Description: In A Nation of Takers: America's Entitlement Epidemic, one of our country's foremost demographers, Nicholas Eberstadt, details the exponential growth in entitlement spending over the past fifty years. As he notes, in 1960, entitlement payments accounted for well under a third of the federal government's total outlays. Today, entitlement spending accounts for a full two-thirds of the federal budget. Drawing on an impressive array of data and employing a range of easy-to-read, four-color charts, Eberstadt shows the unchecked spiral of spending on a range of entitlements, everything from Medicare to disability payments. But Eberstadt does not just chart the astonishing growth of entitlement spending, he also details the enormous economic and cultural costs of this epidemic. He powerfully argues that while this spending certainly drains our federal coffers, it also has a very real, long-lasting, negative impact on the character of our citizens.
Review Quotes:
"Nicholas Eberstadt is a brilliant demographer and social scientist. In A Nation of Takers, his argument, though deeply informed by empirical analysis, is fundamentally a moral one. His concern is with personal--and national--character. He pleads with us to notice the ways in which a culture of dependency--and the entitlement mentality it breeds--undermines initiative, self-respect, the sense of personal responsibility, civic-mindedness, and other virtues that are indispensable to the flourishing of a free society."
- Robert P. George, Princeton University