If nothing else, media coverage of the “fiscal cliff” debates have made most Americans aware that federal spending is outpacing federal revenue, thereby fueling a massive—and growing—federal budget deficit. It is also likely that most people have heard that Social Security and Medicare, the two largest “entitlement” programs, are major contributors to this budget crisis.
Most Americans probably do not know how many entitlement programs there are, how much is spent on them, and how they have grown in the past fifty years or so, all of which are well-documented in this compact book by Nicholas Eberstadt entitled A Nation of Takers. Moreover, it is unlikely that most persons who receive benefits from the largest of these programs see themselves as “takers,” in the sense used by Eberstadt.
