Have We Become a Nation of Takers?

Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM

Host: AEI.

Over the past three decades, the percentage of American households receiving
government benefits has risen from less than 30 percent to more than 49 percent, and
despite 300 percent more per-capita spending on means-tested benefits as compared to
the 1970s, America’s poverty level remains largely unchanged. Has the nation lost the
American ideals of self-reliance and opportunity? In this American Enterprise Debate,
AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt will argue that over the last two decades, both Democrats and
Republicans have fueled a radical transformation that has created an expanding
dependency culture in America. William Galston of the Brookings Institution will
retaliate that well-functioning societies are dependent on interdependence, and thus the
rise of dependence in the U.S. is neither driven by government nor cause for alarm. The
Urban Institute’s Robert Reischauer will moderate.

For more information and to RSVP, please visit http://www.aei.org/events/2012/10/17/have-we-become-a-nation-of-takers/.