By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business."
Whose job is it to help those in need? Some say it's the government's. That's certainly the view of Ebenezer Scrooge. When asked to contribute to the poor, he responds: "Are there no prisons? And the union workhouses? Are they still in operation?" Substitute "welfare checks" and "food stamps," and you find the same attitude prevails today: Let Uncle Sam handle the problem.
Sensibilities on the trail
"This both weakens the incentive for the wealthy to give and shifts the perceived responsibility for social welfare from individual donors to the state," writes Ryan Messmore, the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society at the Heritage Foundation, in a recent paper.
