crime neighborhood or a low-crime neighborhood.”

Such money would make a “huge difference” in an individual’s pursuit of happiness, he said at the club’s monthly meeting.

The Entitlement State is a surrender to the unproductive and irrational, he said.

At the core of Rand’s argument, he said, is that the higher moral value is in letting people have the right to live and work for their individual interests. He called such a philosophy noble; the goal is “to have a moral country.”

In answer to a question, Watkins said the Entitlement State was created out of our wanting to do good—but pervaded the entire society and led to responsibilities being taken away.

“I don’t have to have a father for my child,” he said, seeking to depict that mentality. “Just send me a check. … My life is your responsibility.”

Ironically, he said, a common attitude during the Great Depression was: “I’d rather die in a ditch than go on the dole,” and FDR was mindful of this when he created Social Security. “[Roosevelt] said people don’t want charity.”

But the left professed a philosophy that it’s noble to live at other people’s expense, and: “If society isn’t taking care of you good enough, you should demand more,” he said.

A club member asked whether military pensions should be considered an entitlement.

Watkins said no, since “a promise is different than an entitlement.” He noted that his own father was a jet pilot in the service and his pension is “just compensation—perfectly legitimate.”

People aren’t going to volunteer for the military if there aren’t rewards for their sacrifices, Watkins said.

How can the pervasive attitude of the Entitlement State be changed? he was asked.

There has to be education, he said, and politicians willing to take the moral high ground.

He said Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s remark that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme is a “good development,” although he acknowledged “a politician can’t get elected saying that kind of thing.”

Watkins also said: “You don’t compromise on principle; you compromise on tactics” and called for a “mutually independent trading” economy, not a collectivist society.

“Look at other people as traders—in a win-win relationship, not a win-lose,” he said and summarized Ayn Rand’s thoughts as “I’m for making the most of my own life. The same should go for you.”

Asked whether the creed “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” was an expression of current trends, Watkins agreed, saying: “That’s the life we’re living now.”

He said Americans were once surveyed on where that Karl Marx slogan came from, and “most thought it was in the Declaration of Independence or Constitution.”

After the meeting—which included visits from a San Diego State University GOP student activist and news that the 139-member club had won its fifth national Diamond Award Club honor in a row—club President Waskah Whelan announced the results of a presidential straw poll taken at the start of lunch.

Mitt Romney won with 21 votes, followed by Rick Perry (18), Herman Cain (6), Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann (4 each) and  John Bolton (1).

The Navajo Canyon Republican Women Federated, nearly 50 years old, is one of 26 such groups in the county and is considered one of the most active, she said.

Although many are in the San Carlos and Allied Gardens area, Whelan comes from Point Loma. The club’s membership directory lists 13 La Mesans—almost 10 percent of the roster.

The club’s focus, Whelan said, is politics, candidate forums, registering voters, volunteering at GOP projects, working for candidates and “educating ourselves and the public.”

Her club is first in the county in political volunteer hours and community service hours, she said.

She said the club holds an annual fashion show fundraiser and holds two nonprofit community events each year “to entertain and educate the public.”